The Spanish ministers of health and farming are being criticised over their management of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis that is currently affecting the country.

A lack of coordination between the ministries in tackling the crisis and a series of alarmist public statements by Celia Villalobos, minister of health, have led the government's vice president, Mariano Rajoy, to take over the handling of the issue. He has set up a crisis committee to deal with the disease.

Spain—a country that had always boasted that it remained free of BSE—has seen the appearance of eight cases in less than two months. The cases were detected after the country introduced nationwide tests …