Tag Archives: Ontario

Listeria spike in Ontario triggers deaths and hospitalizations – who knew what when?

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Robert Cribb of the Toronto Star is reporting tonight that two Ontarians were hospitalized — and another two deaths are being investigated — in relation to a listeria outbreak traced to a Toronto deli meat manufacturer.

Its part of a dramatic spike in listeria cases in Ontario since January that has renewed concerns about the country’s food safety system 18 months after 22 Canadians died in the Maple Leaf tragedy (fiasco – dp).

Packages of prosciutto cotto cooked ham and mild cacciatore salami made by Siena Foods Ltd. have been targeted as a possible cause in the outbreak.

The company’s salami was recalled in December and the ham was recalled early Friday. Both were sold to delis, grocery stores, specialty food stores and supermarkets after January 11.

“We are using a variety of different methods to … prevent any further exposure to this product by the public,” said

Siena officials did not respond to interview requests Friday.

Since January, the province has had 14 confirmed listeria cases (six in Toronto) — well beyond the eight that is typically expected for this point in the year, said Dr. Arlene King, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.

Two Torontonians were sickened by a strain of the pathogen that matches with the Siena meat, hospitalized and are now recovering, she said. At least seven people across the province have been hospitalized since January from listeria.

Two Ontarians died during the same time the tainted Siena meat was in the marketplace, she confirmed. But provincial officials are still investigating whether there is a direct connection between those deaths and the company’s products.

Rick Holley, a microbiologist and food safety expert at the University of Manitoba and a consultant with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said,

“I haven’t seen improvement. We haven’t seen any reduction, in my view, of the risk. We’re not doing foodborne illness surveillance the way we should. I’m not encouraged that, materially, we’ve got the kind of buy-in by industry we need to move forward with confidence.”

Doug Powell, a Canadian food safety expert at Kansas State University, said,

“There’s clearly some bad stuff going at that plant. I would like (health officials) to be clear about what they know, what they don’t know and what they’re doing about it. I don’t know how these Canadian health types are allowed to operate the way they do and not say anything.”

Timeline:
December 21, 2009: The CFIA recalls Siera salami
March 3: The ministry began a detailed investigation with local health units to identify source of the illness
March 5: The ministry released an “enhanced surveillance directive” to health units to identify any other cases
March 9: The ministry was notified of the test results of food samples taken from one of the two cases of hospitalized victims. The genetic fingerprint from the prosciutto was an exact match to the salami and a sample taken from one of the infected people.
March 11: The CFIA recalls Siera cooked ham

Two listeriosis cases investigated in Ontario

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Ontario health officials are investigating two cases of listeriosis that appear to be linked to salami recalled from stores in Ontario and Quebec about three months ago.

The salami is sold by Siena Foods based in Toronto and was voluntarily recalled by the manufacturer on Dec. 21, 2009, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Wednesday. The best before date on the packaged meat is May 4, 2010.

Ontario health officials say they’ve been told two men became ill and are recovering at home. The officials wouldn’t say where the men live.

I understand the right to privacy, and the investigative angst regarding cases 3-months-old, but not releasing hometown information does little to jeopardize privacy and a lot to make sure others don’t come forward. And is this really the best various Canadian health bureaucrats can do in releasing timely information that may prevent others from barfing?

Canada: strive for mediocrity.

Is home butchering about economics, safety, or control? Should it be illegal to provide that meat to friends?

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Mark Tijssen, a major in the Canadian Forces, belongs to a group of churchgoers who butcher their own meat to, as they say, ensure its safety.

Apparently, Tijssen’s house had been under surveillance for several days last November before officers from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ottawa police stopped a car leaving the property and confiscated 18 kilograms of pork. Tijssen and a friend had jointly bought a pig and slaughtered it.

Now, Tijssen will appear in court next month to face charges of running an unlicensed slaughterhouse, failing to have an animal inspected both before and after slaughter, and distributing meat. If found guilty, Tijssen could face up to $100,000 in fines.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, it is permissible to butcher an animal if the food is for the person’s own family and none of the meat leaves the property where it was butchered. This allows farmers to raise their own food. It is against the law, however, to distribute the meat to anyone else.

Ron Doering, an Ottawa lawyer and former president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told the Ottawa Citizen Ontario’s rules on butchering and distribution of meat for personal use go far beyond those of other provinces. Saskatchewan, for example, has no provincial regulation and Newfoundland and Labrador has few regulations, while Quebec and British Columbia more closely resemble Ontario’s inspection regime.

