A public statement signed by more than 1,000 scientists in support of meat production and consumption has numerous links to the livestock industry, the Guardian can reveal. The statement has been used to target top EU officials against environmental and health policies and has been endorsed by the EU agriculture commissioner.
Emails related to the declaration were released by Teagasc under freedom of information rules. In one, another member of the organising committee, Collette Kaster, the chief executive of theHe said: “The authorship for the declaration lies with the entire group of 36 scientist co-authors who contributed to the scientific articles of the Animal Frontiers special edition.” Athe authorship appeared on the declaration website after Ederer was contacted by the Guardian.
A spokesperson for Teagasc said: “Contracts with food companies outline that they will not have any influence over the publications of the outputs of the research or knowledge transfer programmes.” The American Meat Science Association , represented by Kaster on the committee, is a professional society of meat scientists and supported financially by many of the, which is registered to the same Warsaw address as the Polish Beef Association and is chaired by the PBA’s president.
He added: “Scientific consensus can and should always be challenged, but doing so requires strong, novel, and large amounts of high-quality evidence. The Animal Frontiers issue does not accomplish that.” In Hayek’s view, many of the articles are “just slanted reviews that rehash and re-adjudicate old debates”.