Tag Archives: Pregnant

Expiration dates mean quality, not safety

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The local grocery store where I earned minimum wage in my high school days closed down after I went off to college because it could no longer afford to compete with the Wal-Mart Supercenter in the next town.

I suppose confining the sale of expired goods to a single grocery cart at the front of the store really limited our earning potential.

Likewise, confining my ideas on the safety of out-of-date food to simple assumptions really limited my family’s money-saving potential. In my naivety, I assumed that dates on food referred to how long they were safe to eat.

This is not true.

Most dates provided by manufacturers on packages of food are just an indication of when the quality of the item will start to decline and—in the majority of cases—foods will remain safe past the date given.

This is why people are comfortable buying expired foods at discounted prices from online sellers in the UK and local groceries in Pennsylvania.

Many food safety authorities feel that pregnant women should be more careful than these buyers, though. Agencies in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia, each tell pregnant women to avoid food past their ‘use by’ dates protect themselves and their babies from harm.

I am certainly not the foremost authority on the diet of a pregnant woman. But in the words of my new favorite USDA FSIS fact sheet,

“‘Use-by’ dates usually refer to best quality and are not safety dates.”

Canadian listeria coverage still sucks

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Daughter Braunwynn returned to Ontario last night after a great visit.

Her super-sweet 16 is less than two weeks away, so during lunch on Sunday with Amy and Sorenne and Bob, we asked what she might be studying at university (not a fair question cause I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up).

She mentioned science, psychology, maybe journalism – she liked writing.

Amy and I sorta jumped, saying that if she wanted to write, then write, and that maybe J-school wasn’t the best place to learn writing.

I teach a journalism class on food safety reporting, but there’s not much to teach: writers write, and just like scientists, they need to ask the right questions.

Braunwynn, the 15-year-old, gets it; Canadian journalists covering Michael McCain, Maple Leaf and listeria? Not so much.

There are exceptions, like Rob Cribb at the Star, but a couple of holiday puff pieces stood out. On Jan. 4, 2009, the Canadian Press correctly noted that the Canadian government has not yet named the leader of a promised probe into the listeriosis outbreak that killed 20 people — a lag critics say discredits an already suspect process.

But then they go on to excessively quote the union dude who thinks that inspectors with beer-like listeria googles are the solution. He represents the food inspectors union. Of course he wants more inspectors. As new NC State professorial thingy Ben wrote, more inspectors is not the answer.

Then there’s the researchers. They always want more research. And new technology. Oh, and to blame consumers. Because you know, consumers are the weak link when it comes to ready-to-eat deli meats. And when the researcher making such public proclamations is an advisor to Maple Leaf, that should be disclosed. Journalism 101. I’m sure glad my previously pregnant wife didn’t rely on your expert advice.

Bert Mitchell had it right the other day when he wrote that while Michael McCain has been gathering year–end goodwill for his handling of the Maple Leaf  listeria outbreak, “it is too early for applause. Effective long term solutions have not been put in place.”

For the budding journalists, there are still basic questions to be answered, questions that have nothing to do with more research, more inspectors, a public inquiry or any other narrow special interest, but questions that may help prevent any future unnecessary deaths of 20 people and  unnecessary illness of hundreds if not thousands of people:

• who knew what when;

• why aren’t listeria test results publically available; and,

• if listeria is everywhere, why aren’t there warnings for vulnerable populations?
 

FDA and EPA acting fishy about mercury

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I love fish, and would eat it at every meal if I could.  But I know quite a few people that can’t stand it.  Some claim the smell, it’s so…. fishy.  Why eat fish in the first place? According to the American Heart Association, fish is a good source of protein and, unlike fatty meat products, it’s not high in saturated fat. It’s also a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which benefit heart health.

When choosing what kind fish to eat, pregnant women and young children should stick with sea creatures with the lowest known levels of mercury, such as shrimp, oysters, clams, sardines, anchovies and herring, as well as hake, tilapia, crayfish and whiting.  Large predatory fish, such as shark and swordfish, are very likely to contain high levels of mercury and consumption of them should be restricted if not avoided by high-risk individuals.
FDA and EPA experts currently advise pregnant women and women of childbearing age, who may become pregnant, that they can safely eat up to 12 ounces — roughly two servings — of most fish a week, but should limit their intake of albacore tuna to 6 ounces a week.

