Bakery source of 9 U.K. E. coli O157 illnesses; 6 more suspected
By bakery, the Brits mean deli-style, with cold-cuts, meat pies, and more of the traditional sources of E coli O157 other than bread.
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Nine adults who bought food from a bakery in Gateshead have been confirmed as having the O157 strain of the infection, with a further six people currently undergoing tests.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said two people were receiving hospital treatment, with the remainder recovering at home.
Listeria causes illness in fetuses, infants, at much lower dose than previously thought
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.
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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.
Food safety culture means employees don't contaminate food with brooms or forklift tires
If a company making ready-to-eat refrigerated deli-meats has a “strong culture of food safety,” would an employee shake a broom over a line of processed product?
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If more inspectors are the answer to safer food, why would the inspectors need publicly reported accounts of foodborne illness and death to try harder?
And if the company and inspectors are doing lots of tests to ensure enhanced food safety, why aren’t they bragging about it instead of requiring an Access to Information request by a media outlet to discover that inspectors continue to find problems with Maple Leaf Foods infamous Bartor Road plant in Weston, Ontario.
Last night, Steve Rennie of The Canadian Press reported that Canadian federal food safety types found a troubling lack of hygiene at Maple Leaf Foods’ Toronto facility just weeks after it reopened last year from a temporary shutdown for cleaning – after 22 people were killed and 53 sickened with listeria linked to deli meat.
A Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspection report dated Oct. 10, 2008, found:
• slime on part of the meat-trimming table in the curing room;
• meat debris on two steel container bins and unidentified debris on the brine tank in the curing room;
•a moist and mouldy cardboard sheet on the base of a skid in the curing room that holds bags of salt;
•mouldy caulking on the walls of the meat-defrosting room;
•a stack of dirty, mouldy and broken skids left in the frozen packoff room during cleaning;
• food debris on knife holders, floor and meat containers in the formulation room; and,
• rust on equipment used to process mock chicken.
The Canadian Press obtained that inspection report and others under the Access to Information Act.
Another report says during visits on Oct. 20 and 21, an inspector watched as "an employee in a grey jacket lifted a floor broom over a finished food product conveyor belt during operation to sweep in between the conveyors." (No additional information as to whether the product was packaged or not).
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Then on Oct. 22, the inspector saw a worker using a forklift to move ready-to-eat link sausages from the cooler to a line for packaging. The report notes the meat at the bottom part of the lift "was not protected for the potential wheel over spray or splash cross contamination."
That part is gross. And unacceptable.
On Aug. 23, 2008, (barfblog.com passim ad nauseum) Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain took to the Intertubes to apologize for an expanding outbreak of listeriosis that would eventually kill 22 people. As part of his speech, McCain said that Maple Leaf has “a strong culture of food safety.”
On Aug. 27, 2008, McCain told a press conference,
“As I've said before, Maple Leaf Foods is 23,000 people who live in a culture of food safety. We have an unwavering commitment to keep our food safe, and we have excellent systems and processes in place.
Dr. Randy Huffman, Maple Leaf’s chief food-safety officer, took to his company’s Journey (worst band ever)-inspired Journey to Food Safety Leadership blog to say today,
“The average reader must be wondering how this plant could have so many issues only a month after re-opening from causing one of the worst food safety crises in Canada.”
I’m not sure what he means by average. I consider myself dull and below-average; does that mean I won’t be able to understand what he is saying?
Huffman: Over the past 12 -14 months- since these inspections were conducted - we have invested over $5 million in upgrades at the Bartor Road plant. This includes repair of floors and wall surfaces, air handling systems, caulking, better separation of raw and cooked areas of the plant, new pallets and new slicing and packaging equipment. We have implemented over 200 new operating procedures.
Why did it take 22 deaths and 53 illnesses to make this food safety investment?
Huffman: CFIA generates these reports and so does Maple Leaf, through our own inspections across all our plants. We welcome this government scrutiny. Canadians hold us to a higher standard, as they should.
