Blame the authorities for the E coli panic — not Germany or Spain
No cases of the lethal strain of E coli which has killed 18 people in Germany have emerged in Ireland, and there have been assurances from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland that there is no need for concern. But still we’re not taking in chances.
And who can blame us? The information given by the authorities has been patchy and unclear. While Spanish cucumbers are now cleared of the charges against them, it’s unlikely anyone loves cucumber enough to risk their life eating one.
The implications of the misinformation around the E coli outbreak, however, are grave. Not just for Spain, but for the European horticultural sector as a whole — demonstrated by Thursday’s ban by Russia of all European fresh vegetable exports which could cost the export sector €600 million per year.
Considering the fatalities, panic in Germany is understandable. However, the widespread alarm across Europe and beyond is clearly an unnecessary and damaging over-reaction. Further, the handling of the situation by German and European officials has, through lack of evidence, and poor co-ordination between member states, fuelled hysteria.
What is even more incredible is that, at the time of writing, there is still no proof any food is implicated. While it is unlikely, it is still possible that the strain of E coli which caused the outbreak didn’t start with a food product.
There are European-wide crisis management systems in place to deal with such a situation, including the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed and the Early Warning and Response System. The latter kicked into gear as soon as the German officials informed them of the increased number of patients with E coli symptoms. However, it appears the key tenet of crisis management wasn’t in place: the facts hadn’t been established.
Germany’s false accusation of Spain could cost more than an apology, but there is evidence of further misinformation within the system. The European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli, stated on Tuesday that “the number of new infection cases seems to be declining”, when, in fact, the evidence from Germany was that more people were, and still are, presenting with the virus.
There are basic principles when dealing with food crises: find out the facts, fix the problem first and apportion blame later and, finally, have your media and communications strategy in place before you release any information. None of these seem to have been applied to the E coli outbreak.
In Ireland we are only too familiar with food crises. The Irish pork industry is still feeling the effects of the pork dioxin crisis which threatened to take our Christmas hams off the table in December 2008. No consumer was sick from the dioxins, so the immediate withdrawal of all products may have been considered an over-reaction, but consumer safety was at the heart of the withdrawal. Importantly, however, clear and calm communication without error resulted in the retention of consumer confidence.
The confusion and misinformation from Germany and Commissioner Dalli has had the opposite effect throughout Europe and into Russia. These are the people that ordinary citizens look to in a time of crisis, for guidance and information. Their indecision and lack of confidence is startling.
The current crisis is a lesson in how not to manage a crisis, showing how misinformation and drip feeding bad news seriously undermines confidence and causes disproportionate panic.
What it does show is that those in charge of food safety in Europe are not quite as adept at handling food safety crises as they would lead us to believe, which is surprising given all the practice they have had.
