The UK public has little confidence in how the government handles health issues such as BSE, MMR and pollution, a survey has suggested.

The poll, for the National Consumer Council (NCC), suggested that recent governments of both parties had "kept people in the dark", "manipulated" or even "ignored" concerns.

Consumers suspect they are fed biased information by distant and untrustworthy messengers

Deirdre Hutton, NCC

There have been several issues over the past decade which have sparked widespread fears among the UK population.

They include the BSE and vCJD crisis, which famously included then agriculture minister John Gummer publicly feeding beefburgers to his children to try to demonstrate the safety of British beef.

And a recent government campaign to reassure the public over the safety of the MMR triple vaccine for children has yet to have any noticeable impact on uptake.

Majority voice

The NCC research was based on a survey of 2,000 adults from across Britain.

Nine out of ten said that the government should be more open about how it tackled issues such as these.

Almost as many - eight in ten - called for a greater public voice in debates on these subjects.

The issues included other health concerns, such as mobile phones and the perceived risk from mobile phone masts, as well as the safety of GM food.

More general issues brought up by consumers included transport accidents, mis-selling of pensions or endowment mortgages, and global warming.

More than half of all those questioned said that all these issues had been handled either "very badly" or "not very well".

More positive feedback was delivered on the more general issue of food safety, and healthy diet.

'Biased'

NCC chairman Deirdre Hutton said: "Perhaps if the government had been more open in its approach to GM food and crops, had shown greater honesty about the uncertainties, and had involved the public in the debate at a much earlier stage, we might now have a better basis to take forward a public debate.

"Likewise, if the government had better understood and acknowledged parents' anxieties about the MMR vaccine, the issue would not have become such a political hot potato."

She said: "Consumers suspect they are fed biased information by distant and untrustworthy messengers, who may gloss over issues and withhold information or - just as bad - blind them with science or statistics."