Food safety Bill passes House - will it mean fewer sick people?
While the websphere, blogsphere and twittersphere were ejaculating electrons about the potential passage of new food safety legislation by the U.S. House– it passed -- I was hanging out with some food safety dudes at Publix supermarkets HQ in Lakeland, Florida.
And I saw far more in Lakeland that would impact daily food safety than anything the politicians, bureaucrats, hangers-on and chatting classes could ever come up with.
When it comes to the safety of the food supply, I generally ignore the chatter from Washington, as well as the wasted Internet commentaries and conspiracy theories. If a proposal does emerge, such as the creation of a single food inspection agency, or the bill that passed the House today – and just the House -- I ask, Will it actually make food safer? Will fewer people get sick?
As the General Accounting Office pointed out in a report a year ago,
“The burden for food safety in most of the selected countries lies primarily with food producers, rather than with inspectors, although inspectors play an active role in overseeing compliance. This principle applies to both domestic and imported products.”
Publix, with over 1,000 supermarkets, its own processing plants, and thousands of food products moving through its shelves, can’t afford the luxury of chatter.
After my visit, I went to the local Publix in St. Pete Beach to check out what the food safety type said – sure, the boss knows food safety, but do the front-line staff?
I ordered some shaved smoked turkey breast from the deli, and the sealable bag the meat was delivered in contained the following:
“Publix Deli
The Publix Deli is committed to the highest quality fresh cold cuts & cheeses
Therefore we recommend all cold cuts are best if used within three days of purchase
And all cheese items are best if used within four days of purchase”
(The picture isn’t very good. Note to Publix: The label warning about shelf-life is a great idea, but can’t read it if the price sticker gets slapped over some of the text.)
This is the first time I’ve seen a retailer provide information to consumers on the accurate shelf-life of sliced deli meats. It didn’t require Congressional hearings; it didn’t require some hopelessly-flawed consumer education campaign; it required a food safety type to say, this is important, let’s do it.
I also went looking for some bread for turkey sandwiches tomorrow as we move down to Sarasota, and then Venice Beach. I asked an employee in the bakery for some whole wheat rolls, and she pointed out what was available, said packages of six were pre-packaged, but she could get me whatever number I wanted. I asked for four. There was no bin for me to stick my who-knows-where-they-have-been hands in to and retrieve a few rolls. The bins were turned so that only staff had access. The employee said it had been that way since she started three years ago, and that “there’s just too much stuff going around” to let consumers stick their hands into bun bins (most commonly found item in communal bun bins? False fingernails).
It’s nice that food safety is once again a Presidential priority and that politicians are trying to set a tone. But chatting doesn’t mean fewer sick people – actions do.
Death-by-cold-cuts Minister says Listeria inquiry not necessary
The person who is still, inexplicably, Minister of Agriculture in Canada, Gerry-death-by-a-1,000-cold-cuts-and-isn’t-my-moustache-awesome Ritz, said last night that despite the recommendations of a parliamentary committee, who were stonewalled by bureaucrats, a full public inquiry into the Maple Leaf Listeria mess that killed 22 people last year was not necessary.
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That’s true, if only the bureaucrats at Maple Leaf, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada and dozens of others did their jobs and came publicly clean about who knew what when and what steps were taken to protect public health.
Until then, maybe the judicial route is best. But what a waste of resources, and more importantly, public confidence.
More testing, not inspectors may have prevented listeria says McCain; will test results be made public?
Micahel McCain, the president of Maple Leaf Foods, was correct yesterday when he told a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce event that adding more food inspectors to the plant floor would not have made a difference in preventing last August's listeria outbreak at one of its Toronto plants that caused 22 deaths.
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"What is very important to recognize about bacteria is that you cannot see it. We wish you could visually inspect for bacteria, but it can't be seen with the eyes, tasted or touched."
The head of the $5.2-billion-a-year Toronto-based food giant was adamant that more testing was the only effective way to address the issue and that Maple Leaf has doubled the number of tests being undertaken.
Thank you for that lesson in microbiology, Mr. McCain. Yes, the inspectors’ union in Canada has been shamelessly exploiting the deaths of 22 people to get more shifts for its workers. Good of you to call them on it.
