The association between Salmonella Enteritidis and hen's eggs is very well known, and has been studied in considerable depth for at least 20 years. Back in the mid '90s, it was estimated that about one in every 700 eggs produced in the UK was contaminated with Salmonella, but since then the situation has improved beyond recognition as a result of improvements in on-farm hygiene and bio-security, and the large-scale vaccination of laying hens. In some other European countries, especially in Scandinavia, they have been tackling Salmonella in eggs for even longer, and so effectively that the problem has been virtually eradicated. The EU has rules about Salmonella in laying flocks that apply to all member states and shell eggs in Europe present a much lower risk than they once did, a fact reflected in the falling number of Salmonella Enteritidis infections reported each year.

So how is it that, with all that available knowledge, it is still possible for such a large egg related outbreak to occur in the US? Plenty has already been written and said about this question in the American media, with much of the attention focusing on the need for a new Food Safety bill currently bogged down in the Senate to be hurried through. I suspect that there are many factors involved in the genesis of this outbreak - some yet to be identified - but perhaps it illustrates a fundamental difference between food safety thinking in Europe and the USA. At the risk of over-simplification, in Europe the emphasis is on prevention, but in the USA it is on cure. Despite the widespread adoption of HACCP, the default position for the American food industry and its regulators remains to take a largely reactive approach to food safety. New laws might help, but these big outbreaks will continue to occur until a culture of building safety into food production can develop and spread throughout the food chain. Businesses may complain about the cost, but in the long-term, restoring consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply will have a profitable upside.

It should be said at the outset that there is no suggestion that anyone polishing off a hearty portion of cloned beef will have come to any harm. Both the FDA and EFSA have said that there is no evidence of any health risk from consuming the meat or milk of cloned animals, although EFSA qualified that statement by pointing out that the body of any kind of evidence is very small. Most experts currently seem to agree that there is no obvious reason to expect any problems.

Nevertheless, the event has generated a mountain of media coverage in the UK and elsewhere. While this is partly because of animal welfare concerns - cloned animals have a tendency to suffer more than their fair share of ill health - it is also because of the perceived threat to consumer confidence. The problem is that products derived from clones and their offspring are considered novel foods in the EU and must be authorised before they go on sale. In this case no such authorisation was sought or granted and the Food Standards Agency seems to have known nothing about it until alerted by a story that appeared in an American newspaper. To some commentators this has the makings of a scandal that UK meat producers still recovering from the BSE crisis of the 1990s can ill afford.

Personally, I think the whole story is a bit of a storm in a teacup. But what it does do is highlight wider issues presented by the growing globalisation of food supply chains. The two bulls in question were reared from embryos imported from the USA and embryos from cloned animals can now be exported anywhere in the world. How can that trade be controlled? There are obvious parallels with the GM foods situation here. Whatever it may say in EU legislation, keeping unauthorised foods out of Europe, while the rest of the world happily trades in those foods, is becoming virtually impossible. Either Europe must erect unpopular new trade barriers against commodities it doesn't approve of, or it must bow to the inevitable and consider how best to manage the expanding trade in novel food commodities.

The announcement came on 20 July, when, contrary to a number of supposedly well-informed newspaper articles, the Health Minister issued a statement to the effect that the FSA would be retained, but with "a renewed focus on food safety." Food safety policy and enforcement would be the remit, with responsibility for nutrition policy being taken back in-house by the Department of Health and non-health labelling and composition issues being looked after by another government department (DEFRA). At first sight this appears to be a pretty good outcome. Many commentators felt that the Agency had taken on too much in recent years, with the focus on healthy eating and nutrition labelling distracting from its original purpose to ensure a safe food supply. With these additional responsibilities transferred elsewhere, a more focused FSA should be welcomed by the food industry, because the Agency's main achievement has been to restore public confidence in the safety of the food supply. I cannot believe anyone wants to go back to the pre-2000 situation when the old food and agriculture ministry (MAFF) mismanaged one food scare after another and created huge distrust among consumers. It has taken 10 years to put that right and we don't need to go back there.

So it's good news then? It depends on what resources the new leaner, meaner Agency has to work with. All we know at the moment is that about 175 staff will be transferred to other departments leaving about 2000. Since the changes are supposed to be about saving money, it seems unlikely that this will be the end of the matter. How many people will work at the FSA in 12 months time and what will be their budget? The research programme is still under threat.

The new FSA programme contains six specific topics for research, which the Agency sees as key to understanding Campylobacter and identifying effective control measures for it in poultry. These include looking at the feasibility of a rapid on-farm test for the pathogen, control measures at the slaughterhouse and measuring the impact of interventions. All of this is valuable stuff and would provide information crucial in helping to understand Campylobacter and how to combat it.

But will the research ever be completed in these financially straitened times? There are already dark mutterings that the FSA will not escape the savage cuts currently being dealt out to the UK public sector. It seems unlikely to survive in its current form. Hopefully it will merely lose any responsibility for telling people what to eat and instead concentrate on its core purpose of food safety. But, as we saw last week, in France the national food safety authority (AFSSA) is no more, having been merged with another agency to cut costs. Could something similar happen to the FSA, and if so, will important food safety research continue to be funded. Campylobacter is estimated to cost the UK economy over £583m each year. Surely even the most blinkered bean counter can see the value in spending a few million to cut that particular cost?