The Food Safety Authority chief, Dr Patrick Wall, was at his irreverent best in UCC last week at an international co-operation conference organised by departments of agriculture in the US and Ireland. In a keynote address attended by US ambassador Mike Sullivan, he interspersed big questions on the safety of our food with his eclectic illustrations. On the delicate issue of hormones used in beef production (as routinely practised in the US and a matter of much tension with Europe), he was inclined to think they would do no harm, but ventured to suggest they might explain some of the unusual behaviour of one Presi- dent Bill Clinton.
Undaunted and unrestrained by diplomatic protocol, he displayed a snorting bull as he discussed whether eating beef can be fatal. Addressing the ambassador, who hails from real cowboy country and regularly wears a stetson, he suggested if one was to encounter a herd of such beasts in his home state of Wyoming they could very well kill.
His presentation went down so well, many US scientists wanted to bring him Stateside immediately to spread his food safety gospel. In reality, the biggest pull could in time come from the opposite direction as our EU Commissioner, David Byrne, moves to establish a European Food Authority to pronounce on Europe's food with a view to ending squabbles between member-states over what is and isn't safe.