More listeria revelations: CFIA waited (at least) 5 days to issue advisory, policy on going public seems to suck
Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported Saturday that health officials in Ontario ordered hospitals and nursing homes to stop serving Maple Leaf meats five days before the public was told about a deadly source of food poisoning that has so far claimed 19 lives and left another 60 people seriously ill across Canada.
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The CFIA launched its investigation on Aug. 6, after officials at the Ontario Ministry of Health informed it that there was an outbreak of listeriosis in the province. Many local health officials were already grappling with a spike in listeriosis cases, but they did not become aware that the outbreak spanned several provinces until July 30, when they received a directive from the ministry, telling them to urgently report any new cases.
On Aug. 14, health officials in Ontario learned during a telephone conference call with the CFIA that the agency had some test results revealing that Maple Leaf deli meats contained the foodborne bacteria known as Listeria monocytogenes.
The CFIA waited until it had the DNA fingerprint evidence establishing a definitive link before it went public – on Aug. 19, 2008.
CFIA spokesman Garfield Balsom said,
“We had lab results indicating that there was positive listeria in a product and we would issue our normal recall based on that.”
So epidemiology doesn’t count? If CFIA really does not issue public advisories unless it has a positive result, that would explain the low number outbreaks linked to fresh fruits in vegetables in Canada. Who knows how many sick people there are, and how many illnesses and deaths could have been prevented in the current listeriosis outbreak.
A positive listeria sample would have triggered an immediate recall in the U.S. So what is the CFIA policy on going public – on issuing advisories that specific foods may pose an imminent danger to the health of Canadians. CFIA won’t say what their policy is, at least not publicly, but a policy that maligns epidemiology and relies excessively on positive test results – especially when those samples appear to be delivered by stagecoach – is restrictive and reckless.
As past of that accountability, I told the Toronto Star on Thursday that Canada does not need an inquiry and does not need more inspectors, rather,
"People need to do their jobs. The CFIA is accountable to Parliament through the minister of agriculture, so either the minister, or the Prime Minister's Office, should call the head of CFIA on the carpet and say, `You've had this internal report since 2005. Issue some clear guidelines on how to communicate during an outbreak of food-borne illness. Give clear instructions to inspectors and the industry on what is expected to ensure a safe food supply ... If you can't do that, I will find someone else who can – and not some political appointment, someone with a food safety background who will do what is necessary to protect the safety of the Canadian food supply and bolster the Canadian brand in international circles.'"
Such straight talk, especially when it comes to informing the public about health risks, is largely missing in Canada, experts agree.
So while the politicians and unionists pontificate, a columnist at the University of Calgary student paper got the most rightest:
"Canadians have entrusted one single agency, the CFIA, to protect the entire Canadian food supply-- we have placed all food security in one basket.
"If the CFIA did not exist, perhaps Canadians would be better off. … The current food inspection system has failed Canadians. Maybe it is time for a change."
As an aside, a columnist with the Ottawa Citizen who fancies himself as some sort of risk guru wrote Saturday that,
“Another clue lies in the number of listeriosis deaths in past years. According to Statistics Canada, there were five in 2000. In 2001, four. In 2002, seven. In 2003, three. In 2004, one. (Data for subsequent years were unavailable.) …
“The Globe also noted the Canadian regulatory standard is weaker than that of the United States, which allows no listeria content at all in ready-to-eat foods. But the Globe did not report that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 2,500 Americans become seriously ill with listeriosis each year and 500 die.
“Thus the listeriosis fatality rate is far smaller in Canada than the U.S. That, too, does not suggest a crisis.”
The columnist is comparing actual listeria cases in Canada with estimated cases in the U.S. And why no alarm that the most recent numbers in Canada are from 2004?
Canadian food safety bureaucrats still aren't that into you
If Canadian cattle or chickens get sick, the public is told all about it.
If Canadian people get sick, not so much.
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That’s what I wrote in Dec. 2006 in a piece called, Sorry, bureaucrats just aren’t that into you.
