Risking regulatory capture at the UK's Food Standards Agency?

摘要

The delivery of safe food and health governance is challenging and contested,1 and knowledge and institutions independent of vested interests are essential for public health.24 In the 1990s, new institutional architectures for food and health regulation were created to serve two purposes. First, governments sought to rebuild public confidence in both food safety and policy making in the wake of crises, including salmonella, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, pesticides, dioxins, hormones, and antibiotic residues. Second, in response to commercial pressure to liberalise international trade, which portrayed differences in national food regulations as protectionist barriers, ostensibly scientific bodies were created to provide a uniform international regime. A decade on, how is the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) doing?