Flu Stories: Case Study On How Not To Communicate

As you may know and be reading about, a case of H5N1 in turkeys in the UK is sparking some intense media coverage. All the experts agreed (and still agree, as do I) that the risk to people is very small. But the handling of information and communication by the powers that be in this case ought to be a cautionary tale. If companies and countries expect their citizens to be willing and trusting partners in public health and safety ventures, complete transparency and timely and honest pronouncements need to be standard procedure. Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain.

At first, the company (Bernard Matthews) and government officials denied any possibility of company responsibility, suggesting a small bird may have flown into one of four sheds where the turkeys are housed through a ventilation shaft. While plausible (independent experts suggested the same based on available data), the theory raised questions about bird surveillance throughout the UK (there were no other reports of birds infected with H5N1 closer than Hungary, where there was a known H5N1 outbreak in swans). More importantly, any possibility of either a Bernard Matthews Hungarian affiliate's being a source of the virus, or the possibility of affected meat getting into the food chain was vigorously denied.

Bernard Matthews produces 8 million turkeys a year in the United Kingdom and also has a corporate subsidiary in Hungary. Defra [the responsible British agency] has said the virus isolated in Suffolk is similar to strains found in Hungary in January, but Windsor says that "no Bernard Matthews staff recently traveled from Hungary back to Suffolk," and Hungarian officials have announced "no link between the two outbreaks," she says.

Naturally enough, the company put up an internet Q&A for consumers. From the current Bernard Matthews home page:

Is it safe to eat Bernard Matthews products? Properly cooked Bernard Matthews products are perfectly safe to eat. Advice from the Food Standards Agency has been and remains that avian flu does not pose a food safety risk for UK consumers. You have probably heard Government officials from Defra saying exactly the same thing. Should I stop buying your products? No, not at all - the Food Standards Agency says that people who eat properly cooked poultry are not at risk of catching the disease. Will Bernard Matthews remove its products from supermarkets? No. None of our products will be recalled following the Food Standard Agency's advice that avian flu does not pose a food safety risk for UK consumers.

That's all well and good, except two days ago what appeared on the same company web page was this:

So none of the products I have at home in my fridge or freezer are affected? That's right, none of the affected poultry entered the food chain so there is no need to worry. Am I at risk of catching the disease? No, not at all - people who eat poultry products are not at risk of catching the disease. This is because the disease has not entered the food chain and was identified at a very early stage.

Unfortunately for Bernard Matthews, what immediately followed was questions about whether infected meat had gotten into the food chain... possibly indirectly from Hungary. this From the Guardian:

Official: H5N1 may be in human food chain Friday February 9, 2007 The Food Standards Agency confirmed today that it was investigating the possibility that turkey meat contaminated by bird flu at a Bernard Matthews poultry farm has entered the human food chain. The government's chief scientist, Sir David King, said the agency would be considering ordering supermarkets to remove packaged turkey from shelves after it emerged that Bernard Matthews had been transporting turkey meat from Hungary to the Suffolk farm where the H5N1 strain of the virus was discovered. The environment minister Ben Bradshaw warned that legal action could be launched following the latest developments and possible breaches in bio-security at the plant. "As part of the investigation into what might have caused the outbreak of bird flu in a Suffolk poultry farm, the agency will check that no infected meat has got into food," the FSA said in a statement.

There's a big difference between accidental introduction of H5N1 into a biosecure plant and a breach of procedure that led a Hungarian affiliate of the company to have semi-processed meat sold into the food chain.

Britain's first outbreak of bird flu may have been caused by semi-processed turkey meat imported from Hungary, where the disease is prevalent.

Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials said 38 tonnes a week had been sent to the processing plant of the Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, where the H5N1 strain of the virus erupted a week ago.

The revelation is a remarkable about-turn. Earlier, Environment Secretary David Miliband had assured the Commons that there was "no Hungarian connection" and that the outbreak had most likely been brought to Britain by wild birds.

So, rather than issuing a simple "We don't know yet, we are vigorously investigating", or using the opportunity to revisit preparedness in the UK (what an opportunity!), the defensive "it can't possibly have been us or our procedures" approach was used to the detriment of more than one reputation for candor. And we wonder why 'authoritative sources' are not always trusted?

Hopefully, there will be some major lessons learned. A full investigation may lead to some answers about where the virus came from, but that investigation should also review communication practices. Spin control won't do it in a crisis. Transparency will. And while sales have not suffered, and the risk to humans is very small, this is clearly an opportunity for government and company officials who think 'everything is under control' because 'it can't happen here' to rethink what they think they know. It can happen, and it just did. So, the UK should review their preparedness plans, review biosecurity procedures, and review communications plans. Based on what's in the news, they all need work.

Comments

[emptypockets]

the nytimes had an op-ed relevant to the questions I was asking last flu thread about who pays for the culled animals:

Who Pays to Stop a Pandemic?

...The domestic bird population of Jakarta is estimated at 1.3 million. Thousands of families were given until Feb. 1 to consume, sell or kill their birds. Now inspectors are going door to door to destroy any remaining birds.

The Indonesian government pledged to pay about $1.50 for each bird infected with the H5N1 virus, a sum that may approximate the bird’s fair market value. But most birds that have been killed under this policy are healthy, so their owners, most reports suggest, will receive nothing.

Moreover, it is not clear how Jakarta’s poor will replace the income they once received from chickens and other birds... “Backyard birds” are the only source of income for many women and children.

The authors present the problem as a human rights and moral duty argument, but I see it from a very practical politics and communication point of view. If bird growers see their government as the enemy, they will not cooperate with anti-flu efforts or heed government warnings. More importantly, if they will be hurt economically they will not comply and, most dangerously, will not report outbreaks.

The authors suggest that wealthy nations simply contribute to a fund to compensate farmers in developing countries if their birds are culled.

Such a program in Jakarta alone would be expensive. Just to compensate families for their culled birds would require nearly $2 million, not including the cost of administering the program. [Maybe I have been reading Iraq news too much, but that does not sound expensive at all.] Indonesia’s domestic bird population countrywide is estimated at 300 million, so if the culling program were to be expanded beyond Jakarta, the total compensation cost could run as high as $450 million.

They say that the US, EU & others pledged (pledged?) $2 billion to a pool for bird flu prevention. $450 million would take a big chunk out of that, and I'm not sure that's the best way to go.

Instead, I would be very interested in seeing the development of government farm insurance proposals, whereby farmers pay a small premium to their governments for coverage and in exchange the government will pay out fair market value on any birds that are culled. The global funds could be used to underwrite the initial program. Assuming we can go a few years without entire countries being swept by the virus, eventually the premiums for this program may allow it to be sulf-sustaining. Most critically, it puts the right incentives on the right parties: it gives strong incentives to each country's government to take steps to prevent the entry and spread of bird flu nationally, as well as strong incentives to individual farmers to err on the side of caution in reporting possible outbreaks.

Is this economically reasonable? Is it being proposed anywhere?

[DemFromCT]

it has been proposed for Africa by enterepeneurs along the Bill Gates philanthropy model, but i have not seen it proposed for/by governments in SE Asia.