Tag Archives: Canada

Is hard-nosed science-based? Canadian food safety minister speaks

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After 23 people died linked to Maple Leaf cold-cuts in 2008, and 16 now sickened with E. coli O157 linked to the XL plant in Alberta, the person who is still, inexplicitly, the Canadian Minister of Agriculture, responsible for food safety activities, Gerry Ritz, has made his most revealing statement yet:

Government inspectors could have been “more hard-nosed.”

I’m not sure hard-nosed is a science- or evidence-based term that would be valued by a science-based organization like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which reports to Ritz.

Sarah Schmidt reports that while speaking to parliamentarians Ritz said,“Looking back, what would we have done different? I think CFIA would have been a lot harder-nosed on getting the material from XL rather than being nice, and going the format with the letter and so on. You stand banging at the door until you got it. But we weren’t seeing any illness spikes to drive us to decertification. That wasn’t happening,” while characterizing license decertification as a “nuclear strike.”

Compare that with getting E. coli O157.

On Sept. 6, CFIA verbally requested distribution information and testing results for all products produced on Aug. 24 and Aug. 28, the days when the affected products were made. The agency followed up a day later with a written request to provide the documents by Sept. 8.

The documents were provided over a two-day period, Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, and Ritz testified Thursday the company “was not that forthcoming.” And when the records rolled in, there were “boxes of paper work that then had to be analyzed.”

Ritz added: “I don’t think they were intentionally trying to hide anything,” but rather “giving voluminous paperwork to cover off the bases.”

16 sick with E. coli O157; XL beef debacle highlights shared complacency between Canadian government and industry

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The number of confirmed sick people linked to beef from the XL plant in Alberta has risen to 16, the plant is eager to reopen but a former employee says CFIA sucks at inspection, and major media taunt pretty much everyone, especially the terrible communication from government types.

André Picard of the Globe and Mail says that with 16 people sick with E. coli O157:H7, “It’s not the most lethal public-health problem we have ever had in this country, but the
response has to rank among the most ridiculous.

“The response to tainted beef from officialdom has largely been buffoonery: The Agri-Business Minister chowing down on beef at a Rotary luncheon at the height of the crisis; the Alberta Premier saying her 10-year-old daughter has eaten beef every day since the recall; the Wildrose Leader saying the suspect meat should be used to feed the poor and so on.

“The clear message behind these “don’t worry, be happy” displays is that the interests of business matter more than the health of consumers. Sadly, the anti-consumer bias is built into our government structure.

“We have a federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Business, and Gerry Ritz has played the industry-booster role well, repeatedly expressing his concern for XL Foods, the cattle industry and the economy of Brooks, Alta. But he has been all but silent on those who have been sickened and on the safety of consumers more generally.

“What we don’t have is a minister of food to give voice to the millions who actually eat food and a Canadian Food Inspection Agency not under the ministerial thumb and whose overriding priority is ensuring safe and pathogen-free food on our dinner tables.

“Our political leaders – federal and provincial – behave as if food safety is solely the responsibility of individual consumers, and it is troubling that they are using public agencies to deliver this wrong-headed message.

“Consumers should not be responsible for cooking their meat to death to kill E.coli any more than they should be responsible for pasteurizing their own milk or boiling their tap water before drinking it.

“Food-safety regulations should be designed and enforced to protect the public, not industry. The folks at Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should be allowed to do their jobs, unfettered. They should not be reduced to issuing asinine press releases to mollify the powers that be.”

What follows is finger-pointing from various media accounts.

One consultant lobbyist who is also a communications expert who did not want to be named (how Canadian) told The Hill Times last week that Minister of Agriculture Gerry Ritz’s strategy is worse than when more than 23 people died in 2008 from listeriosis.

The lobbyist added, Mr. Ritz has no effective key messages that he’s been delivering. “I mean what’s the message track? You can’t just repeat that public safety is our number one priority while people are falling over sick around the country and puking their guts out. There’s no credibility.”

A former XL Foods Inc. manager  who now works as a food safety consultant, told CBC News federal inspectors lack sufficient training.