So why did the reports have to be obtained through an Access to Information request, and why doesn’t Maple Leaf just sidestep the government and make the reports public, along with other data, as it becomes available, to build trust with the buying consumer?
Would more inspectors have helped? Maybe if they were looking. Federal food inspection union thingy Bob Kingston said,
"In a normal operation that had not been through what they had been through, that might be a common occurrence. But in this facility, it's very surprising that that would still be there. Because you would expect it to be spotless."
The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants will go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.
And the best cold-cut companies may stop dancing around and tell pregnant women, old people and other immunocompromised folks, don't eat this food unless it's heated
Deli clerk refuses to sell UK mom-to-be cheddar cheese, says pregnant women shouldn't eat cheddar; wrong
From the a-little-knowledge-is-dangerous category, a UK deli clerk at a Sainsbury’s supermarket refused to sell a pregnant woman a piece of cheddar cheese until she lied and promised she wouldn’t eat the cheese.
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Janet Lehain wrote in a letter of complaint to Sainsbury's that the female clerk at the Clapham, Beds store was "patronising" and said, “how lucky my generation are to have such information available as this was not the case 'in her day'."
Sainsbury's said the worker was wrong, adding,
"It isn't policy to refuse a sale on grounds goods may be unsuitable for pregnant women."
Whatever the policy is, Sainsbury’s could at least get the information correct: there are certain soft cheeses that should be avoided by pregnant women because of the potential to support growth of listeria. Amy has written extensively about this.
Me, I view the grocery store and the restaurant as my laboratory. I watch and ask questions of people, especially front-line staff. The head of food safety back at corporate HQ may know the correct food safety answer, but are they providing support to front-line staff, the people customers are most likely to interact with? That’s why we do food safety infosheets, a tool to provide continuous updates to employees, and that’s why we do secret shopper experiments.
The key findings after sending trained shoppers to a bunch of stores in southern Ontario in 2004?
“Although many grocery store employees appeared confident in their food safety knowledge, when asked for storage and handling advice, many were unaware of the proper methods within their department and were willing to offer incorrect advice. This advice often conflicted with the food handling information posted throughout the grocery store.”
Any organization is only as good as its weakest link. There’s already enough bad food safety information out there.
Secret shopper: Grocery store employee food handling practices from a customer’s perspective
01.aug.05,
Food Protection Trends
Lisa Mathiasen and Doug Powell
http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=11&sc=82&id=840
Food safety is critical along the entire agri-food chain, but it should be emphasized particularly in grocery stores because this may be the last opportunity to prevent food from becoming contaminated before it is purchased.
The responsibility for safe food handling has increased for the newer North American supermarkets, which offer a variety of additional food services and products. This research reports on food handling trends discovered by observing the food handling practices of grocery store employees and by inquiring about specific food safety-related topics in supermarkets across southern Ontario.
Ten researchers, trained to portray customers, visited 13 randomly selected supermarkets in Southern Ontario, three times. Observations and information were evaluated against the content of supermarket training programs and current literature. The triangulation of results was used to establish and confirm the observed trends.
During the store visits, a number of poor food handling practices were observed including improper glove use; cross contamination between raw and ready-to-eat meats and poultry; improper food storage; and poor personal hygiene. In addition, although many grocery store employees appeared confident in their food safety knowledge, when asked for storage and handling advice, many were unaware of the proper methods within their department and were willing to offer incorrect advice. This advice often conflicted with the food handling information posted throughout the grocery store.
This research highlights the need for more interactive training specific to individual departments within a supermarket, and will help in the improvement of training resources for grocery store food handlers.
Marketing food safety: Maple Lodge Farms deli-meat edition
Maple Lodge Farms is often confused with Maple Leaf Foods, the latter of the listeria mess in Canada a year ago that killed 22 people.
In an effort to protect their brand, Maple Lodge has taken to marketing food safety. And I’m all for it.
These full-page advertisements are from a couple of Canadian magazines, the Sept. 2009 issue of Today’s Parent (right), and the Oct. 2009 issue of Canadian Living (below, left).
There’s far too many sick people, and far too much bureau-dancing around foodborne illness: The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.
