IT'S TAKEN 30 years, but the egg industry this week has more than fully cleared its name after the famous 'Edwina Currie' salmonella scare.

This is one industry and Government-led initiative that has actually worked. A mixture of stringent bird health regimes and vaccination, backed by legislation, has been vindicated by the relaxation this week of advice to those especially vulnerable to salmonella, mainly pregnant women and the elderly, that they can now eat a runny egg!

This means the British Lion logo adorns what are probably the healthiest eggs in the world. It also comes at a time when the rest of Europe is still reverberating from the fipronil (an anti-lice insecticide) scandal affecting mainly Dutch, Belgian and German eggs.

This UK-wide success in eliminating the threat of salmonella in eggs is a shining example of what can be achieved when government and the industry work together for one end. Though it did not seem like it at the time, Ms Currie's intemperate outburst has resulted, eventually, in a huge success for the farming industry.

This should be held up as a talisman for other afflictions which, while they might not have the same human health implications that salmonella has, have the ability to deliver serious economic loss.

We are currently in the midst of a plan to rid cattle farms of bovine viral diarrhoea, which is in danger of being derailed somewhat by a lack of will from some quarters. We have a TB-free status in Scotland threatened by a lack of cohesion in getting rid of this disease in the South by an incoherent plan to reduce the population of badgers which carry it.

Areas which could also be tackled in sheep would be Jaagsiekte, toxoplasmosis, chlamydia (enzootic abortion); while in cattle IBR and other respiratory diseases could be consigned to the past if industry and government took a joined up approach to tackling them.

As far as the poultry industry goes, the farming industry can also help in the fight against campylobacter in broilers, which remains a major threat to human health.

Now, if we could stamp out that altogether – and the industry is largely already acting on it – this really would be a win for the chicken and the egg. But, in this case, the egg came first.