Former XL Foods quality assurance manager Jacci Dorran said CFIA inspectors often knew less about their own food safety requirements than her employees.

Dorran worked at XL Foods for 10½ years until August 2006.

Dorran said she watched as the CFIA was created in 1997 and followed its evolution.

“It was very common that my staff was training the CFIA,” said Dorran.

“They weren’t necessarily going out into the plant. They might just show up there and read the paper, do the crossword puzzles,” she said.

“They need to be helping the meat industry so we don’t get to this point.”

Dorran said the CFIA problem started when the CFIA started requiring plants to have “hazard analysis critical control point” (HACCP) plans.

“The new philosophy is give us a bunch of paperwork and then we spend more time filling out paperwork on how we’re supposed to fix it other than actually being out on the floor and fix it ourselves — that really bothered me.”

It also emerged that XL is fighting allegations that one of its plants was the source eight years ago of tainted meat that left a young child severely disabled.

Federal government reports indicate as many as 26 other people may also have become sick in 2004 from the same genetic strain of bacteria found in product that a lawsuit claims came from an XL Foods facility.

The company argues it bears no liability for a Winnipeg boy who a legal action claims lost mobility in three limbs, suffers developmental delays and endures severe, ongoing pain caused by eating food containing ground meat tainted with the potentially-fatal bacteria.

Kathy Richard says a few bowls of hamburger soup her grandson ate landed him in hospital for 17 months and left him with no hope of a normal life.

“He was a muscular, little two-and-a-half year old who loved to wrestle and ride his toy motorcycle,” Richard said.

“Now he’s in a wheelchair, wears diapers, and has to be fed through a tube in his stomach.”

Richard is angry that XL Foods is accepting responsibility for the current E. coli cases, but blaming her daughter for what happened eight years ago.

“It’s upsetting,” she said.

“I wonder how they were able to make the same mistake. Did they not learn from the last time?”

Richard says she calls her grandson a “miracle boy,” who managed to survive his medical ordeal after receiving a kidney transplant.

But she said he still suffers from occasional seizures and is only able to communicate by making noises that family members and caregivers understand.

15 sick; food safety failures, arrogance in Canada’s E. coli O157 outbreak

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In mid-1994, Michael Taylor was appointed chief of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.  On Sept. 29, 1994, USDA said it would now regard E. coli O157:H7 in raw ground beef as an “adulterant,” a substance that should not be present in the product. By mid-October, 1994, Taylor announced plans to launch a nationwide sampling of ground beef to assess how much E. coli O157:H7 was in the marketplace. The 5,000 samples would be taken during the year from supermarkets and meat processing plants “to set an example and stimulate companies to put in preventive measures.” Positive samples would prompt product recalls of the entire affected lot, effectively removing it from any possibility of sale.
That’s the long-winded version for what a USDA official said in a 1994 television interview: we’ll stop blaming consumers when they get sick from the food and water they consume.

With 15 confirmed E. coli O157 illness across Canada linked to XL Foods in Alberta, the company laid off 2,000 employees Saturday, then called 800 back to work so they can get on with re-opening the plant the Canadian Food Inspection Agency closed Sept. 27, 2012.

Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture said, “My thoughts are with the workers and the community affected by this private sector business decision.”

He didn’t say anything about the sick people, other than platitudes about how “we won’t compromise when it comes to the safety of Canadians’ food.”

But there’s lots of others eager to blame consumers, almost 20 years after the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak sparked Taylor’s actions.

Dr. Jean Kamanzi, who used to be a director at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and now is responsible for food hygiene in Africa for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Program said any E. coli bacteria in the meat could be rendered harmless if it’s cooked to a safe internal temperature — 71 degrees Celsius.

“The meat we’re now throwing into the garbage, which contains this so-called E. coli, if you take it and cook it like you’re supposed to there’s no problem. It’s edible. These are good proteins. … “This is collective hysteria. We’re throwing away meat, we’re throwing everything away. Maybe we’re in a rich country and we can allow ourselves the luxury of not taking any risks at all — but these risks, we take them every day when we touch meat.”

