Tag Archives: policy

Alberta’s cattle industry sort of recovers a decade after mad cow outbreak

Posted on by
Reply

On March 20, 1996, British Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell rose in the House to inform colleagues that scientists had discovered a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) in 10 victims, and that they could not rule out mad.cows.mother's.milka link with consumption of beef from cattle with bovine spongiform encephalapthy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.

Overnight, the British beef market collapsed and politicians quickly learned how to enunciate BSE and CJD. Within days, the European Union banned exports of British beef; consumption of beef fell throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, and in Japan, where suspicion of foreign food runs high. The triumvirate of uncertain science, risk and politics was played out in media headlines.

To refer to the events of 1996 as the BSE crisis is a misnomer, just as scientists are quick to point out that mad cow disease should more appropriately be called sad cow disease or unco-ordinated cow disease.  Rather, the announcement of March 20, 1996 was the culmination of 15 years of mismanagement, political bravado and a gross underestimation of the public’s capacity to deal with risk.  More important than any of the several lessons to be drawn from the BSE fiasco is this: the risk of no-risk messages.  For 10 years the British government and leading scientific advisors insisted there was no risk — or that the risk was so infintesimly small that it could be said there was no risk — of BSE leading to a similar malady in humans, CJD, even in the face of contradictory evidence.  The no-risk message contributed to the devastating economic and social effects on Britons, a nation of madison.men.cowbeefeaters, the slaughter of over 1 million British cattle, and a decrease in global consumption of beef, especially in Japan, at a cost of billions of dollars.

The Canadian Minister of Agriculture was quite adamant there was no risk of BSE developing in Canada.

In July 1996, Dr Norman Willis, Director General, Animal and Plant Health, Agriculture and Agrifood Canada, told the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s annual convention that “Actions were taken out of sheer paranoia, with people significantly hyped by the media.  We took actions that went way beyond ones that were scientifically  justified. … We wouldn’t have political interference.  We wouldn’t  have non-science factors influence the actions we took.  BSE blew that all away. … Canada and other trading countries couldn’t hold with science-based  decisions.  There was just too much at stake by way of trade.’’

Canada’s initial dragging to the grown-up’s table of BSE risk management, and apparent lax enforcement of feed regulations for years afterwards led to the inevitable: On May 20, 2003, Canada announced its first home-grown case of BSE.

The eight-year old cow from Alberta had been condemned at slaughter, was sent for rendering and did not enter the food chain.

The first few chapters of the story about the discovery of BSE in Canada were positive.

BSE was bound to show up eventually and the surveillance system set up in 1992 sorta worked. The inspector who pulled a sickly looking eight-year-old cow from the slaughter line prevented it from entering the food chain.

The line in Canada was, this is not the UK, and I was on TV at 5 a.m. the next morning, saying the U.K., had some 186,000 cattle test positive and millions preemptively slaughtered. The significant question was, will Canadian numbers of BSE-positives remain in the dozens or the tens-of-thousands (or something like that).

And yes, producers, processors and government should have been fully aware of the risk rather than act stunned when it happened.

Ten years on, with the perspective that time often offers, my statements seem accurate but naïve.

Canada has since reported 18 cases of BSE, and, just like other aspects of food safety, those in charge talk a good line, but do they know what really bbq_bse_cross_contaminationhappens on farms (or anywhere) day-in, day-out.

And are they interested? Because being interested costs money.

Ian Gray of the Edmonton Journal wrote a 10-year-retrospective piece on the first homegrown BSE case today, beginning with:

In January 2003, Marwyn Peaster’s cow fell down.

The six-year-old Black Angus was one of a small herd Peaster had bought the year before for his grain farm and feedlot near Wanham, in Alberta’s Peace Country.

Believing the cow had pneumonia, Peaster made the fateful decision to send it to a local abattoir instead of calling for a veterinarian or disposing of it on his own property. The vet at the slaughterhouse went by the book and condemned the “downer” cow, so there’d be no chance it could be used for human consumption.

