Never before, perhaps, has a government advisory panel made such a scathing attack on public policy. The final report on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, popularly known as mad cow disease, submitted Tuesday by a 10-member investigative committee, points out that the government made a "grave policy mistake" in dealing with the problem. It also makes clear that the institutional and legal framework for securing food safety is "defective" and that the collusive ties between politicians and bureaucrats "contributed to opaqueness in policymaking."
The committee, consisting entirely of private experts, has done a remarkable job. It has examined mountains of data presented by the agriculture and health ministries and has disclosed everything it discussed. The report was prepared with no help from bureaucrats. The result is an indictment of structural defects in food-safety administration.
Indeed, the report marks a milestone in the nation's administrative history, not only because of its sharp criticism of food-safety policy but also because of the way in which the investigative committee was run. "We have had a majority of people behind us," said the chairman, Mr. Masao Takahashi, professor emeritus at Kagawa Nutrition University.