MPs criticse FSA over cockle bed closures

Friday, 20 February 2004 12:00 AM

A committee of MPs has attacked the food watchdog for closing cockle beds over concerns about a harmful toxin.

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee claimed that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had "inflicted very real and unnecessary damage" on the UK's shellfish industry.

Cocklers insist that FSA tests suggesting diarrhetic shellfish poisoning, which led to the closure of cockle beds in the Thames Estuary, The Wash and the Burry Inlet in South Wales, are unreliable.

The committees report heavily criticises the FSA for being slow to investigate alternative explanations for the test results from 2001, which involved injecting mice with a highly-concentrated mix of cockles and other chemicals.

The positive results only emerged after the contract for laboratory testing for toxins in English waters was transferred to the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in Weymouth.

Austin Mitchell MP, chairman of the sub-committee that investigated the closures, said: "The shellfish and cockle industries are neither big nor powerful, but should not have been treated in the way they have been by the Food Standards Agency."

The FSA said in a statement: "Our approach has been and will continue to be to take precautionary action to protect public health in the face of uncertainty."

Hundreds of cocklers were affected by the FSA closures and are furious that their concerns over methodology were not taken into account by the agency.

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