Those companies that promote food safety culture can market their activities, and then consumers have a way to choose at the check-out aisle, providing feedback to those companies that make food safety a public priority.
Maple Lodge isn’t so much promoting a food safety culture as a technological fix. But at least they’re out there. A case could be made that the tomatoes, lettuce and sprouts pictured in these sandwiches also pose a significant food safety risk. That’s why buyers have to source food from safe sources.
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.
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?
Maple Lodge to market food safety on deli meats; will Maple Leaf follow?
Maple Lodge Farms is Canada's largest independent chicken processor and I’ve been to the slaughter plant in Brampton, Ontario. With all the Maple Leaf listeria stuff over the past eight months, Maple Lodge has been sorta quiet.
Until today.
Maple Lodge chief executive officer Michael Burrows unveiled a new high-pressure method of killing listeria and other bacteria in sliced luncheon meats after the package is sealed. The process applies water under extremely high pressure to the packaged product, has no adverse impact on the product itself, and has been approved by Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
So Maple Leaf, using that newfangled blogging technology, responded by saying Maple Leaf Foods was an early adopter of Ultra High Pressure (UHP) technology in Canada and began using it in Maple Leaf Simply Fresh entree products when they were introduced more than two years ago, in a bunch of other products, and will look at using it in deli meat if it can provide added food safety assurance to consumers.
Maple Leaf, seriously, you need better writers.
But this is what I like about the Maple Lodge approach:
They came out and said internal research showed consumer demand for higher levels of food safety has risen sharply in the past year, and that consumers would be willing to pay a premium of 1-2 cents per 100 grams of product to get it.
Maybe, consumers will say anything on a survey but vote with their money at checkout.
But Maple Lodge is going to label the stuff with a" SafeSure" sticker and market food safety at retail.
Good for them. Rather than lecturing consumers, let them choose. At checkout.
Maple Leaf discovers food safety - too late
During the Bite Me ’09 road trip, a very prominent food safety colleague told a very public audience that he wasn’t so impressed when a company hired a chief food safety dude after the poop had hit the fan.
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Me thinks he was talking about Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian company doing $5.5 billion a year in sales that decided it needed a chief food safety officer after killing 21 people with its listeria-laden deli meats last fall.
On March 25, 2009, Maple Leaf announced it was launching an external company blog at http://blog.mapleleaf.com. The first posting, "The Journey to Food Safety Leadership," is a letter written by President and CEO, Michael McCain.
Anything mentioning Journey should be banned. So many times while flipping the radio during the Bite Me ’09 3600-mile roadtrip, a Journey song would come on. And they’re on some new ad. Horrible, horrible music.
So it’s apt that Maple Leaf Foods chose a Journey to food safety because like the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, they are all aggressively mediocre.
The letter from McCain is not a blog post: it’s a missive that needs some serious editing for brevity. There’s been a couple of other posts that run the gamut from boring to pedantic. My group has written a paper on what makes a good blog post. McCain may want to check it out.
McCain and his food safety hire, Randy Huffman, are apparently touring the editorial boards of the remaining newspapers in Canada as a prelude to parliamentary hearings that begin next week on the future of Canada's food safety system.
“We are going to be advocating more regulation, not less. More-stringent protocols, not less-stringent protocols. We're going to be advocating more transparency and a stronger role for government, not a reduced role.”
Of course they are. Just like leafy green growers and the dude from Kellogg’s. Isn’t it embarrassing when industry – the ones who make a profit – says, we can’t do this ourselves, we need a babysitter.?
He (McCain) was accompanied by the company's new chief food safety officer, Randy Huffman, whose appointment and position are being touted as evidence of Maple Leaf's responsiveness to the crisis.
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I’ll defer to my very prominent food safety colleague.
McCain also told the Globe and Mail this morning,
“We have to be candid and open and honest to the Canadian public, as does the industry and government. In the world of food safety we can do the very best job we can, but zero risk is not achievable based on what we know today.”
