Sir, - Little wonder the public is confused about whether or not it is safe to eat Irish beef, or any European beef for that matter. The Minister for Agriculture considers that Irish beef is BSE free (The Irish Times, November 28th). The ICMSA president wants science to give the necessary assurances to the beef consumer; a spokesman for the Food Safety Authority states that Irish beef is safe to eat, while agreeing with the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection that no EU country should advertise its beef as being free of BSE.
Is it not high time that the Ministers of Health and Agriculture got together to explain that no government or scientist can give absolute assurances or guarantees on the safety of beef? It is essential to urgently begin a campaign to explain that science and the Government, hopefully advised by scientists, can give only qualified assurance to the public on the safety of beef. That is, we must explain that there is a certain level of risk associated with eating beef. This risk may be very low if the appropriate controls of feeding, handling and slaughtering of animals are put in place, but the risk will not be zero.
Testing carcases for BSE will also increase the level of assurance that can be given on the safety of beef, but it will not eliminate the risk completely. It will merely reduce the risk to a level dependent on the sensitivity of the BSE test. The biggest task facing the Government in this area is quantifying the level of risk associated with eating beef and after that ascertaining, probably by referendum, what level of risk society is willing to accept as being sufficiently low to be regarded as negligible.
Such a level could then be adopted as a "safe" level. This would apply not only to beef but also to exposure to any potentially toxic substances, whether it be vaccines for meningitis or whooping cough, fine particulate matter from engine exhausts, benzene in petrol, food contaminants, pollutants or environmental tobacco smoke.
I propose that Ireland should lead, with the assistance of the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, a European campaign to establish a suitable Risk Directive to protect human health from exposure to toxic agents. This would serve to provide a good working definition of "safe" and prevent spurious claims of safety which have led to the BSE crisis in the first place. - Yours, etc.,
Prof James Heffron, D.Sc., MRIA, Analytical Biochemistry and Toxicology Laboratory, University College Cork.