I’ve said the same thing for the past month as the listeria in Canadian cold-cuts outbreak became public. The latest figures show at least 18 dead and 60 confirmed or suspected ill.
The several-week delay in telling Canadians about listeria in Maple Leaf cold-cuts, coupled with the self-congratulatory and exceedingly false statements about the superiority of Canadian disease surveillance is just another episode in the arrogant and dysfunctional father-knows-best approach to providing health advice practiced by various Canadian authorities.
Dr. Phil would say the relationship between officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian public is like a couple headed for divorce: they don't speak unless forced to, and when asked, it's denial, deceit and deception.
Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star reports today that a major review of Canada's food recall system three years ago identified serious problems that experts say continue to threaten public safety.
“Spotty inspections across the country, delays in warning the public about tainted food and a lack of follow-up to prevent repeat outbreaks are documented in the government report, obtained through access to information legislation.
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The 2005 Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) review predicts concerns that have emerged from the current Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that has claimed 18 lives.
"There is no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning," the report states.
Timely public disclosure of food risks re-emerged as an issue last month when it took three weeks for officials to warn the public of tainted Maple Leaf meat. …
In the aftermath of the outbreak, public health officials and politicians were quick to reassure Canadians that the country has one of the best food safety systems in the world. But behind the scenes, the review documents a history of serious internal concerns: "Most findings in this report have previously been identified by the various parties involved in food recalls."
The CFIA audit paints a picture of a sometimes-chaotic system where turf wars can impact the public's need to know about food warnings. …
Doug Powell, a Canadian food safety expert working at Kansas State University, said any warnings officials received from the review appear to have been ignored. "It's contentment with mediocrity. The bureaucrats don't seem to care very much. They all talk a good game, but they never think it will happen to them, so they just go on."
I can imagine Dr. Phil asking in his Texas drawl "How's that working out for ya’ll?"
The most frustrating part is that CFIA is staffed with individuals who are excellent public advocates and spokespeople. On issues relating to mad cow disease or avian influenza, CFIA goes out of its way to communicate with Canadians, perhaps fearing that any crisis of confidence will reduce sales and impact Canadian farms.
Yet when it comes to the 11 to 13 million foodborne illnesses in Canada each and every year, CFIA has adopted a policy of don't ask, don't tell.
Maybe Dr. Phil can get the public and CFIA into a relationship based on open communication, trust, and respect, but I doubt it. Time to move on.
Pot pies, pâté and pregnancy: The medium and the messages to create a food safety culture
Food safety culture will be the topic of a presentation by Kansas State University's Doug Powell as part of the K-State Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology Seminar Series.
Powell, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology and scientific director of the International Food Safety Network, will present "Pot pies, Pâté and Pregnancy: The Medium and the Messages to Create a Food Safety Culture" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, in the Practice Management Center on the fourth floor of K-State's Trotter hall. The seminar is free and open to the public.
Powell will provide an overview on the different mediums and messages his research team has experimented with to foster a food safety culture, from farm to fork.
"From pot pies, peanut butter, deli meats and pizza to peppers, tomatoes, spinach and more: food can make people sick -- a lot of people," Powell said. "The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30 percent of all citizens in developed and other countries will get sick from the food they consume each year.
"But statistics are easy to ignore," he said. "In the past month, a 26-year-old died and 206 were sickened with E. coli 0111 after eating in Locust Grove, Okla. Nineteen people have died and dozens sickened with listeria after eating deli meats in Canada. In a separate outbreak, at least seven pregnant women in Quebec have acquired listeria from cheese, leading to premature births and illness in their babies."
Powell said the challenge is to provide reliable and relevant information in a compelling manner to reduce the burden of foodborne illness.
Really, consumers can decide about irradiation
In between listeria interviews yesterday I spoke with Julie Schmit of USA Today about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approved of irradiation on spinach and lettuce to kill dangerous bacteria.
