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FSA timebomb
Date: 13/07/2010
Rumours reach us this week that the new coalition government in the UK is to scrap the FSA, a food watchdog set up in response to the BSE crisis back in 2000.Although reports that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley plans to fulfil a pre-election pledge to strip the FSA of its responsibilities for nutrition and diet advice, the government has yet to confirm the news, saying only that ‘no decision has yet been made’.
However, if the watchdog is to be scrapped as a cost-cutting measure, it’s a fairly safe bet that such a move could provide the perfect definition of false economy.
As obesity rates continue to rise, dispanding an agency which, given appropriate powers, may well have been able to reverse the trend (it was already making great progress in promoting healthy eating) is a move unlikely to be welcomed by those working in an already over-stretched NHS. Nor is the government likely to be happy at the prospect of putting its hand deeper in its pockets to help defuse the health timebomb that will inevitably result.
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