Jean’s point about this being a problem for wealthy countries is taken, but it’s not collective hysteria, especially to the people who got sick.

Dr. Sylvain Quessy, who teaches meat hygiene and is the vice-dean at the faculty of veterinary medicine at the University of Montreal, says that, from a statistical standpoint, the number of illnesses associated with the type of E. coli in the XL Foods safety investigation — 15 Canadian cases in a month — is not especially alarming.

“Everyone’s worrying about a number of cases that is not excessive compared with what you’d normally expect. What we’re telling people — it’s as true now as it was before — is you need to cook your meat properly. (And) wash your hands and wash the things the raw meat touched and you eliminate the danger.”

Sylvain Charlebois of the University of Guelph, said, “If you cook your meat correctly and thoroughly, you will likely eliminate all risks. I would argue that if we educate the public, and we make sure that consumers know what to do with their beef products, you will likely eliminate most of the risks.”

And I thought Australia was stuck in the 1980s.

The feds responded, “despite the fact that proper cooking and handling of food helps prevent illness, the best way to protect yourself is to not eat recalled products at all.”

Taylor did what he did back in 1994 based on the extreme virulence of shiga-toxin producing E. coli like O157:H7, the underestimated risk of cross-contamination, and that food safety isn’t simple, it’s complex. Consumers and food service workers have a role, but these other factors mean loads must be reduced throughout the system.

And this is without getting into the risk of needle- or blade-tenderized steaks and roasts, which sickened some of the people in the XL outbreak.

Just cook it doesn’t cut it. The U.S. meat industry has been told this for years. Why doesn’t Canada?

And although officials insist it was planned months before the XL fiasco, CFIA is going to be audited later this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the first time in three years.

Canada exported more than $4 billion worth of beef and pork in 2010, much of it to the United States.

The final USDA report from its 2009 CFIA audit found weaknesses in the ability of Canadian inspectors to verify consistent sanitation and hazard protection in some slaughter plants, but noted the agency was planning to take action to deal with the shortcomings.

It also said agency inspectors and supervisors were routinely not following procedures for monitoring sanitation controls as laid out by the CFIA.

“Principal areas of weakness included the inability of inspection personnel to implement consistent sanitation and hazard analysis and critical control points verification procedures,” says the report, which was sent to the CFIA in October 2010.

“And, more significantly, (there is) the lack/loss of consistent supervisory reviews to identify weaknesses in inspection performance when it occurred.”

The report did find that the Canadian inspection system adequately verified testing for generic E. coli.

This banter is of no use to people sickened in the outbreak.

Mancini knows cross-contamination

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Actors may not know cross-contamination, but former TV heartthrob, about to be famous scientific author (more about that later), Kansas State MS grad and Winnipeg health inspector Rob Mancini proved he knows his stuff as he hammered home the importance of cross-contamination on CityTV the other day.

The video is at:

http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/1877249789001.000000/thanksgiving-food-preperation/

 

We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger; at Summit Series in Moscow, Canadians asked, where’s the beef?

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We got to go to the gymnasium to watch the final game of the Canada-Soviet hockey summit, but even though I got out of grade 5 for a few hours and Canada won, I was still gutted that personal hero and goaltending guide, Tony Esposito, didn’t get to play.

Forty years ago Friday, Canada beat the Soviets in Moscow in the final and deciding game of the 1972 Summit Series. It could have gone either way, as the sportscasters say: a last-minute goal by Paul Henderson was the difference.

But as reported in the New York Times,  in the flurry of this month’s 40th anniversary commemorations, was the fiercest of fuels in Team Canada’s Moscow fire forgotten? Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that the greatest of Canadian hockey triumphs boils down to this: they never should have messed with our chow.

In 1972, the Canadians contingent brought their own steaks and lots of beer. But the Soviets pilfered it all.

It’s a tale of woe that has long been woven into the legend of that momentous September, a whodunit that has been revived in several new books this fall, including memoirs by Paul Henderson and Brad Park.