The carcass then went to a rendering plant, but the head was sent to a provincial laboratory in Edmonton for testing. As there was no perceived urgency, there it sat, until May 16, 2003.

Three and a half months after it was shipped, the head was finally tested at the provincial lab and, to the disbelief and horror of everyone involved, registered positive for BSE. The results were confirmed by federal and international laboratories and were announced to the public on May 20.

As of May 1, 2013, vCJD had killed 237 people worldwide.

The attack on Peaster  reached its peak that September with the now infamous remark by then-premier Ralph Klein that “any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he (Peaster) didn’t do that.”

Peaster has since moved back to the U.S. and is living in the farming community of Ontario, Oregon, where he has a small trucking company. True to form, he has no desire to comment on the 10th anniversary of the discovery of BSE in Canada, in which he was a key, if unwilling, player.

Mad cow no longer dominates the food safety headlines, and that’s good. The potential is always there, and requires good risk management, but a lot more people get sick from lots of other things associated with beef (although vCJD is a terrible way to die).

As the elementary school year wound down in June, 2003, in Ontario, Canada, 
the school three of my four daughters attended had a barbeque for students, staff 
and parents. 
The earlier discovery of Canada’s first domestic case of bovine spongiform 
encephalopathy which received 
extensive media coverage, was of concern to some parents and school
 officials, so a note was sent home to parents, assuring them that the
 hamburgers and hot dogs to be consumed came from a supplier of so-called
 natural, beef and was therefore safe from BSE.

At this particular BBQ, several of the well-meaning volunteer cooks were
 observed to handle the raw, natural hamburger patties with tongs that were
 then used to place re-heated wieners into hot dog buns, possibly
 cross-contaminating the wieners with any number of pathogenic microorganisms
HappyCow[1]such as E. coli O157:H7, salmonella or listeria, and subsequently served to
 parents and children.

About the same time, a bunch of industry folks hosted a BBQ on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, to demonstrate the safety of Canadian beef to politicos.

I watched the servers cook burgers, not use thermometers, and cross-contaminate everything in sight.

I asked, where is the hamburger form?

Don’t worry, it’s not from Alberta, no mad cow here.

Are these pre-cooked?

Nah, they’ve been sitting in the (non-refrigerated) truck for a few hours.

I always wondered if anyone got sick after that feast.

EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants under guise of hygiene

Posted on by
Reply

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisanal food makers.

The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be Olive-oil-bottle-smbanned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week.

From next year olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in line with EU industrial standards.

The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls and the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business will be outlawed.

Sam Clark, the food writer, chef and proprietor of the award winning Moro restaurant in London, told The Daily Telegraph that the ban would stop him serving his customers specially selected Spanish olive oil in dipping bowls with bread when they are seated at their table.

“This will affect us. It is about choice and freedom of choice. We buy our oil, which we have selected from a farm in Spain, to serve our customers,” he said

“Yet more packaging is not going to be eco-friendly and will limit choice to more mass produced products.”

The European Commissions justification for the ban, under special Common Agriculture Policy regulations, is “hygiene” and to protect the “image of olive oil” with a measure that will benefit struggling industrial producers in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

From the beginning of next year, Britain, which abstained during a vote of national food experts on the issues on Tuesday, must enforce the ban via local authority food inspections of restaurants.

Officials defended the ban as a protection for consumers who would know that they were getting a safe, guaranteed product with proper labeling of its olive.oil.dippingorigin and with tamper-proof, hygienic dispensers.

“This is to guarantee the quality and authenticity of the olive oil put at the disposal of consumers. The aim is to better inform and protect consumer. We also expect hygiene to be improved too,” said an official.

Then I want space-aged smartphone food verification labels on every item ordered at a restaurant.

Have there been any microbial outbreaks to support such a ban?

More E. coli testing, labels for tenderized beef, but questions remain in Canadian food safety plans

Posted on by
1

Canada is strengthening its E. coli testing in summer months and will mandate labeling of mechanically or needle tenderized beef, but some omissions are notable.

• The changes only apply to meat produced at federal plants inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. How do consumers know which is which?

