During the 728 or so interviews I’ve done on tomatoes and Salmonella in the past week, a radio reporter in Calgary asked me, as did several other Canadian outlets,

"What is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency doing?"

"Nothing."

CFIA can speak for itself.

When asked if Canadians were safe from this outbreak, I said, maybe, depends on first figuring out where the contaminated tomatoes were grown, then depends on what was coming into Canada at that point in time.

That uncertainty would help explain why Canadian fast-food outlets pulled fresh tomatoes from their offerings — at least until the source could be verified.

But, I added, even if someone did get sick, it would be difficult to notice because Canadian health surveillance sucks.

Apparently the Canadian Medical Association agrees, calling the system,

"a national embarrassment."

Dr. Kumanan Wilson writes in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that the Auditor General of Canada has warned 3 times, most recently in May, 2008, that Canada’s failure to develop surveillance systems puts Canadians at risk.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Amir Attaran  of the University of Ottawa, writing on behalf of CMAJ’s editorial team, calls upon the federal government to "legislate a way past the jurisdictional schisms" and make information regarding health epidemics readily available. Currently, "12 of 13 provinces are under no obligation to share information with the federal government or the rest of Canada during an outbreak," writes Dr. Attaran. "We at CMAJ believe this is a national embarrassment."