Now the two agencies are in disagreement over the two-serving limit.  The F.D.A. has circulated a draft report suggesting that the vast majority of fetuses and infants would actually benefit if their mothers ate more than two servings of fish a week because fish contain highly beneficial nutrients that aid in brain development and that those benefits outweigh any potential harm.  Those contentions are sharply disputed by specialists at the E.P.A. who charged that the report had “serious scientific flaws,” relied on questionable models and should not be used as a basis for decision-making.

We’ll have to see where the final lines are drawn.  Until then, enjoy moderate amounts of safe seafood.  As with all meat products consumed by pregnant women, the fish should be thoroughly cooked and properly stored.  Pregnant women should always avoid sushi and other kinds of raw meat.

 

Maple Leaf’s textbook video skips the hard questions

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The most effective risk communication is also the most personal.

It’s about walking the talk.

Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods in Canada knows this, but just can’t quite pull it off.

McCain has personalized the message, taking responsibility for his deli meats that killed 20 people, but he can’t quite close the deal.

Below is a new video released today to, I guess, reassure Canadians.

From the beginning, I’ve asked some basic questions:

• who knew what when;

• why won’t Maple Leaf make their listeria test results public; and,

• what is Maple Leaf Food’s advice to those folks vulnerable to listeria.

Mr. McCain, you’ve got some high profile science advisors now. Would they recommend that their pregnant daughters eat any cold cuts? Would you tell old folks homes not to serve unheated deli meats to their clients? Will you make listeria testing public? And will you provide a full accounting of listeria tests and actions in the weeks leading up to the recall of Aug. 17, 2008. Does epidemiology matter?

So many questions, none of which are answered in your video.
 

Michael McCain whines some more

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Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, whose products killed at least 20 people, didn’t like the coverage in the Toronto Star over the weekend – those weekends when McCain is, according to e-mails, usually at his Georgian Bay cottage.

So Mr. McCain wrote a letter to the Toronto Star that was published this morning. He says,

“Within hours of being notified by the CFIA of a positive test for listeria monocytogenes (sic – should be Listeria), products were recalled by way of a news release issued to alert consumers.”

As I’ve said before, holding yourself and your company to the CFIA standard is really going for the lowest common denominator. Many people were already dead and dying. CFIA may have a standard – and it’s impossible to know because CFIA won’t come clean on when evidence is sufficient to go public – of issuing a recall once a positive is found, As Globe and Mail reporter Andre Picard wrote on Sept. 11, 2008,
 
“People started dying in June, and it took until mid-August to trace the problem to the plant. On Aug. 13, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was in the plant looking for the source of listeria monocytogenes, Maple Leaf started warning distributors to stop shipping some meats. But nobody told the public to stop eating them.”

And once again, Mr. McCain you say that listeria is everywhere.

“All food plants and supermarkets have some amount of listeria.”

If that is so, then why don’t your products have warning labels saying, “Listeria is everywhere, don’t feed my deli meats to pregnant women and old people. They may die.”

My pregnant wife is married to someone who has a PhD in food science. So she never ate McCain’s contaminated meat. I know a few other PhDs in food science who have told me the same thing. But shouldn’t other people have access to the same information? After all, listeria is everywhere. McCain, what would you advise a pregnant daughter or daughter-in-law, now that you’ve “learned more in the past three weeks about (food safety) than I have ever learned before in my lifetime.”

McCain concludes his letter to the Star by saying,

“Referencing the company as ‘slow to respond’ is absurd. I am disappointed with the absence of frequently communicated facts from both the CFIA and Maple Leaf in the story.”

Dude, you must pay over $100K for your communications thingies. Shouldn’t they at least be able to write a grammatically correct sentence? Who or what are these “frequently communicated facts?” 

Then work on something that is actually compelling.

What Maple Leaf’s Michael McCain was thinking the past two months

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Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star continues his excellent reporting on the Maple Leaf Foods listeria outbreak in Canada that has killed at least 20, and based on e-mails from the company’s CEO and president, Michael McCain (right, exactly as shown), I’m struck that the head of a $5 billion a year company that sells food is so whiney about food safety.

McCain blames the media for making a big deal out of the story, blames lawyers for being ambulance chasers, and says that,

"Eradicating listeria from a plant is akin to eradicating the flu from the office — we have best practice systems in place to reduce it to the absolute lowest level because it’s our reputation at stake, but eradication is just not possible."