Dude, I co-wrote a book called Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk back in 1997 that said zero-risk was unachievable and consumers actually don’t want that. They just want to know that whoever is in charge is doing what can be reasonably expected to reduce risk. Twelve years later and McCain feels it necessary to lecture the Canadian public about this stuf? Had McCain really never heard about the 1998 outbreak of listeria associated with Sara Lee hot dogs?
Back to the questions the Globe editorial board apparently forgot to ask while fawning over McCain: should Maple Leaf products contain warning labels for pregnant women and old folks; why aren’t Maple Leaf listeria results publicly available; and who knew what when in the days leading up to the Aug. 2008 recall?
Canadian listeria coverage still sucks
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.
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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:
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• 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?
Bert Mitchell: Canadian listeria controls lacking
Bert Mitchell saw jim Romahn’s Dec. 22/08 piece about listeria and Maple Leaf Foods in FSnet and barfblog.com, and decided he had to write.
Dr. Mitchell’s no lightweight. Among other achievements, he was Director of the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs at Health Canada from 1982-1988,an associate director at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine from 1988-2001, and the current president of the American Association of Retired Veterinarians.
Bert says:
I want to congratulate and encourage Jim Romahn for his article Maple Leaf, Michael McCain, and Unanswered Questions. I read his article on the FSnet list serve webpage. I do not claim to be an expert in the microbiology of Listeria or manufacturing procedures to avoid it but I do want to encourage Jim, and others in his profession, because the picture of cause and control in this Maple Leaf case is incomplete.
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While Michael McCain seems to be gathering year–end goodwill for his handling of the Listeria contamination in the Maple Leaf plant, I think it is too early for applause. Effective long term solutions have not been put in place.
Jim is on-point in arguing for better health protection in Canada. He is helping expose a glaring lack of complete information that should be readily available from Health Canada, CFIA, or Maple Leaf Foods about the source and spread of the Listeria found in sliced meat cold cuts that killed 20 Canadians and sickened many others. Specifically, he is spotlighting the continuing lack of the better labeling and improved manufacturing procedures needed to protect elderly, immune weakened, and pregnant persons. This example of poor health protection in Canada has been seen before. Listeriosis in people has occurred previously in Canada and because of regulatory inaction, it can happen again.
Listeria in cold cuts is a health threat that continues to exist in Canada. The recent hype from Maple Leaf in advertising the end of Listeria risk is just talk without support. If the company or the federal bureaucracy have evidence that labeling and manufacturing procedure changes are unnecessary, they should publish the evidence for the public to see.
As a result of inadequate labeling/manufacturing regulations, inadequate enforcement, and excessive collegiality between the federal bureaucrat and the industry it regulates, the Listeria public health threat continues to exist in Canada. About 10 years ago, the U.S. found Listeria in wieners. They changed labeling and required a post packaging cooking step. These changes appear to be the reason for no Listeria in U.S. cold cuts. For these 10 years, an apparently effective regulatory example has been on paper and worked effectively in practice to prevent Listeria in cold cuts in the U.S. The evidence of need for better Canadian labeling and manufacturing procedures for cold cuts seems obvious. What am I missing in this seemingly black-white image?
Investigative journalism is an important factor in uncovering the stinking wet spots that can exist within big bureaucracies and industries. Investigative reporting is particularly important in instances in which the public is indifferent to the issue or prefers to believe that the government can be trusted to always do what is right. Everyone has a responsibility to be vigilant about government action and inaction.
The investigative journalist reviews the evidence, thinks about alternatives, asks questions, and writes articles. In this case they write articles about why Canadians have died unnecessarily. Investigative journalism is a critically important element in effecting change. Jim Romahn has the right line of questions. He deserves nomination for yet another journalistic award.
In Canada, the labeling and manufacturing controls needed to control Listeria in cold cuts are not in place. Just as Canadians experienced no outbreak of Listeria for a decade, there may be none for years to come. What we do know is that the 2008 Listeria outbreak in Canada has not motivated sufficient change to prevent another outbreak and more unnecessary deaths. It is this flaw that Jim Romahn is addressing and the investigation I applaud.