The steady pace of food-safety scares -- and growing consumer awareness of food-safety risks -- will improve consumer acceptance of irradiated greens, says Doug Powell of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University
."There's been enough outbreaks ... that the consumer demand should be there.”
Craig Wilson, food-safety chief for Costco, said that while a handful of companies have succeeded in selling irradiated ground beef since it hit the market in 2000, the idea has largely flopped.
"Mom wouldn't buy it.”
But I bet there are lots of moms, and dads, who want to increase their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables without having their kids end up on the kidney transplant list. As I said before, irradiation is an additional tool that can enhance the safety of the food supply. But don’t let the technology be derailed by activists on the InterWebs. Let consumers decide.
Doug to People magazine: Follow the poop
"How cool are you? Saw you quoted in article about tomatoes in this week’s People magazine."I’m not as cool as the CDC’s Bob Tauxe, and cool may not be the word when talking about food safety nerds. But it was fun talking to the reporter, who thought the celebrity barf section of barfblog was particularly apt.
There’s been lots of media as the Salmonella saga continues to unwind: 1090 sick in 42 states and Canada. As part of enhanced testing at the U.S.-Mexican border, FDA found a different Salmonella in a shipment of basil. More poop in produce.
Sysco has stopped distributing fresh jalapeño peppers, food fear fatigue is settling in, farmers are losing money, government agencies are losing credibility, and, as I keep reminding journalists who want to blame someone, there are a lot of sick people out there.
"If they (FDA) go too slow, they're criticized. If they go too fast, they're criticized," says Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University. "The investigation is still ongoing. The time for finger-pointing isn't there yet."
Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News was one of my favorite interviews.
As Dr. Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network, puts it: "Follow the poop. … A lot of eating fresh vegetables," Dr. Powell said, "is an act of faith."
Coffee, Conagra and consumers - talking in bed
The coffee place was just opening and as I awaited my order, a load of prepared sandwiches arrived. The first thing the staff member did was insert a tip-sensitive digital thermometer into one of the sandwiches to verify that the proper temperature had been maintained. Good on ya. The guy getting my order said it was standard operating procedure, and as we chatted it emerged he was newly arrived in Wellington from Montreal. Another Canadian buddy. Or friend.Next was a talk with ConAgra’s Food Safety Council in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s ConAgra of pot pie and peanut butter fame.
Quality experts at ConAgra Foods today will hear from a lawyer who has sued the company due to food borne illnesses and from two food safety advocates as the company stresses the need to keep its products safe.
"It's part of raising the game and listening to every expert on the food safety front," said Teresa Paulsen, ConAgra spokeswoman.
ConAgra decided to bring in Bill Marler, Barb Kowalcyk, director of food safety and co-founder of the Center for FoodBorne Illness Research and Prevention, and myself to hear what we had to say.
Marler told the Omaha World-Herald he was going to talk about fostering a culture that focuses on food safety while remaining profitable in a competitive industry, and credited ConAgra Chief Executive Gary Rodkin and other company executives for inviting him to speak.
"It says a lot for the company.”
Being in Wellington, NZ, and 17 hours ahead, provided several technological hurdles, which we sorta managed to get around. Video didn’t work, so the folks in Nebraska saw my slides and heard my disembodied voice – apparently in surround sound. I was talking into a telephone (left, exactly as shown), advancing my slides, but had no audience feedback. While awkward, I could get used to this lecturing style.
By the time I spoke with the consumer advisory group for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority later that afternoon, I had the message much more focused: here’s the top-5 factors that contribute to foodborne illness, here’s the research we do to reduce the burden of each, and here’s how we use different mediums and messages to foster a food safety culture, from farm-to-fork.
It’s been good to reflect on why we do the things we do, and it’s been great traveling in Wellington with Amy. Now it’s time for a couple of days of hanging out, catching up on news if I ever get my e-mail working again, and then its off to Melbourne on Sunday.
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Salmonella numbers up; media magic
“I don’t part my hair.”“Then get your wife to fix it.”