Tijssen said he has butchered his own meat for years and cuts food costs by occasionally buying and butchering animals with a group of friends from his church. The members also have little faith in the safety of commercial meat products.

Brent Ross, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said the ministry moderates its enforcement of meat handling rules for religious or ethnic reasons, for example, when Muslims slaughter animals for religious reasons.

Tijssen and his friends from Faith Anglican Church say religion plays no part in their butchering practices. They just want economical and safe meat.
 

Restaurant inspection results now available on-line for London-lite

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As of 10 a.m. EST today, residents of London-lite (Ontario) can access the results of restaurant inspections back to June 2009 on-line at http://inspection.healthunit.com

Two weeks ago, London Free Press reporter Jonathan Sher ran a piece noting that local health types had promised a public disclosure system similar to Toronto’s red, yellow, green 16 months ago. The health unit had gotten busy and key personnel had departed, all reasonable explanations.

On Feb 11/10, Sher ran another piece, which disclosed that London diners unknowingly ate at places last year where inspectors found horrors from flies to feces.

Health inspectors shut down seven restaurants last year in London for stomach-turning reasons including:

* Egg noodles bound for diners were picked at first by flies that descended on an open container on a kitchen floor.

* A ventilation hood dripped grease on the food beneath.

* A restaurant with no hot water still made food — just with no place for kitchen staff to wash their hands.

* Mouse-like feces found on plates, shelves, behind the stove, on kitchen floors and behind a walk-in freezer.

* Uncovered food found on a food-encrusted floor in a walk-in fridge.

* Rags dirty from raw and cooked foods left on cutting boards.

* A restaurant with many health violations, even though a staffer had just completed the health unit’s food handling course.

If this were Toronto, red signs would have warned diners the places had been closed for something more serious than a holiday or renovation.

I told Sher there’s no doubt signs and other methods of public disclosure drive restaurants to be more careful, and that,

"They up their game . . . they don’t want the publicity.”

Today, The Middlesex-London Health Unit has launched a new, online resource for information on city restaurants.

Amazing how fast these things move with a little publicity.
 

2008 Ontario Harvey’s E. coli outbreak sickened 235; first court date set for Oct. 2010

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In the fall of 2008, 235 people got sick dining at a Harvey’s fast-food restaurant at a major thoroughfare in North Bay, Ontario, about four hours north of Toronto.

A report by the North Bay and District Health Unit concluded the outbreak was probably caused by raw Spanish onions and poor cleaning of onion slicing machines.

The North Bay Nugget reported Monday that a motion has been scheduled for October for a judge to decide whether a civil lawsuit against Harvey’s Restaurant will be certified as a class action.

The story says a judge decides if a lawsuit can proceed as a class action on behalf of a group of people in situations where the case would be too expensive or too complex for one person to sue on his own.
 

Restaurant ratings off the menu in London, Ontario

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Nearly 16 months after the local health board recommended posting food safety signs, they’re still at least a few months away, years after Toronto started with the red, yellow, green signs to advise wary consumers.

Jonathan Sher of the London Free Press (that’s in Ontario, Canada, not the U.K.) cited Jim Reffle, the director of environmental health at the London Middlesex Health Unit, as blaming the delay on a shuffling of bodies at city hall.

Reffle defended what, for Londoners, has been a decade-long wait to get the same protections offered in Toronto, a sign system that officials there linked to a 30% reduction in foodborne illness.

While Reffle first proposed a restaurant-inspection disclosure system in 2006, it took two years for he and the health board to agree on its details.

Many cities already disclose restaurant inspections, said Dr. Douglas Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, who taught at the University of Guelph and published work on the issue in the Journal of Food Service.

In cities that post inspection findings, diners often use them to select where to eat and restaurants strive for better compliance, he found.

You might think that would reduce foodborne illness, but the research in that area is inconclusive, he said.’

Restaurant inspection disclosure widely popular in Windsor, Ontario

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Like pretty much every other county or town that has implemented some form of restaurant inspection disclosure, the system is way popular in Windsor, Ontario.

About 1,300 locations have been inspected under the star ratings, including all of the premises in the highest-risk categories, said Deb Bennett, Windsor-Essex County Health Unit’s health protection director.

“We’ve gone six months now with the star ratings. What we’ve seen is much positive comment from owners and consumers,” Bennett said.

The 500 premises still to be inspected with star ratings are all considered low-risk and include establishments such as convenience stores.

“We have seen a dramatic improvement in the level of compliance,” she said.

