1 December 1999 Krebs gets food safety job THE first head of the new Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been confirmed as Sir John Krebs, a zoologist and expert on animal behaviour. Krebs

appointment, which was tipped by the _Financial Times_ last week, is viewed with surprise. He is seen as an outsider who has leapt over more favoured candidates. Mr Krebs, until September

the head of the Natural Environment Research Council, came to prominence as the architect of the controversial badger cull to establish a link between badgers and bovine tuberculosis. When

the FSA comes into being on 1 April, it will have an annual budget of £125 million and a staff of 500. It will have the power to order on-the-spot checks and surveillance operations on any