What is going on at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency?

Yesterday, CFIA and Cardinal Meat Specialists Ltd. yet again expanded a creeping recall of hamburgers possibly contaminated with E. coli O157:H7  to more burgers, and said no one had gotten sick from any of the products.

Maybe not any of the newly recalled products — most with a best before date of June 2007, nice gumshoe work, CFIA — but a Nov. 13/07 CFIA press release said Cardinal Meat Specialists Ltd. was recalling some burgers and that one person was sick with E. coli O157:H7 from those lots of burgers.

The story begins Sept. 29/07 when Topps Meat of New Jersey issued the second largest ground beef recall in U.S. history. After 40 illnesses in eight states, and recalling 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger — one year’s worth of production — Topps filed for bankruptcy Wednesday.

On October 26, USDA said a now-defunct Canadian firm, Rancher’s Beef of Balzac, Alberta, was the likely source of bacteria-contaminated meat used by Topps. CFIA said it was investigating 45 illnesses and one death caused by E. coli O157:H7 but wouldn’t say if it was linked to Rancher’s Beef.

They’ve been playing footsie with the public ever since.

The recall prompted the USDA to announce changes in how it will inspect meat plants and would move faster to encourage recalls. On Nov. 4, 2007, USDA FSIS announced that it would increase testing of Canadian beef imports at the border.

CFIA is ncreasingly irrelevant – except in their own minds. I’ve received e-mails from food and health-types at both local and provincial levels asking what’s going on at CFIA and complaining about bureaucracy run amok.

A single federal food inspection agency has its drawbacks.