Team Canada was brimming with groceries when it arrived in Moscow on Sept. 20 all those years ago. Henderson said they were packing 300 pounds. Coach Harry Sinden’s ’72 memoir, “Hockey Showdown,” said it was 300 steaks. In his 2003 autobiography, “Thunder and Lightning,” Phil Esposito said Team Canada arrived in Moscow with 350 cases of beer, 350 cases of milk, 350 cases of soda.

That means they had 8,400 beers for nine days in Moscow, for a contingent of, say, 50 guys, players, staff and officials. That is an allowance of 168 bottles for every man, or about 18.6 for each of the nine days they were in Moscow.

That’s how Canadians roll.

Piecing together accounts from Henderson, Park and Rod Gilbert over the years, about 100 cases of beer disappeared after the fifth game.

As for the steaks, Mahovlich was on to the hotel’s chefs. “They cut them in half, so we only had half a steak,” he recalled, most recently in this fall’s “Team Canada 1972: The Official 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Summit Series.” “So we complained. Before the third game, they cut the thickness in half. We complained again. It wasn’t until the last game that we finally got a whole steak.”

“The Russian cooks sold the steaks to others in search of a decent meal, many of whom turned out to be our zany Canadian fans,” Henderson wrote. “For about ten dollars U.S. you could get just about anything you wanted, including those precious steaks. The only two Russian dishes that were acceptable to me were borscht and chicken Kiev. The rest was just terrible.”

For all their suffering, the players’ lot was better than what their wives had to endure.

According to Park, this was where the Soviets really screwed up: by angering the wives with disrespect and disgusting food.

Mozzarella mafia: cheese smuggling ring is brought down in Canada

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Canadians have gone hardcore as notorious cheese smugglers.

NPR reports a “large scale Canada-U.S. cheese smuggling operation” has been brought down, after an international investigation tracked criminals who were skirting import duties and Canada’s higher cheese prices.

“The investigation revealed over $200,000 worth of cheese and other products were purchased and distributed for an estimated profit of over $165,000,” Niagara police said.

The smugglers — one current and one former police officer, and one civilian — reportedly sought out pizza restaurants to move their merchandise. News emerged this week that charges would soon be announced against what Mark called a “mozzarella mafia.”

As Windsor, Ontario, pizzeria owner Bob Abumeeiz told the CBC, he has been asked several times if he’s interested in buying cheese smuggled from America, where prices are anywhere from a third to half what they are in Canada.

“Cheese is the white gold in the restaurant business. Cheese is 50 percent of the taste on a pizza,” he said. “The price is rising every year two or three percent.”

The network operated in Ontario, where two of the accused have worked for the Niagara Regional Police Service.

It takes two: Evans replaced as food safety-vet honcho at CFIA

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The people I respect most are those I can have disagreements with, based on some sort of evidence, but can still share a beer with (preferably 1 beer, two or more swirly straws).

That’s why I’m in Brisbane with Amy, why I tolerate Chapman’s inability to write, and why I’m sad to see Brian Evans go as Canada’s top veterinarian and food safety dude.

Not surprising, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency needed two people to replace him.

Evans was appointed Canada’s first and only chief vet in 2004 and added the role as of
country’s chief food safety officer in 2010.

I don’t really know him, but Evans has always been forthright – as much as someone in government can be – patient, polite and eager. He seemed to have an extraordinary ability to tolerate meetings while appearing calm and collected.

I would last about three hours in government.

Evans worked in private practice in Newfoundland and Ontario before being recruited to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as a veterinary inspector in 1982, and went on to establish Canada’s regulatory standards for international trade in animal embryos.

By 1997, he was named director of AAFC’s animal health division, and became executive director of CFIA’s animal products directorate the following year.

I have often praised Evans’ public and professional work during Canada’s first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 2003.

Unlike every other country that has discovered BSE, consumption of beef in Canada actually increased. While price discounts, advertising, and promotional statements from various social actors about the safety of Canadian beef probably contributed to the sales increase, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was completely transparent, publicly showcasing — in the form of daily press conferences lead by Canada’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Brian Evans — a vigilant, proactive regulatory system, while acknowledging the likelihood that the disease was not limited to just one animal. Dr. Evans and his team provided daily updates that said, this is what we know, this is what we don’t know, and this is what we’re doing to find out more. And when we find out more, you will hear it from us first. Transparency, along with efforts to demonstrable that actions match words, is the best way to enhance consumer confidence.