So shouldn’t you warn those who are most vulnerable? Like pregnant women and old people?

The entire story is a good read, and it’s based on internal memos that McCain sent to thousands of staff (and which were regularly forwarded to me throughout the outbreak) but the most damning excerpt is this:

"I, for one, can say I’ve learned more in the past three weeks about (food safety) than I have ever learned before in my lifetime."

A company selling over $5 billion a year and bragging about it’s culture of food safety should be doing better than on-the-job training.
 

Maple Leaf invents food safety

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I blogged earlier today that any food company doing over $5 billion a year in sales should already have a food safety dude and, after at least 20 deaths, really shouldn’t be bragging.

It gets worse.

Maple Leaf Foods president and CEO Michael McCain said yesterday that by appointing a chief food safety officer,

"I think we’re the first in Canada and … possibly in North America to have that role inside a major food company.”

Wow.

Jack-in-the-Box appointed a food safety officer after the 1993 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Odwalla acted like it invented flash pasteurization after the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in cider in 1996. I could go on. Michael McCain, your knowledge of food safety sucks.

And rather than pontificating, at some point Mr. McCain will provide a full accounting of:

• who knew what when;??????

• warn pregnant women and others at risk from listeria in deli meats; and,??????

• make your listeria data public.

Maple Leaf says listeria happens; Carl says, stop whining

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Michael McCain, president of Maple Leaf Foods, told a press conference yesterday that continuing to find listeria in the plant responsible for producing luncheon meats that have killed 26 and sickened 63 in Canada was no biggie.

“To suggest a shock at a positive environmental test is at best misguided and at worst fear mongering.”

As Toronto’s Globe and Mail reported this morning,

When the company’s deli meats were first linked to an outbreak of the food-borne disease known as listeriosis last August, it was a humble Mr. McCain who stood before television cameras and reporters and apologized.

Yesterday, by contrast, he defiantly reproached those who have criticized Canada’s food-safety watchdog, including the media, accusing them of undermining the public’s confidence in the system and of potentially jeopardizing thousands of jobs.

“There’s been a lot of criticism of the [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] in recent weeks,” he said. “While there’s likely lots of blame to go around, I personally see no balance in the reporting.” …

He said it is unrealistic for the public to have zero tolerance for the bacteria because it is everywhere in the environment.

“Frankly, if that was the tolerance level of Canadians, then Canadians would starve. They wouldn’t eat.”

Mr. McCain, this isn’t gotcha journalism and you’re not Sarah Palin. Yes, you have finally released some test results — four out of 3,850 product samples and one environmental sample out of 671 tested positive for listeria in product that was never released to the public – but you refuse to release results prior to public notification of the outbreak.

Yes, this is the most scrutinized plant in North America. Apparently more inspectors, even with listeria goggles, won’t make the listeria go away. The political opportunism being practiced by the inspector’s union and various parties falling over themselves to promise the hiring of more inspectors in the lead-up to Canada’s federal election on Tuesday is breathtakingly offensive to the sick and dead – I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

And yes, the risk is small — Mansel Griffiths, an adviser to Maple Leaf, said the tiny fraction of products that tested positive, 0.1 per cent, was in the range that would be found in deli meats for sale in Canada, ranging from 0.1 to .03 per cent – but I’m sure glad you’re not advising pregnant women, like my wife, who are 20 times more susceptible to infection with listeria – a bug that has a 20-30 per cent kill rate.

Now that Mr. McCain is a listeria expert, telling Canadians to get over it, listeria happens, I wonder why he never issued such a warning about the risk of listeria in his products before 26 were killed. Would he serve cold cuts to the elderly in nursing homes where many of the 20 confirmed deaths occurred? What would he recommend to one of his pregnant family members? That listeria happens?

In response to the initial coverage of Mr. McCain’s statements yesterday, Carl, a former USDA guru e-mailed me, stating,

“Ummm, maybe someone ought to point McCain to Nebraska’s series of webinars. It’ll take more than the webinars but it could be a start. Eliminating listeriae in plants has been done but it takes effort and diligence not just whining.”

Here’s the info for the latest listeria webinar from Nebraska.