Now to the harder questions, which McCain continues to avoid.
Why didn’t Maple Leaf do more extensive testing prior to the outbreak? It’s not like there haven’t been listeria outbreaks in ready-to-eat refrigerated foods like cold cuts before.
Why won’t Maple Leaf make all of its listeria test results public, especially since it wants to build consumer confidence.
Will Maple Leaf put warning labels on its cold cuts to advise pregnant women and older folks that such products shouldn’t be eaten raw?
And to all the dieticians running the menus at the elderly folks homes where the 22 people died: what were you thinking serving cold cuts? How hard is it to heat a sandwich? Have any of you had any decent food safety training?
Listeria recall: We've got pictures, Maple Leaf doesn't
Maple Leaf's CEO Michael McCain says his company has a culture of food safety. I've written about the food safety culture concept and believe that a big part of it is being ready for outbreaks and recalls. They happen. A lot.
I'm not sure what Mr. McCain and his team has done in preparation for this outbreak, but in March I wrote about Quaker Oats handling of a recall due to Salmonella in some of their Aunt Jemima products:
"Quaker Oats has great information on their website already [less than 4 hours after the recall], with a nice graphic on how to handle the recall.... Especially love that people can sign-up for ongoing info -- good preparation on Quaker Oats' part."
It looked like they were ready for a problem, and already had the resources in place to get information out to their customers.
The thing I liked the most about Quaker Oats' Aunt Jemima situation was that they had pictures of the recalled product. A company with a culture of food safety is ready for a recall, has a website with pictures and consumer-friendly information ready to go in anticipation, like Quaker Oats did.
Maple Leaf has a big list of recalled products (220, check it out here) but they don't have any pictures of them. It's not a superficial request to have some nice pictures to show folks what this stuff looks like, and where you can find the sometimes elusive codes/dates/establishment code. It's just good communication. The FDA realized this, and last year started including pictures on their recall notices for products that they have deemed to be high health risks (after the Castleberry's chili sauce recall). 
Sometimes I buy lunch meat. Sometimes I even get the prepackaged stuff. I don't always know what brand it is, and I don't know all the intricacies of the food system and get mixed up as to which parent company makes Shopsy's. The list system is confusing.
The Globe and Mail is reporting tonight that:
Maple Leaf is working with distributors to track down all 220 products from the Toronto site, which Mr. McCain told reporters could be anywhere in Canada. That could take as long as three to five days, he said during a news conference at the firm's Toronto head office.
At about 7:50pm this evening I thought I'd take a look at whether I could find any of these recalled products at the grocery store and get some pictures to demonstrate where the codes can be found.
I found some.
About 2 minutes after entering Ultra Food and Drug in Guelph, I was able to find the recalled Maple Leaf's EZee Sub Dagwood products, with the establishment code (denoted, I assume, by the "EST. 97B" still on the shelves. That's the bad news.
The good news is that I can use a real example of what one of the recalled products looks like and where the establishment code is. Something that Maple Leaf hasn't done.
Michael McCain of Maple Leaf: Should pregnant women eat deli meats?
There’s been an outbreak of babies amongst the food safety stalwarts in my lab. Katija delivered in June, Ben’s gonna be a daddy next month, and me, trying to keep up with the cool kids, at the end of November.
Michael McCain, the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, seems sincere enough. He said yesterday that listeria is "pervasive" adding that,
"It (Listeria) is virtually impossible to eradicate in its entirety. It exists in plants, in supermarkets, potentially in your kitchen.”
That’s true. And deli meats and other refrigerated ready-to-eat foods like smoked salmon are particularly good sources of listeria.
Back in May, U.K. environmental health officers from 42 local authorities purchased 1,127 samples of sliced-at-the-counter cooked meats from food retailers including butchers, delicatessens, market stalls and supermarkets.
Laboratory tests found that 15 per cent of the samples were contaminated with low numbers of listeria on the day of purchase, while 7.3 per cent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the more serious form of listeria.
Although these were within European Food Safety Standards, when the contaminated samples were tested again after storage for 48 hours in a refrigerator, the L. monocytogenes in some of the contaminated samples had multiplied to unsafe levels.