Being on the frontlines is far more interesting than academic babble.

Dr. Martine Dubuc is Canada’s new chief food safety officer and Dr. Ian Alexander has been appointed as the new chief veterinary officer.

Dr. Dubuc has been with the CFIA since November 2008 and previously worked at senior levels in the Quebec government with responsibility for animal health and the food safety system. She will continue her work as the CFIA’s Vice-President of Science.

As Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Alexander will provide national leadership to ensure that Canada’s animal and veterinary public health infrastructure is positioned to effectively manage current and emerging disease threats in order to protect animal and human health, and to maintain international trust in Canada’s inspection and certification systems in support of market access.

 

Several people sick; Mexican mangoes sold in Canada may contain Salmonella Braenderup

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I don’t like mangoes. I’ve tried because they grow in trees on front lawns in Brisbane, but the flesh is too pulpy; makes an excellent juice though.

For those Canadians living tropical fantasies for the last days of summer, beware those mangoes from Mexico.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and North American Produce Sales are warning the public not to consume the mangoes described below because they may be contaminated with Salmonella Braenderup bacteria.

The affected Mangoes, product of Mexico, were sold as individual fruit with a sticker bearing PLU# 4959 and other information. These mangoes were sold at various retail stores between July 12 and August 14, 2012. Consumers are advised to contact the retailer to find out if you have the affected mangoes. If you have illness symptoms or any health concerns possibly associated with these mangoes, please contact your family doctor.

These mangoes may have been distributed in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.

There have been several confirmed illnesses associated with the consumption of these mangoes.

Surveys suck: Canadians continue to have confidence in Canada’s food safety myths

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Canadians paid $93,000 for 1,009 of their fellow citizens to get probed.

A lot.

That $93,000 – and weeks of civil servant salaries – also reminded Canadians they were confident in Canada’s food safety system.

According to results from a recent study commissioned by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). 93 per cent of Canadians surveyed expressed a degree of confidence in Canada’s food safety system

I’m not sure what a degree of confidence is, but that didn’t stop Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz from proclaiming, with a straight face, “Canadians trust this government to protect the safety of Canada’s food supply and rightly so.”

The final, awful study Food Safety: Canadians’ Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviours PDF (2,024 kb) (POR 029-11) can be found on the Library and Archives Canada’s website at www.porr-rrop.gc.ca.

Specific objectives of the research included:

• probe Canadians’ views on the government’s food safety communications and provision of food safety information, including allergen information;
• probe Canadians’ understanding of food inspections and the role of a federal food inspector;
• probe Canadians’ understanding of the food safety system and the role of the CFIA;
• probe Canadians’ understanding of standards for imported foods and labelling; and,
• probe Canadians’ information needs and channel preferences.

 

Canada – it’s not even a real country anyway

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Is it Canada Day or Canada Dry?

Thanks Sarah Silverman.

Canada, the summit of mediocrity, and where a Maple Leafs jersey can only be cool 15,000 miles away.

That’s Sorenne with teacher Nancy at pre-school. Nancy was born in Arnprior, raised in Pembroke that’s near Ottawa, in Canada (hello Alanis).

To my fans at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency who think my mentions of geography is derogatory and are once again dispensing crappy food safety advice for Canada Day, I have readers in 69 other countries who aren’t as self-important as Canada.

Nancy said, I don’t suppose you’d know where Pembroke is, which was the perfect launching point into a twisted tale of hallucinogens, backroads with my friend Dave and my high school sweetheart’s family cottage in nearby Barry’s Bay.

Nancy said I had an evil past.

I said I just like to tell stories.

Nancy was arranging pancakes and maple syrup for today, but they don’t let me cook – even though I volunteered – after I showed up with my own tip sensitive digital thermometer.

Canada Day – it’s not even a real country anyway.