Free Web Seminars on Controlling Listeria monocytogenes on Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Products and in the RTE Processing Environment

The Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen and is most often transmitted through ready-to-eat (RTE) foods products contaminated with this pathogen. People at most risk for illness and infection due to this pathogen are young, elderly and those will weakened immune systems such as the immuno-compromised.

The USDA-FSIS requires the Ready-to-Eat (RTE) meat and poultry processors to control Listeria monocytogenes in the environment and on their products. The web-seminar is designed to help small and very small RTE meat and poultry businesses to address Listeria in their RTE environment and ways to reduce the Listeria risk in their products. The web-seminar is designed to update you and provide you an opportunity to ask questions and get answers from the experts.

The University of Nebraska along with its collaborating partners, Colorado State University, Cornell University, Kansas State University and The Ohio State University is conducting a series of free web seminars to inform and educate the RTE meat and poultry processors on various aspects of controlling the organism in the RTE processing environment and on the product. This web seminar series is funded through a grant from the National Integrated Food Safety Initiative (Special Emphasis Grant No. 2005-511110-03278) of the CSREES, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The next session is scheduled for Oct 15, 2008 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (CST). Those interested can participate in these free web seminars by logging in at the following website:

http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/nebraska/ ??????

To receive notifications and presentation materials ahead of the web seminar, please register by sending an e-mail to Nina Murray at nmurray2@unl.edu with your name and e-mail. ??????

Topic:         L. monocytogenes Control Strategies: Quality Effects on RTE Meat Products ???Speaker:         Dr. Dennis Burson, University of Nebraska ??????

Dr. Dennis Burson is a Professor of meat science in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He also serves as the Extension meat specialist for the state of Nebraska and assists the meat, poultry and egg industry with outreach activities. He received his B.S. degree from University of Nebraska and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Kansas State University.  His outreach focus is on improving quality, consistency and value of market animals, value addition and processing of meat products and food safety for meat and poultry processors. Dr. Burson has conducted numerous meat processing, harvesting and quality workshops in addition to food safety workshops including HACCP for the meat and poultry industry over the years and still is very active in the food safety outreach programs. He coordinates the four state consortium of Universities (UNL, KSU, SDSU, and Missouri) and holds several HACCP workshops within each of the states every year. He has taught several courses, including animal and carcass evaluation, principles of meat evaluation, grading and judging and advanced meat grading and evaluation. Dr. Burson is active in several professional organizations, including American Meat Science Association, Institute of Food Technologists and International Association for Food Protection among others. ??????

Topic:         Tracking Listeria in the RTE Meat and Poultry Processing Environment: DNA Based Methods ???Speaker:         Dr. Kendra Nightingale, Colorado State University ??????

Kendra Nightingale is originally from a small farming community in western Kansas.  Kendra received a B.S. degree in Agriculture from Kansas State University, where she participated in the undergraduate honors program.  Kendra also holds a M.S. degree from Kansas State University in Food Science, where her research evaluated the use of lactoferrin, a milk-derived protein, to decontaminate and extend the shelf-life of beef products.  Kendra Nightingale completed her Ph.D. at Cornell University in Food Science with a concentration in Food Microbiology and minors in Epidemiology and Microbiology.  Her Ph.D. work probed the molecular epidemiology, ecology, and evolution of the human foodborne and animal pathogen Listeria monocytogenes.  Kendra also completed her postdoctoral training in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University. Kendra joined the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University as an Assistant Professor in 2006.
 

More of the same from Maple Leaf, CFIA

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Maple Leaf Foods president and CEO Michael McCain said last night that “consistent with normal findings and practices” listeria continues to be found at the same facility that produced cold-cuts linked to at least 20 deaths and 50 illnesses in Canada.

“Listeriosis is an exceptionally rare illness,” he said, “but we are taking every precaution possible.”

I’m sure the illness didn’t feel exceptionally rare to the sick and the dead.

Mr. McCain also reiterated that,

“Listeria exists in all food plants, all supermarkets and presumably in all kitchens,”

which is exactly why my pregnant wife and Ben’s pregnant wife didn’t go near Maple Leaf or any other cold cuts during their pregnancies. So I’m sure Mr. McCain will put as much energy and resources into advising vulnerable populations to stay away from Maple Leaf cold-cuts and other refrigerated ready-to-eat foods as he is into re-opening the Toronto plant.

And if Maple Leaf is now “behaving in the most conservative way possible,” what were they doing before the listeria outbreak became public knowledge on Aug. 20, 2008?