In July, 2008, health types in Ireland warned pregnant women to avoid ready-to-eat, refrigerated and processed foods, such as soft cheeses, cold cuts of meat, pates and smoked fish after an increase in pregnancy-related listeriosis.
A Dec. 2007 review of listeria in pregnancy states,
“One of the most important changes during pregnancy is the down-regulation of the cellular immune system. Because the fetus is genetically different from the mother, the body treats it as a graft. To prevent the maternal immune system from rejecting the fetus, cell-mediated immunity must therefore be suppressed during pregnancy. This is favored by high levels of progesterone. However, reduced cell-mediated immune function leads to increased susceptibility of the woman and her fetus to infections by intracellular pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes. That is why pregnant women are 20 times more at risk of contracting listeriosis than are other healthy adults. Pregnant women account for 30% of all cases of listeriosis and 60% of cases among persons 10 to 40 years of age.
“Typically, systemic infection occurs most frequently after ingestion of food contaminated with L monocytogenes. The bacteria cross the mucosal barrier of the intestine, probably aided by active endocytosis of organisms by epithelial cells. Once in the bloodstream, bacteria spread to different sites, but they have a particular affinity for the central nervous system or placenta. While circulating, the bacteria are internalized by macrophages and other plasma cells and are thereafter spread cell-to-cell through phagocytosis. As a result, antibodies, complement, and neutrophils become unable to protect the host.”
And that’s why 6-months pregnant Amy hasn’t touched a deli product in over six months. But most women don’t know this. Neither do a lot of doctors or health professionals. During one of our prenatal visits, I asked the aid if there were any foods pregnant Amy should be avoiding.
She said, “no, not really.”
I specifically asked about deli meats.
She said, “Get the deli meat from the counter cause it’s fresher than the pre-packaged stuff.”
She didn’t know about listeria. Most people don’t. Researchers reported in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Health that in a survey of 586 women attending antenatal clinics in one private and two major public hospitals in New South Wales between April and November 2006, more than half received no information on preventing Listeria.
So, Michael McCain, I know what I’d tell my wife or any other pregnant woman. What would you tell a pregnant woman about deli meats? Would you be willing to put a health advisory on the back of the package?
1 dead, dozens sickened in Canadian listeria outbreak: some questions
Amy is 6 months pregnant: An outbreak of listeria in Canada which has killed one and sickened dozens, is exactly why she hasn’t eaten any cold cuts or smoked salmon for the past six months.
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It has been thoroughly documented that many pregnant women are not aware of the risks associated with consuming refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods like cold cuts. Nor does the literary dancing from various Canadian spokesthingies inspire confidence.
About 3 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 17/08, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Maple Leaf Consumer Foods issued an advisory warning the public not to serve or consume Sure Slice brand Roast Beef and Corned Beef because these products may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
The press statement said,
“There have been no confirmed illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”
Usually, CFIA press releases say there have been no illnesses associated with the product in question, if that is indeed the case. The “confirmed illness” was a wiggle phrase that Canadian media dutifully reported and then went back to sleep.
Then, about 4 a.m. Wednesday Aug. 20/08, another press release arrived from CFIA, this time announcing that Maple Leaf was voluntarily recalling everything from the suspect Toronto plant and that,
“… a number of the affected products … are part of a listeriosis outbreak investigation.”
About the same time, Maple Leaf Foods put out a press release stating,
“A small number of Sure Slice packaged meat products produced at the Company's Bartor Road, Toronto facility, predominantly for foodservice customers, have tested positive to contain low levels of listeria monocytogenes.”
Always good to get someone else to read stuff to catch grammatical errors, but there may not always be time.
And maybe it wasn’t that small of a contamination, because Wednesday afternoon, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health advised the public that there is an outbreak of Listeriosis in the province.
“In July 2008, routine surveillance conducted by the Ministry detected a marked increase in cases of Listeriosis being reported by Ontario health units.
“As of yesterday, there have been 29 cases associated with the outbreak across 17 health units. Of these, 13 are confirmed cases, and the rest are probable and suspect cases which are under investigation by the local health units. Outbreak associated cases of Listeriosis have also been reported in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Ontario is working with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the other provinces in the investigation.”
