Pushing ministers to take evidence seriously

David King

Scientific evidence underpins a wide swathe of government policies. But the way the government gets scientific advice has over the past decade been shaped predominantly by two events in the political backwater of agriculture: BSE and foot and mouth disease. As Britain faces up to a further threat from animals—bird flu—William Cullerne Bown asks David King whether the system of counselling that the Chief Scientific Adviser oversees has yet culled the spin and secrecy that has surrounded such advice-giving.

BSE was the trauma that triggered the demise of the old world of advice. The government had its in-house advisers at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. But that expertise wasn’t enough to save the UK beef industry. And by the time the government announced, after years of denial, that BSE had been transmitted to humans, public credibility in the government, its advisers and experts generally was in tatters.