Michael McCain whines some more
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.
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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.
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Maple Leaf's McCain has the communication goods; now show us the data
Maple Leaf president Michael McCain told the media today that,
“I once again wish to express my deepest personal sympathies to those Canadians who have been affected by this tragedy. While this is the most unfortunate of events possible, I absolutely do not believe that this is a failure of the Canadian food safety system or the regulators.
“Certainly knowing that there is a desire to assign blame, I want to reiterate that the buck stops right here.
“As I've said before, Maple Leaf Foods is 23,000 people who live in a culture of food safety. We have an unwavering commitment to keep our food safe, and we have excellent systems and processes in place. But this week it's our best efforts that failed, not the regulators or the Canadian food safety system.”
Good for McCain. He runs a company with world-class aspirations, so he’s not weaseling away from the spotlight.
And he unshackled the company of any political or bureaucratic commentary – which has been fairly hopeless all along.
But if McCain is going to step up, he’s also going to get some questions,
McCain says, “a comprehensive study done at the University of Regina gave Canada one of five superior ratings out of 17 top-tier OECD countries in a world review of food safety. This highlights that Listeria is a particularly challenging bacteria for the entire food industry to manage, including the United States and Europe, simply because it is pervasive."
That study was fairly challenged and has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Don’t cite shit.
And you didn’t address any of the tough issues.
Will you release the results of the 3,000 listeria swabs your company takes every year to provide some data, some meaning, to your claims that public health is your top priority?
Will you back some kind of point-of-sale initiative – warning labels or otherwise – to explicitly warn pregnant women and immunocomprimized Canadians that, as you say, listeria is so widespread in the environment, that vulnerable people should not eat your products.
Michael McCain, you’ve taken some great first steps and gone way beyond what government has done. The sooner you lose them the better; they’re deadweight and not very good hockey players. They don’t lose their jobs, and they don’t lose sleep about falling stock prices.
Me, Ben, Amy and the rest of our team are here to help you actually implement that culture of food safety you and your folks are so fond of citing. We’ve noticed you liked the pictures of recalled products idea. We’re not just armchair quarterbacks, and we’re just an e-mail away.
15 dead in Canadian listeria outbreak; government messages turn from bizarre to banal
Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, when it comes to the communication and building trust aspects of what must be your listeria nightmare, stay away from government.
Shortly after the first death was announced last Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, various politicians and bureaucrats said the surveillance system was working. Robert Clarke, the assistant deputy minister of the Public Health Agency of Canada, said Friday that the government's actions in this case were quite rapid and an illustration of success.
I’ve been harping ever since that it’s impossible to tell from the various public statements who became sick when, and whether the system really worked or not. If you’re going to brag about how the system is working, you have to provide dates for onset of illness and deaths.
Today I got some company.
Toronto’s Globe and Mail wrote in an editorial that officials claiming surveillance success, “doth self-praise too much, too soon.
“Did the surveillance system work? No independent voice has said so yet, and it is hard to see why Mr. Clement's or Mr. Clarke's word should be taken at face value. The two-year-old Public Health Agency, which reports to Mr. Clement, has yet to distinguish itself for independence. And everyone - government health officials and the company involved, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. - considered it enough that the first warning of possible contamination went out to distributors, not the public. For four days, the loop was closed. Whether that was the right or the wrong approach, it does not do much for the public's confidence in Canada's food-safety system.”
Columnist Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun wrote that,
“Federal Health Minister Tony Clement says the recent tainted meat outbreak that killed six people and caused at least 14 more serious illnesses is a shining example of how well Canada's food inspection system works.
Pardon? …
“If this is what Clement calls a success story, I'd hate to see what he considers a system failure. … I don't think six deaths and 14 serious illnesses is anything to be proud of.”
These comments about success are even more bizarre and appalling now that the confirmed and probable death toll has been raised to 15.
So this afternoon, Dr. David Butler-Jones, MD, Chief Public Health Officer (that’s a lot of capitals), who had previously lauded the success of the surveillance system, wrote in a press release that,
“As Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, I want to update Canadians on the state of the ongoing listeriosis outbreak.”