That’s essentially how the interview I did with CNN last Thursday went. I said lots of insightful things about fresh produce and marketing food safety and consumers, all of which the TV folks chose not to use. (the video is available at: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/07/02/ldt.schiavone.failing.fda.cnn).
No worries. I’ll write it up. My stylist and partner said I did good. So she’s taking me to Australia.
After two years of me trying to take Amy to Australia, she takes me. We’re already on various planes, arriving in Wellington, New Zealand for a week beginning July 7. Then it’s of to Melbourne, Australia for a travel writing conference.
So news will be slow and random yet unrelenting as always.
Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control upped the number of Salmonella sickies to 943 with at least 130 hospitalizations since mid-April. And the Wall Street Journal cited Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesperson, as saying tomatoes no longer are the leading suspect, though,
"Tomatoes are one of the primary things we are looking at."
Bastards, bullshit and babies
Just doesn't seem to fit anymore.
Too many hacks and posers.
I started sending out news shortly after I began my PhD in 1993. Jack-in-the-Box had just happened, Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet, but I was plugged in through the various twists and turns of life, and started sharing stories -- in real time -- with my science-geek colleagues.
They seemed to like it, and research confirmed it was useful.
In 1993, food safety types were conditioned to reading about outbreak investigations when CDC's MMWR arrived in the mail six months later. That's still way faster than the Canadian government types write up any outbreak investigation.
I originally called the news distribution the Food Safety Network cause network was sorta new. Sure, it seems dated now, but at the time, we rocked. Now, it just rolls.
The whole idea of calling my lab the Food Safety Network rests with Lester Crawford. I wanted to create a group modeling Georgetown University's Center for Food and Nutrition Policy (which has since moved). Lester spent a couple of days in Guelph, and told me, whatever you do, make it bigger than yourself. No one cares about Doug Powell's lab. So give it a name. And bring in others.
So I did.
Unfortunately, due largely to my unfailing optimism, others went for the short game. In the spirit of open and honest collaboration, the University of Guelph went and trademarked Food Safety Network in Canada the day I resigned -- and didn't bother to tell anybody. Then they scooped up whatever money was left to cover the deficit in their paper clip fund.
The actions of so many have been small and petty. But there have always been a few that make it worthwhile.
Katija Blaine and Ben Chapman have both been with me in various capacities since 1999. Still are. We've traveled the various minefields of genetically engineered sweet corn and on-farm food safety programs for fresh produce, and now we're all having babies.Katija was first up on Saturday, delivering Cormac (right). Congrats to Katija and Jeff.
Ben and Dani and due in Sept.
And me -- forever trying to hang out with the cool kids -- me and Amy are due the end of November.
Got no time for posers.
Two years in Kansas; barfblog turns 1; what's next?
"People ask me, how can you write those sensitive songs and then that trash, and I say, sometimes I feel real sensitive and sometimes I feel real trashy."That's how I approach barfblog. Sometimes I've got information that I just have to get out there that's snarky, insightful and relevant, and sometimes I just feel real trashy.
In the first year of barfblog.com, we posted 825 entries, increased the number of unique monthly visitors from 1,000 to 40,000 per month, got picked up by the N.Y. Times, David Letterman and dozens of other new and traditional media outlets, and sold a few hundred T-shirts (it's better than door-to-door chocolate sales to fund students).
We influenced the formation of public policy in many ways but our favorite was getting mentioned in the Wales E. coli inquiry, where I used the Bill Murray Groundhog Day analogy. And I got to meet Bill Murray in Manhattan and give him a poop shirt. Showing that microwaves may be a lousy way to cook pot pies was kinda fun. Safest food in the world? Shurley you must be joking.
The Internet means, unlike Jimmy in 1978, you don't have to be here … in Manhattan (Kansas). But you can subscribe. http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/subscribe.html
What's next? You'll find out soon enough.
And I'm still with that girl.