• The labeling requirements only apply to cuts that are tenderized at a CFIA-regulated slaughterhouse. What about cuts that are treated further down the supply system? Health Canada says it’s working on it.

• Most notable, the expanded testing for E. coli only applies to the O157:H7/NM serotype (details of the changes are at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/meavia/man/ch4/annexoe.shtml). There is no mention of testing for other shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STECs) such as the big six (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145) which were declared adulterants by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I’m fairly sure that those slaughterhouses that want to continue exporting to the U.S. will have to meet U.S. testing requirements. As a consumer I’d like to know which meat has been produced under such a system of testing.

The changes follow an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 last fall that sickened 18 people. Contaminated product was produced at XL Foods of Alberta and led to the largest meat recall in Canadian history. Several of those sickened were tenderizingPage-282x300thought to have consumed needle-tenderized product (with this technique, outside becomes inside, like hamburger, so should be cooked to 165F for safety reasons; I don’t know anyone that spends on the expense of a roast and then cooks to 165F).

Ritz said, “Canada has a world-class food safety system and our Government is committed to taking real steps to make it even stronger.”

Uh-huh.

Ritz said of labeling of mechanical tenderization beef, “It’s common sense, but it needs to be out there.”

Uh-huh.

“Can we guarantee there’ll never be anymore (outbreaks)? No. Anybody that tells you you can is lying to you. It wouldn’t matter how much money, how many people you have on the lines, there’s too many moving parts to Chicago_meat_inspection_swift_co_1906-268x300guarantee an absolute. But at the end of the day, we want to take every precaution we can.”

Uh-huh.

A table of non- E. coli O157 STEC outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/nonO157outbreaks

Dumb rules: EU sets out post-horsemeat food standards

Posted on by
2

EU Health Commissioner, Tonio Borg said May 6, 2013, the European political environment needs to loosen its ties on the agri-food sector, if is to be competitive in the future, while simultaneously creating a farm-to-fork food safety revolution to curb future horse-heads-in-bed-burgers incidents.

Speaking in Brussels, Borg announced the terms of the commission’s proposals on what is termed “smarter rules for safer food.”  The package of legislative borat.bathing.suitproposals covers a series of topics, such as labeling and food chain safety. The message is the same as that touted out during the recent horsemeat scandal; that European food sources are impeccable – it is labelling fraud that undermines consumer confidence.

EU types may want to check out those suppliers.

Also, health head Borg earned himself a spot in the barfblog.com we-have-the-safest-food-in-the-world hall of shame by stating, Europe has the highest food safety standards in the world.”

There’s little evidence anyone is following those standards, as shown by horsehead Europa.

The European Commission itself proclaimed in writing the package it has adopted “provides a modernized and simplified, more risked-based approach to the protection of health and more efficient control tools to ensure the effective application of the rules guiding the operation of the food chain.

“The package responds to the call for better simplification of legislation and smarter regulation thus reducing administrative burden for operators and simplifying the regulatory environment. Special consideration is given to the impact of this legislation on SMEs and micro enterprises which are exempted from the most costly and burdensome elements in the legislation.”

These people can’t write a clear press release, how can they be expected to write clear legislation?

 “In a nutshell, the package aims to provide smarter rules for safer food.”

No one actually writes, in a nutshell” and it sounds creepy when someone says it. No one thinks these rules are smarter just because Borg says they are. And when EU.simply.food.safe.regsrepeatedly talking about a package, I’m thinking Borat’s bathing suit.

The package will introduce a single piece of legislation to regulate animal health in the EU based on the principle that “prevention is better than cure.”

Don’t write with dick fingers; it’s unbefitting such a moral and scientific authority as the EU.

If passed by EU member governments and the European Parliament, the proposed revamp, boiling down existing legislation and sharpening testing regimes, will introduce:

– financial penalties directly related to profits from “fraud”;

– and mandatory spot-check testing, as opposed to the power only to recommend inspections, as now.

But the changes will not affect, in the main, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or micro-businesses, a large part of the post-industrial food chain.

