Tag Archives: Risk Assessment

Communicators bungle the crisis: Tiger Woods, Maple Leaf, it’s not about the talk, it’s the actions

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The Wall Street Journal and every armchair analyst out there is saying that Tiger Woods is blowing the communications thing; he’s losing credibility, and fast.

Tiger Woods’s handling of the scandal is a textbook case in poor crisis management, say crisis managers.

Days of near-silence dealt a blow to the golfer’s once squeaky-clean reputation.

"At best, it looks like he’s coming clean because he got caught," says Karen Doyne, co-leader of Burson-Marsteller’s crisis practice. "Whether you’re a celebrity or a multinational corporation, you can’t expect credit for doing the right thing as a last resort."

In a crisis, the timing of a statement is as critical as its content, she says. "The ideal in any crisis situation is to get something out within three hours, but certainly within 24 hours," she says.

The rest of the Journal story goes with the usual fare about being fast, factual and trying not to fart in public.

But good communications is never enough. With any risk, or crisis, or problem, what is required is solid assessment, management and communication. Screw up any one, and the brand or person will suffer.

Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist with public relations firm Weber Shandwick … points to Canadian food-maker Maple Leaf Foods Inc.’s handling of a listeria crisis in 2008 as a good model. The same day labs confirmed the listeria strain’s presence in some of its products, CEO Michael McCain shot a television ad apologizing; he also posted the ad on YouTube.

Yeah, McCain and Maple Leaf got the communications part right – but they screwed up the assessment and the management. They should have known listeria would be accumulating in those slicers and they should have managed the problem far faster as the bodies were piling up (22 died).

Maybe Tiger should have kept his 4-wood in his pants.
 

Listeria causes illness in fetuses, infants, at much lower dose than previously thought

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Chapman is here in Manhattan (Kansas) for a couple days, delivering a seminar later today, hanging out at the Missouri-Kansas State football game tomorrow, and primarily helping plot our research and extension activities for the next few years.

We’ve both sired offspring in the past year-and-a-bit, so the issue of listeria and pregnant women has been a recurring theme – on barfblog.com, in research proposals, and in our microbiological nerd discussions.

Researchers from the University of Georgia reported in the journal, Risk Analysis, this month, that pregnant women may get ill from Listeria at lower doses than previously thought.

The risk of fetal or infant mortality among pregnant women who consume food containing 1 million cells of the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes in soft cheeses and other food is estimated at about 50 percent, suggesting five stillbirths potentially could occur when 10 pregnant women are exposed to that amount.

A previous risk assessment estimated more than 10 trillion cells would result in stillbirths to 50 percent of pregnant women exposed, researchers said.

"We’re not saying there’s a new epidemic here, we’re suggesting we’ve come up with a more accurate method of measuring the risk and how this deadly bacteria impacts humans, especially the most medically vulnerable among us," study co-author Mary Alice Smith of the University of Georgia said in a statement.

When estimates are extrapolated from data in tests on laboratory animals, the results showed "Listeriosis is likely occurring from exposure to lower doses than previously estimated," Smith said.

That’s a convoluted way of saying Listeria happens, and it’s probably more deadly than anyone thought for developing babies. Given the ridiculously low levels of awareness amongst physicians, health professionals and expectant mothers, new messages using a variety of media are needed so parents-to-be are at least aware of the risks of certain refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated approximately 2,500 cases of Listeriosis occur annually in the United States, with about 500 cases resulting in death. In 2000, Listeria exposure resulted in a higher rate of hospitalization than any other food-borne pathogen and more than one-third of reported deaths from food pathogens, the CDC says.
 

Canadian food safety: there are no rules on informing the public

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Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports in tomorrow’s edition that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency often finds problems with bottled water, but doesn’t tell the public about them.

CFIA food safety and recall specialist Garfield Balsom said there are no hard-and-fast rules on what requires public notification.

“There is nothing indicating what is to be made public or what’s not.”

The way the story is written, it’s difficult to tell whether this rather explosive quote refers to just bottled water or all food safety issues. The story does explain that an Access to Information Act request was required to determine CFIA issued 29 recall notices for bottled water products between 2000 and early 2008, but issued a public warning in only seven cases, two of which came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made public its recall orders.

Balsom said that other countries follow the same approach and don’t automatically issue notices because consumers would soon be overwhelmed by publicity over recalls, most of which would pose low risks.

“There are downsides to publicizing everything.”

True. But based on past case studies, people hate it when government-types are inconsistent or bureaucratic or less than forthcoming.

The agency has an internal hazard ranking system, known as class one, class two and class three, for products that respectively pose high, moderate and low risk. … But the access records show that there was no consistency in the agency’s approach. There were cases of the same bacteria and same hazard ratings being treated differently, with some having public recalls and others not.

This is a persistent problem – when to go public. Suspicions remain that CFIA and Maple Leaf Foods were slow in responding to last year’s listeria shitstorm that killed at least 21 – and a public offering of who knew what when is still missing.