Confidential data obtained by the Toronto Star and  CBC and reported last night revealed that two-thirds of Maple Leaf meat samples collected from Toronto hospitals and nursing homes tested positive for a virulent strain of listeria just before the country’s largest food recall.

The test results show a dramatically high percentage of bacteria-laced ham, corned beef, turkey, and roast beef was being served to hundreds of vulnerable hospital patients and seniors. Experts say it’s more contamination than they have seen and further evidence of a health risk that should have reached the public’s attention sooner.

“There shouldn’t be any positives,” says Rick Holley, a food safety expert at the University of Manitoba. “The reality is if you did a survey in the market, you might find one or two at most out of this sample that are positive … And it is a particularly virulent strain of listeria. It’s one of the bad ones.” …

“I’d never seen anything like this,” said Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto’s associate medical officer of health. “The fact that so many came back positive shows how contaminated the source was.”

So given the high level of contamination, what did the Canadian Food Inspection Agency do? Insist on more testing, because epidemiology is not enough to protect the health of Canadians.

In a conference call with members of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Aug. 14, Toronto officials told the agency they had enough evidence to make a connection and pressed the CFIA to warn the public about Maple Leaf products.

CFIA officials, however, said they needed to wait for one more set of test results from unopened meat packages.

While the CFIA had identified listeria bacteria at the Maple Leaf Foods meat processing plant in Toronto and even begun an investigation of the company by that time, the federal agency said it wanted definitive test results to see whether it was the same strain as the one responsible for the outbreak.

The CFIA declined a request for an interview with CBC News. The agency maintained that it requires hard scientific proof before it can recall food or issue warnings to the public.

Toronto Public Health said it had gathered plenty of evidence during July and August that linked Maple Leaf meat products to the outbreak, including:
    * two deaths linked to listeriosis
    * more cases being reported
    * meat samples from sandwiches tested positive
    * samples from opened meat packages were taken

During a 2005 outbreak of salmonella found in bean sprouts in Kingston, Ont., regional health officials didn’t wait for definitive proof to issue their own recall.

"I think it’s a less desirable approach, from the point of view of the people we serve, to say, ‘We’ll have to wait and have confirmation before we can intervene,’" said Dr. Ian Gemmill, the medical officer of health for the Kingston Area Health Unit.

The locals sound increasingly frustrated with CFIA. Until there is a clear policy on when to go public, expect more failures and frustration in the future.

Asked for the listeria test results leading up to the outbreak, the Maple Leaf spokesthingy said last week that, in the spirit of open and transparent co-operation and a genuine desire to improve the safety of refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods, the company would not release them publicly.
 

Quebec cheese linked to two deaths, one miscarriage, 120 illnesses — gets government bailout

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I was a fan of Quebec agriculture minister Laurent Lessard.

After two separate outbreaks  — one listeria, one salmonella – in Quebec-made cheese that killed two, caused one miscarriage, sickened six other pregnant women and their newborn babies, and sickened a total of about 120 people, Lessard ordered a crackdown.

When asked about compensation for cheese retailers who had to discard potentially contaminated product, Lessard said on Sept. 17,

"The province is not there to compensate. We aren’t an insurance company."

Retailers have a responsibility to market safe products, and if there’s a risk associated to what they’re selling they have to absorb the losses, he said.

But being astute about Quebec politics and the role of dairy producers, Lessard didn’t rule out possible compensation for cheese producers, even though provincial food inspectors found traces listeria in 16 different establishments, either on cheese or processing equipment.

Three weeks later, and it appears that politics has caught up with the public health overtures of Monsieur Lessard as he announced Friday that Quebec’s small cheese producers and retailers will receive a three-year, $8.4-million provincial aid package, along with $11.3-million in interest-free loans.

"I want to reassure Quebec consumers. All of Quebec’s cheese producers are presently offering safe and secure products.”

Approximately half of the aid package will be spent on improving quality control. Government inspections will be conducted monthly, the minister said, and retailers will receive guidelines on improving the handling of cheeses.

Producers and retailers reported a significant drop in sales of Quebec cheeses, which last year alone totaled $2.6-billion.

Where’s the compensation for the sick people? Where’s the effort to accurately present the risks of soft cheeses (oh, and deli meats) to certain populations, like pregnant women and the elderly.

I’m not such a fan anymore.