The release in late October of the Phillips report — the 18-volume result of a three-year investigation into how Britain's bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis was handled — sparked a wave of media coverage. The report concludes that ministers and civil servants were acting under the genuine belief that the risks of eating British beef were minimal. But there have been attempts by the British press to lay some of the blame on another doorstep — that of the scientists.

A feature in The Guardian , for example, preaches that “BSE is the latest crisis to dent public faith in those who should know better”, citing genetically modified foods, fluoride in water and antibiotics in foods as other instances of scientific “scare stories”. In the case of BSE, however, the article claims that scientists are under fire not for “their pure scientific method, or even their conclusions”, but for “the way they allowed themselves and their opinions to be manipulated by civil servants”.

Writing in The Independent on Sunday , Geoffrey Lean dubs the crisis “a kind of Stockholm syndrome — where captives come to identify with those who take them hostage — in reverse. Seduced by a hazard they are supposed to be controlling, regulators come to believe that it poses no threat”. He groups scientists among those who fell into this trap, but also speaks out against the “villification and marginalisation of … dissident scientists”, citing Professor Derek Bryce-Smith as an example. He, apparently, warned long ago about the dangers of leaded petrol — a far cry from BSE, but in the news again owing to the fuel crisis that has swept across Europe.