As well, she said she’s hearing more from restaurants about receiving four stars when they expected five than from locations with fewer stars. The places seem to accept their lower ratings, she said.

Enzo Mancuso, who owns Mancuso’s Trattoria, 555 Erie St. E.  said,

“It’s like anything else, sooner or later you get used to it.”

His restaurant recently received its second five-star rating since they were introduced. Customers applauded when they saw him receive an inspection notice with the stars, which he can post in his window.

But this last bit sucks.

Customers may not know about a restaurant’s inspection and rating, and Bennett said the health unit will focus on efforts to make the public aware they can find out by contacting the health unit.

Market food safety achievements. People may be more concerned about whether their food will make them barf or not.
 

E. coli O157:H7 linked to Western Fair in London, Canada, again, 10 years after 159 sickened

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There are more people tragically sick with E. coli O157:H7 from what looks like another petting zoo.

But this would be especially tragic – or hopelessly sad — if proven.

In 1999, 159 people, mainly children, were thought to be sickened with E. coli O157:H7 traced to goat and sheep at the 1999 Western Fair in London, Ontario. That’s in Canada.

Scott Weese, a clinical studies professor at the University of Guelph (that’s also in Canada) and colleagues reported in the July 2007 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases that in a study of 36 petting zoos in Ontario between May and October of 2006, they observed infrequent hand washing, food sold and consumed near the animals, and children being allowed to drink bottles or suck on pacifiers in the petting area.

There’s been several outbreaks linked to petting zoos and state fairs in the U.K., Vancouver and Denver; and that’s just this year. A complete table of outbreaks is available at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/uploads/file/Petting%20zoo%20outbreaks%20chart%20bites(1).pdf.

Now, 10 years later, initial reports are emerging that four people who visited the Western Fair Agri-plex (that’s in London, Ontario, Canada) sometime between September 11 and 20, 2009, have been infected with the same strain of E. coli O157:H7.

The health unit is asking anyone who developed severe diarrhea after visiting the Western Fair to contact them at (519) 663-5317 ext 2330.

Local is better mantra

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Jim Romahn wrote a column for a newspaper in Waterloo, Ontario, which dared to question the blind support of local produce.

Specifically, Romahn said,

“I have been pleased to watch the development of the movement to buy local food. It is, however, not without its flaws. Farmers need to understand that they must satisfy their customers. Simply marketing their food as local is far from sufficient.”

Romahn provided several examples of local foods that sorta sucked, and several examples of superior product.

“The take-take home message is that the buy local campaigns will fail, and even back-fire, if farmers fail to provide customer-satisfying quality and value.”

Then the letters arrived.

One local produce grower cited Canadian icon Joni Mitchell, “Hey, farmer, farmer, put away the DDT now, give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees.”

Another said “it’s more fun to shop at farmers’ markets than the big chain grocery stores, anyway. Buying local is a win-win-win situation,” with another chiming in, “I remember when eating locally was the norm and not an option. I don’t profess that it is the perfect solution, but one thing I do know is that when you looked at the horizon it was blue not brown like it is today, and there were fewer people with asthma.”

Romahn didn’t even raise food safety concerns.  That would have generated some real hate mail.

Did Maple Leaf’s listeria hot dogs sicken a dog?

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It’s one thing to sicken and kill humans with food like Maple Leaf cold cuts – just don’t mess with people’s pets.

Carrie Pich of Windsor, Ontario, (right, photo from Windsor Star) is convinced her beloved Tigger — a two-year-old yellow Labrador retriever —  fell ill over the weekend because he ate Maple Leaf hotdogs that might be tainted with bacteria.

"This could have been a human. I mean, (Tigger) is human to us. But it could’ve happened to you. My husband could’ve ate two. He loves hotdogs."

Pich said she bought three packages of hotdogs last week: two packs of Maple Leaf Original Wieners and one pack of Shopsy’s Deli-Fresh.

Both products are among those listed in the recall.

But Pich didn’t know that on the evening of July 31, when she cut up three Maple Leaf Original Wieners to put in Tigger’s supper, and gave him one more as a late-night treat.

On Saturday morning, Pich woke to find Tigger vomiting blood.

Dr. Ameer Ebrahim, the owner and veterinarian at Cabana @ Howard Pet Hospital said he can’t confirm that Tigger suffered from listeriosis, but the dog’s symptoms were "very consistent" with bacterial infection, and he wouldn’t rule out a connection with the recalled wieners eaten by Tigger.

"That’s a very strong coincidence.”