Human and animal health: strengthening the links

Editor—The avian flu threat shows the importance of links between the medical and veterinary professions, but the debate needs to extend into the hidden costs of current food policy. Food policy is still excessively reliant on market efficiencies, by minimising price and maximising choice. Although the obesity epidemic has brought the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) together on the socioeconomic costs of the nutrition transition, the associated animal health and welfare costs are easily overlooked. In 2003 the WHO and FAO emphasised the adverse health impact of cheap, convenient, energy dense foods that are high in fats but drew back from the implications for the meats and dairy fats industries. 3 The point was not lost on industry, however, which funded defensive economic assessments.