Neither will stipulations governing the important seed sector be applied to godfather_horse“private gardeners,” who will still be able to buy seeds “in small quantities” on open markets.

That should doom any efforts to control raw sprout safety. After 53 deaths and 4,400 illnesses from E. coli contaminated sprouts in 2011, maybe the Eurocrats sould focus on the entire food system, not just the political expediency of big ag.

WHO: the global view of Campylobacteriosis

Posted on by
Reply

From July 9-11, 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), convened an Expert Consultation on The Global View of Campylobacteriosis, in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Below are the general conclusions:

 Considerable new evidence, data, and analytical tools have emerged in the ten chicken.campy.vaccineyears since the previous WHO consultations on Campylobacter.

 In terms of public health actions, there is already a sufficient evidence base to address the burden of disease from C. jejuni and C. coli. The importance of other species in terms of burden of disease is still unclear, but is considered unlikely to eclipse these two species.

 Public health surveillance can provide important basic information to policy-makers about the frequency of infection, who is affected, and the success of specific prevention strategies. Surveillance is the starting point for studies of burden of disease and source attribution.

 There is a need for standardization and validation of laboratory methods.

 Burden of disease studies provide the evidence base that drives the need for control measures across all outcomes of Campylobacteriosis while taking into consideration its underestimation.

 There is considerable potential for the identification of new sequelae from acute infection. However, decision criteria are needed on the level of evidence required to add outcomes to burden estimates. This applies to all sequelae, and may increase burden estimates considerably.

 In order to reduce exposure countries should be encouraged to adopt the recently developed Codex Guidelines for the Control of Campylobacter and Salmonella in chicken meat which promote a risk based approach to the management of Campylobacter in chicken meat traded internationally. campy.who.jul.12Consideration should be given to the development of additional guidance and recommendations for the management of Campylobacter in other potential food vehicles that are traded internationally.

 Source attribution studies should adopt a holistic attitude, considering multiple sources and pathways of exposure. Where possible attribution estimates should combine both molecular tying and epidemiological data and include measures of uncertainty.

 Although poultry is the dominant source of infection in many countries, controlling Campylobacter in poultry meat will not completely eliminate the disease in humans. Options are available to control other pathways which are based on general hygiene, generic control measures including biosecurity and sanitation.

 Reducing the load of Campylobacter in poultry to a level with a low probability of causing illness is unlikely to be achieved by any single pre-harvest or post-harvest intervention. Success will most likely occur through use of multiple stepwise interventions to lower the load of Campylobacter on or in each bird on the farm and in the processing facility.

 The epidemiology of Campylobacteriosis is likely to be different in high-income countries versus LMIC. This will affect control options.

 GFN, as an international training and capacity development network, will play a key role in promoting better and more consistent methodologies and quality assurance for work with Campylobacter. Where possible, GFN should link with other international networks, such as FERG, which is promoting capacity development in estimation of burden of foodborne disease.

The complete report is available at https://extranet.who.int/iris/restricted/bitstream/10665/80751/1/9789241564601_eng.pdf.

Everybody says they’re in favor of food safety, but who wants to pay for it

Posted on by
1

Barry Wilson has been writing about agriculture in Canada for Western Producer magazine as long as I’ve been around.

consumer.foodsafe.supermarketAnd he usually gets it right.

Wilson writes that many consumers say what they know they should say or what they believe their ethics dictate when it comes to food and food safety. Then they head to the bargain bins or the box stores where they can get the best prices.

All the evidence points to most consumers saying one thing and doing another – supporting all the good things about Canadian food production in theory, but then heading to the cheap ice cream, the imported tomatoes or apples, the meat from wherever.

For farmers, this is an old problem.

Society wants more but refuses to pay more.

Consumers and customers of Canadian food production insist on safe, ecologically responsible production but generally aren’t prepared to pay more for it and consider it simply the cost of doing business.

The vast majority of food producers want to do the right thing for ethical and market reasons but often can’t afford the additional cost. 

Sequester to reduce FDA food inspections, Powell says, eh?

Posted on by
2

I had to explain to my mom today what sequestration was.

