Europe UK (Commonwealth Union) – In recent years much attention has been drawn on conflicts of interest on regulatory bodies across the world. There has been much concern around how top officials of governing bodies receive royalties and funding from the very organizations they are meant to regulate.
New research has found a sizeable level in conflicts of interest in the bodies guiding the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) or the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
Recommendations that commercial conflicts of interest should not take part in UK food policymaking have been made. The new research paper further points out that Food regulatory institutions in the UK should maintain strong procedures to investigate commercial conflicts of interest.
The study was conducted together by Professor Erik Millstone of the Science Policy Research Unit, at the University of Sussex Business School, and Professor Tim Lang of the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London, discovered that not a single one of the bodies advising the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) or the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had no conflicts of interest.
The study discovered that these conflicts of interest have positioned the UK food governance in a weak position to ‘agency capture ‘which indicates agencies are controlled by the organizations they are supposed to regulate rather than those of the public interest.
The study further discovered that the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which advises Defra ministers on the safety and acceptability on GM (Genetically modified) crops, had 7 members, of whom only 1 made a declaration of no conflicts of interest. In addition, between the other 6 Committee members have made declarations of conflicts of interest with 16 distinct industrial corporations.
“Public trust can only be guaranteed if commerce is seen not to be involved. Scientists themselves must ask themselves ethical questions about whether it is right to do commercial research if it undermines collective trust,” explained Professor Lang.
