KEY POINTS:
When it comes to the crunch, we eat on faith - comforted by the hope that most of what goes in our mouths has at some point felt the rubber gloves of the state's food police.
The New Zealand Food Safety Authority is our frontline defence against food-borne illnesses, dodgy food imports, genetically modified foods and risky food additives. As consumer guardians, they are behind those dumbed-down "clean, cook, cover, chill" ads on TV. Behind the scenes, they create and enforce food regulations, manage food recalls and emergencies, provide policy advice and regulate food imports and exports.
It's a thankless task, with heightened consumer awareness about "safe" foods and nutrition, more food scares worldwide, genetic modification fears and more exotic foods arriving from third world countries with looser hygiene rules. Food is a highly charged political issue, and the authority is generally in the firing line when things go wrong. The evidence - five million working days lost each year due to gastrointestinal illness and the highest reported campylobacter rates in the developed world - suggests considerable scope to do better.
Then there's the authority's lesser-known (but bigger) function - facilitating market access for our food exports.
To its myriad critics, the Food Safety Authority is the agency that:
* Ruled out country of origin labelling on imported foods.
* Approved the sale of genetically modified corn with heightened levels of lysine, an amino acid, as feed for pigs and chickens.
* Refused to pinpoint where listeria contaminated meat was sold.
* Predicted an outbreak of toxic honey poisoning after regulations were eased, yet did nothing to tighten the rules.
* Rejected calls from public health physicians to ban the sale of fresh chicken until the industry gets on top of the campylobacter epidemic.
* Played down the risks in 2004 when releasing a report on the evidence linking A1-protein milk (the most commonly produced by New Zealand cows) to diabetes and heart disease.
To these critics, the authority's biggest weakness is its schizophrenic purpose in life. It's own publicity suggests as much: The [agency] has responsibility for the protection of New Zealanders' health and safety and the facilitation of international market access. Come again?
Yes, the authority's role is on the one hand to protect local consumers while on the other doing all it can to get our produce into overseas consumers' mouths. This second function - which the critics maintain is its main focus - fuels claims that it is too close to industry to properly fulfil its consumer-protection role.
The authority's handling of the 2004 milk report was later criticised as a misinformation campaign by Lincoln University professor of farm management Keith Woodford. That led the authority to commission a review, by Sweden-based food safety expert Dr Stuart Slorach.
The damage limitation seemed complete this week when Slorach's report was released with assurances that the authority had learned its lesson and the verdict from Food Safety Minister Lianne Dalziel that New Zealanders are "generally well-served by the body responsible for ensuring the food we eat is safe".
The stage-managed release at least shows the authority has improved its spin since the milk slip-up. Slorach looked not just at that controversy, but at the agency's risk management framework and handling of issues including mercury levels in fish, campylobacter in chicken, food allergies, the food additive aspartame and its imported foods regime.
Slorach, a former chairman of Codex Alimentarius (the international standard setting body trade in food) spent two weeks here interviewing interest groups who curiously included no independent consumer voices. He also compared our set-up with regimes in Ireland, Denmark and Sweden.
His technique is to baste gently rather than sear but his findings can be read as a slow-roasting of the authority. Stripping away the technical language, Slorach found there was too much report writing, and not enough action.
He felt it was curious that the authority directly employed so few scientists, relying largely on outside agencies for scientific advice. "Although small is beautiful, it is recommended that NZFSA carefully examine the vulnerability and sustainability of ... having a small science group, bearing in mind the very wide range of scientific issues it is called upon to tackle and that it must spend a lot of time designing project specifications and following up the progress of contracted projects." Translation: Wouldn't the money be better spent on a well-resourced in-house science team?
The authority's role in nutrition and in health promotion "seems unclear to many outside NZFSA and the Ministry of Health."
He is concerned that its mandate comes not from legislation but from cabinet papers. He believes its primary role of ensuring the safety of foods should be emphasised in legislation - and widely publicised.
Legislation should also be amended to include "a clearer instruction/mandate to apply a precautionary approach when dealing with uncertainty in risk management". Translation: If the risk is in doubt, err on the side of consumers.
He recommends that the authority be more open and transparent, using its website and other channels to provide more information, "including the results of inspections of food business operations and other control activities".
At another point he advises: "There is a lot to be said for following the simple recommendation: 'Tell them what you know, tell them what you don't know and tell them now."
But he says the handling of the milk issue highlighted the difficulties in communicating with the public when the science is uncertain on food safety issues.
"There is a need to give clear messages ... and avoid from the health point of view unwarranted changes in food consumption patterns. It is however, important that NZFSA's information about risks associated with foodstuffs is balanced and that uncertainties associated with the risk assessments are clearly communicated." Translation: The public isn't that stupid.
The authority's budget is about $92 million, a third of which goes to its verification agency which inspects premises where livestock is processed and issues export certifications. The balance is split between consumer safety and its other food export regulatory functions. To critics - whose most visible face is the Green MP Sue Kedgley - the dual functions signal inevitable conflicts of interest.
The authority is supposed to exercise caution - but critics say rather than err towards consumers the agency is protective of producers who face financial ruin if a product is recalled or slated in the media. Its refusal to name outlets which sold sandwiches with contaminated roast beef and corned beef in the North Island in February was just the latest controversy and hardly seemed to fit with its stated commitment to openness and transparency.
A lingering criticism is the authority's reactive nature. In 2004 it recalled several brands of cornflour and a baby custard which tests revealed were contaminated with up to 100 times the permitted level of lead. Trouble was, the products had been in supermarkets for eight months before the contamination was revealed. The authority also declined to name 30 other foods made with the cornflour, saying it was diluted to harmless levels.
