Leading Article: When secrecy clouds the issue

GIVE up eating: it is too dangerous. There is patulin in the apple juice, salmonella in the eggs, listeria in the cheese, mercury and crude oil in the fish, mad cow disease in the beef, heart disease in the butter, tooth decay in the sugar, toxicity even in your safe herbal remedies. Doubtless further hazards will be discovered tomorrow. Perhaps a little filtered water and organic bread would be safe but you cannot be sure of that. Filters accumulate bacteria and the bread may be contaminated by poisonous sprays from the non-organic farmer next door. In the current climate, anyone who could bring out a range of guaranteed harmless foods would make a fortune - until his claims were exploded by some keen investigative reporter.

Is it all getting out of hand? Given that the inhabitants of advanced industrial societies live longer than ever before, and in better health than those who remain closer to nature, we should be counting our blessings. It is usually much riskier to cross the road than to eat processed food.

Yet there is a real issue here, perfectly exemplified by the apple juice scare provoked yesterday by the Daily Mail. The friendly neighbourhood baker whom John Major remembers so fondly can be held to account by his customers. If he poisons them, he hears about it immediately. The faceless giants who fill the supermarket shelves can do far more widespread damage but are less easily controlled because their customers are widely dispersed and the effects of many modern poisons are slow and insidious. The giants are also themselves dependent on a huge range of suppliers. We must therefore put our safety in the hands of government bodies and their often shadowy advisers, watched in turn by consumer organisations. The loyalty of the latter is directly to the public, and their role is invaluable. The Government inspires less trust because of its links with the food industry and its fear of the public.

That fear lies at the root of the unsatisfactory muddle surrounding the apple juice scare. Last March, tests for the Ministry of Agriculture found 26 per cent of the cloudy apple juices contained patulin levels above the maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Some were far above. When the results reached the Ministry in June, the reaction was to call a meeting with the British Soft Drinks Association, at which it was decided not to inform the public.

Nicholas Soames, a parliamentary secretary at the Ministry, now says there was no danger, as does Dr Lea, who carried out the tests. Dr Lea says that enormous quantities would have had to be drunk before a danger level was reached. In that case, what is the meaning of the WHO standards? Why call a special meeting and keep the issue from the press? What then moved the industry, in its own words, to take 'immediate steps . . . to ensure the quality of all products'? Why did the Ministry feel it necessary, on 17 December, to set the WHO standard as the upper guide level?

The principle on which official bodies should operate is that if there is no danger, there is no need for secrecy, while if there is a danger, there is an absolute requirement to publish. Secrecy merely heightens suspicion and undermines the public's confidence in the institutions that are supposed to protect it. Apple juice is not the only thing that has been cloudy and contaminated.