He really seems to enjoy that title; and he then proceeded to provide less than no information.
“We are all understandably concerned whenever we hear that something as precious as the food we eat may pose a danger. Years of effort to ensure safe and secure food supplies have allowed us to be confident in what we eat. …
“While not everything is preventable, fortunately there are some simple steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of illness for ourselves and our families. There are the usual things we should always be doing, like washing hands, storing and cooking food properly, washing fruits and vegetables well, and avoiding unpasteurized milk and milk products. …
“Canadians should be confident that the Government of Canada, through the
Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada and the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency, is working closely with all provinces, territories, and with Maple Leaf Foods to respond to this outbreak and protect the public's health.
“We can never be completely immune to the risk of contaminations and outbreaks, even with the best food safety system in the world. That is why we operate surveillance and other systems to identify potential outbreaks and do the detective work that helps us to find the cause and stop further problems. And what we learn from each experience helps us to improve the system further.”
As Napoleon Dynamite sorta said, “That’s like, the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Why should Canadians have any confidence when the public servants at all these agencies with their six-figure salaries can’t provide basic information like who got sick when? How arrogant is it to tell someone they should be confident in an alphabet soup of agencies, in the absence of any data or statements that inspire confidence?
Ben sent me a sports headline regarding the Olympics, which also fits for food safety: Canada remains happily mediocre.
That’s me and Ben, above right, not exactly as pictured.
And here's me with a clean shirt talking to CBC News.
Should deli meats carry warning labels?
Warning labels are a lousy risk management strategy, but the outbreak of listeria in Canada which has killed at least 12 and sickened dozens has had lots of lousy aspects. So why not?
A story that is running across Canada this morning says,
With pregnant women and the elderly especially at risk from Listeria, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency needs to step up efforts to alert people to the hazard — perhaps going so far as to put warning labels on deli products — said University of Guelph adjunct professor Doug Powell.
What? Guess that was some stretch at Canadian content. I’m an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University. If I’m adjunct at Guelph, I want access to all the money that was provided to deliver news and is instead being used as some sort of room renovation fund by a department chair I never met.
The opinion piece that ran in the Toronto Star this morning was more accurate.
Michael McCain delivered a powerful and compelling apology over the weekend as authorities confirmed Maple Leaf deli meats were the likely source of food-borne illness that has killed at least six and sickened dozens.
Outbreaks of food and water-borne illness are far too common. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30 per cent of people in so-called developed countries will suffer each and every year. That's a lot of sick people.
But the current listeria outbreak turns statistics into stories, and challenges a company like Maple Leaf, with world-class aspirations, to do better.
The first case of listeriosis apparently surfaced in late June. Why it took the various health authorities so long to make a link remains to be uncovered.
For now, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada and others are providing little in the way of details regarding who knew what when.
The authorities are, however, proving unjustifiably adept at praising themselves for the speed with which they responded to the outbreak.
Two months after the first case is not an early-warning system. The political barbs that have been tossed around – which provide no insight on managing listeria – are simply embarrassing given the loss of life and illness.
McCain and Maple Leaf are better than this, and can be better:
• Issue pictures of the recalled products:
Telling people to look for products that contain the stamp "Establishment (EST) 97B" puts too much of a burden on people who just wanted to go shopping, not do homework. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration realized this, and last year started including pictures on their recall notices for products deemed to be high health risks.
Pictures aren't superficial, they are good communication. It's difficult for even PhD-types to wade through nine pages of recalled products, and pictures can make the connection for those who don't always know what brands they buy.
• Warn pregnant women and others at risk from listeria in deli meats:
My wife is six months pregnant and she hasn't had deli meats or smoked salmon or other refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods for six months.
That's because, as Michael McCain says, the bacterium listeria is fairly much everywhere, difficult to control, and grows in the refrigerator. It also causes stillbirths in pregnant women, who are about 20 times more likely to contract the bug than other adults.
The banter in Canada about government or industry taking the lead on food inspection, whether food should be produced in large or small places, is misguided at best and more likely, political opportunism.
