The overwhelming official distrust of the public's ability to deal with risk consistently forced them to provide false reassurances about the safety of beef. It is this patronising attitude among those who govern and the infantalisation of the governed that must change. They need openness. It sounds simple enough. But bringing it about will require profound changes.
Openness requires information to be made freely available to everyone as fast as possible.
It requires decision-making processes to be made transparent. And, most important of all, it requires governments and the governed to become comfortable with the notions of uncertainty and risk. Everywhere you turn, new technologies and changes in the way we live will introduce risk. Science can rarely provide the certainties needed to banish those risks totally. Public and politicians must understand and debate risk and benefits, agree when too many uncertainties remain and when the precautionary principle must take priority.