Of course, it's impractical to test every batch of food before it is sold but the hit and miss nature of sampling seems short of best practice. The lead contamination was revealed in the Total Diet Survey - which takes place at five-year intervals and won't be repeated until next year.
Sue Kedgley and other critics believe the authority - as an offshoot of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry- is shackled by its roots and needs more rigorous reform. "They were set up with a whole lot of people from MAF, not fresh people coming in with a history of consumer protection," says Kedgley. "They seem to have developed a public relations response, almost an issues management approach: Each crisis that emerges, play it down."
Kedgley wants the dual functions separated. "The export side of it should be sent off to MAF and it should be entirely focused on protecting the public from foodborne illnesses and hazards."
Another critic, Sustainability Council executive director Simon Terry, agrees that the authority's hybrid origins are a big part of its problems.
"We don't have a particular prescription but a clear starting point that the review has highlighted is the need to clarify and emphasise the priority for food safety. [Slorach] has also talked about the need to strengthen the precautionary mandate."
The Food Safety Authority's chief executive, Andrew McKenzie, freely admits there's room for improvement in its guiding documents. "I don't think I would be too upset at all if we changed the mandate a little bit," says McKenzie. "The Government said 'protect public health and facilitate market access' - that's what I've been given."
But Dr McKenzie, a trained veterinarian from a MAF background, is more defensive about the need to be more open with consumers and strengthen the authority's precautionary mandate. "We always think about safety but there's a whole lot of practical things to think about in doing that." He points out consumers would reject measures such as irradiation, and that stronger safety rules can increase costs which are then passed on to consumers.
Of the listeria in processed meats scare, he says: "If we thought [consumers] were at risk we would have named [the outlets]. We are real conservative."
Nevertheless, he welcomes Slorach's review as a chance to consider changes in areas such as nutrition and the agency's mandate.
But if its critics see a door prised open, Food Safety Minister Lianne Dalziel is on guard. "I don't buy the argument that there's a dual function. The overriding function is to ensure food is safe."
Dalziel says the agency is only six years old and the report finds its risk management framework "is pretty good and stacks up internationally very well."
She has, however, asked officials to draft a paper outlining changes based on the review findings which she will take to cabinet.
MENU OF CONCERNS
The A1/A2 milk issue
In 2004, a review by Professor Boyd Swinburn of literature linking A1-type milk (produced by the majority of NZ's dairy herd) to diabetes and heart disease - while acknowledging the uncertainty of a causative link and the need for more research - suggested a switch to A2-producing cows would do no harm and might significantly improve public health.
The Food Safety Authority was accused of a cover-up after releasing the report on a day Swinburn was unavailable, and for issuing a press release emphasising there was no safety issue and consumers should continue to drink milk. It also deleted a lay summary of Swinburn's findings. Critics maintain the agency bowed to lobbying by Fonterra.
Dr Slorach found the timing of the release and deletion of the lay summary fuelled suspicion that the authority was trying to hide something. He was also critical that neither the authority nor the Health Ministry had commissioned further research.
In October, the authority signalled a review of the science behind the A1/A2 debate but this was dropped in February when the European Food Safety Authority announced plans to review research on the safety of A1 milk.
Campylobacter in poultry
NZ's reported rate of campylobacter infection from chicken is three times higher than Australia's and 30 times higher than in the United States. In 2006, 16,000 cases were identified by GPs, suggesting another 100,000 had contracted the illness. Commercial freezing kills most of the naturally-occurring bacteria but the authority has rejected calls from public health physicians to ban fresh chicken sales, preferring to work with industry with the aim of halving the number of reported cases within five years.
Dr Slorach is concerned that the industry doesn't follow overseas practice of completely de-stocking slaughter houses - the "all-in, all-out" principle - to avoid cross-contaminating incoming flocks. He says if the current strategy doesn't work, the authority should re-examine its position on commercial freezing of contaminated broilers. It should continue to promote safe handling and cooking and verify that leak-proof packaging requirements are met.
The agency's mandate
In Denmark, Ireland and Sweden, the food safety authorities' mandates are defined in legislation but this is not the case in NZ, Dr Slorach points out.
The mandates of the three European agencies emphasise that their primary role is to "work for safe food and in the consumer interest."
He recommends "in the interests of openness and transparency" that the authority's mandate be defined "in a document more readily accessible than cabinet papers" and that its primary role of ensuring the safety of foods be clarified to stakeholders.
Imported foods
Under the Food Act, only high-risk foods are inspected and tested at the border. Most foods are considered low risk. The onus to meet NZ standards rests with importers.
Slorach says the regime is a considerable improvement on the previous arrangement and, if properly enforced, should provide adequate protection.
Food additives
The sweetener aspartame, used in diet soft drinks, has been linked to cancer, seizures, neurological damage and learning problems but American and European authorities maintain it is safe.
Green MP Sue Kedgley wants products containing aspartame to carry warning labels.
The Food Safety Authority has issued assurances that there is no scientific basis to claims that the product is not safe.
Dr Slorach praises the authority's handling of the issue and recommends it continue to base risk management of food additives on the best scientific evidence available.
Mercury in fish
In 2005, agencies including the Ministry of Health and the Food Safety Authority gave differing advice on the dangers to pregnant women of eating fish containing mercury. The authority was asked to come up with a set of common recommendations. The guidelines issued in 2006 note that fish is highly nutritious and its omega-3 fatty acids are important for fetal development.
Slorach says the risk management strategy is based on sound scientific foundation but recommends that the authority monitors developments, collects data on mercury contamination in NZ fish and takes steps if fish consumption declines.