Same with the Salmonella in tomatoes and jalapenos last summer in the U.S. Many were frustrated by conflicting messages and finger-pointing. Same with cyclosproa in the U.S. in Canada in 1996, in which California strawberries were erroneously fingered when it was the Guatemalan raspberries.

Epidemiology, like humans, is flawed. But it’s better than astrology. The more that public health folks can articulate when to go public and why, the more confidence in the system. Past risk communication research has demonstrated that if people have confidence in the decision-making process they will have more confidence in the decision. People may not agree about when to go public, but if the assumptions are laid on the table, and value judgments are acknowledged, then maybe the focus can be on fewer sick people.

Great communications, lousy management: Is Maple Leaf the new Odwalla?

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Last week I dusted off some old slides to talk with an industry group about best practices in food safety. I got bored of hearing myself say the same thing about 10 years ago, but sometimes, it’s best to stick to basics.

Risk analysis is composed of risk assessment, management and communication. Over the years I’ve studied dozens of outbreaks of foodborne illness and concluded that a producer, or processor, or retailer needs to be excellent at all three—assessment, management and communication – and if they fail at just one, they will suffer the economic and associated hardships.

There is no doubt that Michael McCain and Maple Leaf Foods has practiced excellent risk communication since being fingered as the source of a listeria outbreak in Canada that killed at least 20 and sickened 60. I’ve said so from the beginning. I’ve also said that

it is impossible to judge whether Maple Leaf was practicing good risk management and assessment because no one will come clean on who knew what when as the outbreak was developing.

But that hasn’t stopped Canadians from gushing in a blindly patriotic way about how McCain set the ‘gold standard’ for reputational and financial management.

Maybe, but communications alone is never enough, just like science alone is never enough. And precisely because no one – government or industry – has come clean on who knew what when, it’s not surprising to hear

the Canadian federal government has delayed for months the release of notes on conference calls

held at the height of last summer’s deadly listeriosis outbreak — a lag some experts say breaks Ottawa’s own information laws.

At issue is an Access to Information request by The Canadian Press to the Privy Council Office for “all transcripts and minutes” of the crucial exchanges last August and September.

The Odwalla 1996 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in unpasteurized juice was also textbook risk communication, but the company was eventually revealed to have cut corners and ignored warning signs. Will Maple Leaf undergo similar scrutiny?

Below is an except from my 1997 book, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk, about the Odwalla outbreak.

Sometime in late September 1996, 16-month-old Anna Gimmestad of Denver has a glass of Smoothie juice manufactured by  Odwalla Inc. After her parents noticed bloody diarrhea, Anna was admitted to Children’s Hospital on Oct. 16.  On 8 November 1996 she died after going into cardiac and respiratory arrest.  Anna had severe kidney problems, related to hemolytic uremic syndrome and her heart had stopped several times in previous days.

The juice Anna — and 65 others who got sick — drank was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, linked to fresh, unpasteurized apple cider used as a base in the juices manufactured by Odwalla.  Because they are unpasteurized, Odwalla’s drinks are shipped in cold storage and have only a two-week shelf life.  Odwalla was founded 16 years ago on the premise that fresh, natural fruit juices nourish the spirit.  And the bank balance: in fiscal 1996, Odwalla sales jumped 65 per cent to $60 million (U.S.).  Company chairman Greg Steltenpohl has told reporters that the company did not routinely test for E. coli because it was advised by industry experts that the acid level in the apple juice was sufficient to kill the bug.

Who these industry experts are remains a mystery.  Odwalla insists the experts were the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA isn’t sure who was warned and when.   In addition to all the academic research and media coverage concerning VTEC cited above — even all of the stories involving VTEC surviving in acidic environments — Odwalla claims ignorance.

In terms of crisis management — and outbreaks of foodborne illness are increasingly contributing to the case study literature on crisis management — Odwalla responded appropriately.  Company officials responded in a timely and compassionate fashion, initiating a complete recall and co-operating with authorities after a link was first made on Oct. 30 between their juice and illness.  They issued timely and comprehensive press statements, and even opened a web site containing background information on both the company and E. coli O157:H7.  Upon learning of Anna’s death, Steltenpohl issued a statement which said, “On behalf of myself and the people at Odwalla, I want to say how deeply saddened and sorry we are to learn of the loss of this child.  Our hearts go out to the family and our primary concern at this moment is to see that we are doing everything we can to help them.”

For Odwalla, or any food firm to say it had no knowledge that E. coli O157 could survive in an acid environment is unacceptable.  When one of us called this $60-million-a-year-company with the great public relations, to ask why they didn’t know that E. coli O157 was a risk in cider, it took over a day to return the call.   That’s a long time in crisis-management time.  More galling was that the company spokeswoman said she had received my message, but that her phone mysteriously couldn’t call Canada that day.

Great public relations; lousy management.  What this outbreak, along with cyclospora in fresh fruit in the spring of 1996 and dozens of others, demonstrates is that, vigilance, from farm to fork, is a mandatory requirement in a global food system.  Risk assessment, management and communication must be interlinked to accommodate new scientific and public information.  And that includes those funky and natural fruit juices.