A comparative study of the risk perceptions and risk communications of stakeholders within five european countries after the issue of the roadmap

Abstract

Remerciements à l'Association pour l'Étude de l'Épidémiologie des Maladies Animales, éditeur de la revue "Épidémiologie et santé animale" qui nous donné l'autorisation de publier le texte intégral de cet article.International audienceScience-based control measures (such as the ban of the inclusion of meat and bone meal in feed and the removal of potentially BSE infected animal tissues, the so called specified risk materials, from the feed/food chains) by the EU and elsewhere resulted in the continuous decline of the BSE epidemic in recent years. The pressure to lift certain control measures led the European Commission to issue a TSE Roadmap allowing an open discussion on the potential for regulation relaxation. To investigate the risk perceptions of stakeholders and how to improve the communication in dealing with the TSE roadmap a qualitative social research has been carried out. Forty-six in-depth, semi-structured face-to-face interviews with risk managers and stakeholders were obtained in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The main results obtained may be summarized as follows. TSE is not longer a hot topic: the interviewees shared the view that the TSE risk is clearly on decline and the overall BSE (and TSE) risk perception is low. Moreover all examined stakeholders appreciated the TSE Roadmap as a new communication strategy; however they provided several suggestions to improve the communication in the field of TSE