I’ve already given Kevin Allen enough attention – the dude who really enjoyed himself too much while bouncing hockey pucks off my head – but he’s polite enough to give credit and he took my risk analysis course back in 1998 when he was a fledgling graduate student.
The course devotes a lot of time to food safety risk communication and Kevin, being a bright guy, thought, CBC is about to call and ask me about Salmonella in hydrolyzed vegetable protein, I’ll check in with Doug for some tips.
Kevin called, I told him to figure out what his couple of key messages were and hammer them home, cause TV and radio are relentless in their quest for simplicity, and the result is in the first couple of minutes in the video available at
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Local_News/BC/ID=1435456122
Not bad, although his second soundbite may have had more Canadian credibility if he said, “as a father of two children and a hockey player (goon)” but who am I to quibble.
Canada, meet your newest food safety spokesthingy, from Belleville, Ontario, now plying at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Kevin Allen (above, right, exactly as shown).