Long before the current outbreak, the advice from the Canadian government about listeria was mushy:
"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."
The advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is clear: Do not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats, or deli meats, unless they are reheated.
It has been documented that many pregnant women are not aware of the risks associated with consuming refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods like cold cuts.
Don't expect the bureaucrats in the Canadian government to do anything. If Michael McCain and Maple Leaf are truly concerned with public health, they could at a minimum put warning labels on their products. Maybe near the "(EST) 97B."
• Make your listeria data public:
Maple Leaf Foods spokesperson Linda Smith told CTV Newsnet Friday, officials at the plant are "... constantly looking for it (listeria), constantly swabbing and looking for it."
Smith said the equipment at the plant is sanitized every day and officials take about 3,000 swabs per year. The plant also has a microbiologist on site.
"This plant has an excellent food safety record, excellent inspection record, excellent external auditors. We'll never know exactly how it got here."
But you do have 3,000 samples per year. If Maple Leaf really wants to restore public confidence, release the listeria data. How many positives does the Toronto plant see in a year? Were there positives leading up to the initial Aug. 17 recall? If there were no positives, why not? What is the protocol when a positive is discovered?
Consumers can handle more, not less information about the food they eat.
Maple Leaf Foods has the unfortunate opportunity to set new standards for consumer confidence.
Douglas Powell of Brantford is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.
Maple Leaf Listeria developments
The coverage of this outbreak isn't really going away as more details came out yesterday.
Earlier in the day, Maple Leaf spokesperson Linda Smith was cited as saying that inspectors failed to detect listeria in this case, but they are constantly swabbing for the bacterium. "Did we find it? Absolutely not. We did not find that listeria," she said. "Did we let people down? Yes. But we were doing the right things."
On CBC's National tonight (clip below), Smith was quoted as saying "We would occasionally find a listeria positive swab, at which case we sanitize that complete area and swab again."
So which is it?
In legal news, and the lead story on Canada AM this morning, is that class action lawsuits in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been launched according to Tony Merchant, of the Merchant Law Group LLP, who says residents in each of the provinces have contacted his firm about representation.
As I wrote this post, I saw Michael McCain's Maple Leaf apology on TV three times.
12 dead, 26 confirmed ill, 29 more suspected in Canadian listeria outbreak
I was talking with my mom yesterday. Her and dad live in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and she asked if I was busy with the listeria outbreak. I asked her if she was concerned at all, and she says she doesn’t buy deli meat – her, and more often, dad, will cook a roast or a ham and eat leftovers.
At that point, I realized I had become my parents. I do buy the occasional shaved turkey breast, and lots of smoked salmon, but it’s been nothing but roasts and birds fillets for the past six months of Amy’s pregnancy.
Others in Canada aren’t so sure what to do.
Ken Barnett of Ajax, Ontario, said that in the future, he and his wife are sticking to salads and salmon for lunch. I wonder if he knows smoked salmon is another one of those refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods that can harbor listeria.
“We’ve sort of made a decision not to buy any cold meats for the time being.”
Meanwhile, health types announced this afternoon that the number of dead in the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak has risen to six confirmed and six more suspected deaths, along with 26 confirmed illnesses and another 29 suspected ill.
Meat types this afternoon said the Canadian meat supply was among the safest in the world, and that,
“Canadian consumers should be assured that Canada's meat supply is recognized amongst the safest in the world.”
The release went on to describe all the money that has been invested in the meat system and that consumers needed to do their part. I’m sure none of this was reassuring to the dead and sick, especially since these are ready-to-eat products.
Medical types on Vancouver Island received a letter warning them to be on the lookout for patients with symptoms of listeria. Shouldn’t this have happened two months ago when the first cases were reported?
And an academic type, my buddy Rick Holley at the University of Manitoba, said he wasn't surprised to learn of the listeria outbreak since Canada's tracking of food-related illnesses is inadequate, and that,
"I am constantly troubled by the lack of surveillance information on foodborne and waterborne illnesses in Canada.”