They had just returned from Boston with my sister’s family, and were wondering why all the flights were delayed.

powell_kids_ge_sweet_corn_cider_00I said, sequestration.

She said, what?

I explained how there was these mandated budget cuts and it was now impacting air traffic controllers, so a lot of flights were delayed.

I may have sounded reasonable because I had just got off the phone with Liz Szabo of USA Today, about the effects of sequestration on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Or not.

Liz writes that FDA is losing $209 million because of the sequester; it will perform about 2,100 fewer food inspections because of the cuts; and consumer advocates worry that less oversight will increase foodborne illness outbreaks.

Guess I’m not a self-proclaimed advocate, cause I told her something different.

“Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said private companies have no reason to slack off on food safety, with sorenne.powell.venice.floridaor without inspections.

“Because companies are legally liable for the safety of their food, they have a strong economic incentive to inspect their own products and prevent outbreaks.

“The government is there to maintain a minimal standard, but they really inspect very little food,” Powell said. “It is in a company’s best interest to take that seriously and not make their customers barf.”

FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY the agency will conduct fewer food safety inspections this year because of the government sequester.

To which I said, uh-huh.

While consumers may not feel the impact immediately, the loss of $209 million from its budget will force the agency to conduct about 2,100 fewer inspections, an 18% decline compared to last year.

The funding loss, part of the $85 billion in automatic budget cuts that took effect March 1, will also delay the agency’s implementation of the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act, Hamburg said in an interview with the USA TODAY Editorial Board. “Nobody is more frustrated than we are” that the law isn’t yet in practice, said Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.

347 sick; 8 multistate outbreaks of human Salmonella infections linked to small turtles

Posted on by
Reply

On March 30, 2012, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced an outbreak of Salmonella in small turtles that had sickened 66 people – mainly kids – across three states.

That initial outbreak has progressively grown to eight multistate outbreaks sickening at least 347 people with Salmonella Sandiego, Newport, Pomona, Poona, I 4,[5],12:i:-, and Typhimurium from 37 states and the District of Turtle signColumbia in overlapping, multistate outbreaks linked to contact with small turtles and their habitats. Characteristics of the outbreaks are summarized below:

• 28% of ill persons have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported;

• 70% of ill persons are children 10 years of age or younger, and 33% of ill persons are children 1 year of age or younger;

• 44% of ill persons are of Hispanic ethnicity;

• 70% of ill persons reported exposure to turtles prior to their illness;

 • 90% of ill persons with turtle exposure specifically reported exposure to small turtles (shell length less than 4 inches); and,

• 33% of ill persons with small turtles reported purchasing the turtles from street vendors, and 11% reported purchasing small turtles from pet stores.

Small turtles are a well-known source of human Salmonella infections, especially among young children. Because of this risk, the Food and Drug Administration has banned the sale and distribution of these turtles as pets since 1975. Turtles with a shell length of less than 4 inches in size should not be purchased as pets or given as gifts.

Tourists warned of the dangers of sea turtles

Posted on by
Reply

Sorenne is going to a new kindy for two days a week. It seems groovy, and after the intro parent meeting they took me up on my issues and used some extra budget to buy two refrigerators for food safety reasons.

But about the turtle.

There’s a large turtle in an aquarium that attracts the childrens’ attention – and fingers.

According to research published in the RSM Short Reports, researchers found that turtles in captivity carry the risk of exposure to toxic OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAcontaminants and zoonotic pathogens – which able to move from animals to humans – such as bacteria, viruses and parasites.

The review was based on a four-year case study of the Cayman Turtle Farm in Grand Cayman, Caribbean, which attracted an estimated 1.2 million visitors.

Most of the turtles at the farm are green sea turtles.

Clifford Warwick, lead author of the report, said the conditions the turtles are kept in plays a key role in the increased risk factors.

“Significantly, the captive farming of turtles arguably increases the threat to health, in particular from bacteria, due to the practice of housing many turtles in a relatively confined space and under intensive conditions,” he said.

Warwick said the findings highlight the need for further investigation and awareness.