Yet, as reported by Canwest News Service, health officials in Ontario would not confirm a link between the cases and the recall. Dr. Eleni Galanis with the B.C. Centre For Disease Control said officials in that province had interviewed the two confirmed cases and were satisfied there was sufficient evidence to show a link.
"First, they have the same strain as the outbreak strain that has been identified in Ontario and second they have been exposed to the foods that are under recall. It does seem that they are linked."
Galanis, who said B.C. is also reviewing three more suspected cases, said she was particularly concerned for people with compromised immune systems and pregnant women.
"In pregnant women it could result in still birth," she said.
Despite the words of Dr. Galanis, the story has spun into political nonsense, with the two major political parties throwing barbs at each other, and one University of Guelph type defending small agriculture by saying,
“That's not to say that a small butcher can't make mistakes, but at best, he's going to kill off a few of his neighbours. When you take that same mistake and you put it into a plant that serves millions, the risk is vastly expanded.”
Wow. There’s a whole bunch of sick people out there. That’s where the focus should be. And then, journos should ask, at what point did health authorities make an epidemiological link to Maple Leaf cold cuts? Would some illnesses have been prevented if the warning Sunday morning had been expanded? What is the process used to decide when to issue public warnings? How much evidence is enough?
Oh, and the CFIA advice if you are pregnant or have a weakened immune system?
“Although the risk of listeriosis associated with foods from deli counters, such as sliced packaged meat and poultry products, is relatively low, pregnant women and immunosuppressed persons may choose to avoid these foods.”
Here’s the advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for persons at high risk, such as pregnant women and persons with weakened immune systems:
• Do not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats, or deli meats, unless they are reheated until steaming hot.
-Avoid getting fluid from hot dog packages on other foods, utensils, and food preparation surfaces, and wash hands after handling hot dogs, luncheon meats, and deli meats.
• Do not eat soft cheeses such as feta, Brie, and Camembert, blue-veined cheeses, or Mexican-style cheeses such as queso blanco, queso fresco, and Panela, unless they have labels that clearly state they are made from pastuerized milk.
• Do not eat refrigerated pâtés or meat spreads. Canned or shelf-stable pâtés and meat spreads may be eaten.
-Do not eat refrigerated smoked seafood, unless it is contained in a cooked dish, such as a casserole. Refrigerated smoked seafood, such as salmon, trout, whitefish, cod, tuna or mackerel, is most often labeled as "nova-style," "lox," "kippered," "smoked," or "jerky." The fish is found in the refrigerator section or sold at deli counters of grocery stores and delicatessens. Canned or shelf-stable smoked seafood may be eaten.
The USDA risk assessment for listeria is ready-to-eat foods is available here
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/97-013F/ListeriaReport.pdf
and one from the World Health Organization is here
http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/micro/mra_listeria/en/index.html
What you can and can't eat when you're pregnant
At our first prenatal visit, which at 8 weeks seemed very late, we finally got some food safety advice from the medical staff. Along with the typical list of foods to avoid (non-pasteurized cheeses, smoked salmon, etc.), the staff member told us if we do eat cold cuts, it is advisable to get them from the deli counter in the supermarket rather than buying the packaged ones from big companies. We were a bit surprised, as this was … exactly wrong advice. The risk of listeria from the deli section is generally higher because it’s difficult to clean the slicers and we do not know how often they are cleaned. While Ben and Doug have been going back and forth about which cheeses are safe for me and Dani to eat (is pasteurized brie OK or not? what about blue-veined cheeses?), I realize I cannot eliminate every risk from my diet. I can, however, minimize some of them. I just slice the brie, put it on Doug’s homemade baguettes, and pop it in the toaster. (It’s also delicious with a sliced beet.) The heat serves as a kill-step in case there is a concern. No, I do not use my meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the soft cheese. I supposed you could if you really are worried, but at that point it’s probably easier to not eat brie.
Although I very much miss smoked salmon -- a staple food before pregnancy, I will not eat it unless it has been thoroughly cooked. Yesterday Salmolux Inc recalled 6140 packages of their Wild Alaskan Smoked Salmon Nova Lox because of a possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Unfortunately, this kind of recall is common in minimally processed ready-to-eat foods. While no one is reported ill from this possible contamination, the risk is one I’m not willing to take.