Which country has the safest food in the world? No one knows
It's impossible to say. The statistics don't exist to make such a claim. But that doesn't stop meatpackers, lobbyists, lawmakers and even government regulators who should know better, from repeating the claim every time there's a food-borne illness outbreak or major food recall.
So says Philip Brasher, writing today in the Des Moines Register.
Brasher says unfounded claims can undermine the credibility of the government and the industry and he cites barfblog.com and our special safest-food-in-the-world section at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/safest-food-in-the-world/.
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Kansas State University Professor Doug Powell wrote on a blog where he tracks food safety news,"Bland blanket statements serve only to amplify rather than mollify consumers (concerns)."
Brasher goes on to say that the problem with making these claims is that it's now impossible to compare one country's statistics to another country's, experts say. Most foodborne illnesses go unreported, so government agencies must come up with estimates of how many actually occur. How to do that varies.
Paul Frenzen, a demographer with the Agriculture Department's Economic Research who specializes in food safety, said that even a factor that would seem relatively simple to measure, such as cases of food-related diarrhea, isn't easy to track because definitions vary, and there are also cultural differences between countries as to when victims of foodborne illness go to the doctor.
Other countries offer universal health insurance, making it more likely that people will get to a doctor when they're sick.
Brasher concludes that after the nation's largest meat recall was announced earlier this year, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer didn't claim that U.S. food is the world's safest. Instead, he said,
"The United States enjoys one of the safest food supplies in the world."
No one is going to argue with that.
Knowing where your food comes from -- Doug Powell edition
A spate of recent scares about food -- from tainted spinach and cantaloupe to sprouts and carrot juice -- has made many consumers hyper-aware of the potential dangers of what they consume. For many, buying local seemed to offer protection against the evils of the food world.
A particularly harsh winter has put that myth to rest for many. Sooner or later, the grocery store and its shiny produce aisles full of strawberries, peppers, lettuce, oranges and kiwi beckon. Local, in this climate, has its limits.
Dr. Douglas Powell (right, not exactly as shown) says buying local is no guarantee against eating food that can make us sick."You have good producers and bad producers everywhere whether they are large or small, size doesn't matter."
Powell said he feels safe buying produce from large grocery stores that are big enough to demand high standards throughout their supply chains. Even then, problems can happen. When it comes to buying local, he asks questions, such as what kind of water is used for irrigation, how often it is tested and where the produce is grown.
The story says that Powell (left, not exactly as shown) is a Canadian who teaches at the University of Kansas and heads the Guelph-based Food Safety Network.I professorize at Kansas State University.
The International Food Safety Network is worldwide, headquartered on my couch in Manhattan (Kansas). If I'm heading some Guelph knock-off you'd think they could at least give me an e-mail address and not expropriate donations to cover shortfalls in their paper clip fund.
E-mailing Doug Powell? Don't send it to Guelph
"Take a look at the bathroom. You want to see soap, paper towels and lots of running water. If you don't see those, you've got a problem, because those are the essentials for good hand washing."
Ok, not so sage, Boring
The journos -- and many others -- often contact me through my University of Guelph e-mail address.
Don't.
I mean yes, contact me, I love the attention, but don't go through Guelph.In Feb. 2007, my previous institution, the University of Guelph, Canada, unilaterally decided not to continue a partnership with Kansas State, and eliminated access to my staff and funds that I had established in Guelph (about $750,000). An additional $135,000 the fine supporters of the Food Safety Network had provided to produce news has also magically disappeared.
And no one at Guelph will talk about it.
Now, the University of Guelph has frozen my e-mail account. They didn't tell me, it just stopped working. So if you sent an e-mail to my Guelph account -- and I was getting about 100 a day on that account -- please resend to dpowell@ksu.edu. You won't get an error message from the Guelph account, so you'll just think I'm being aloof or something and not bothering to respond. You may think that anyway. When I inquired about what had happened, since an e-mail account is fairly standard for adjunct professors and alumni, I was eventually told, and this is a direct quote from an admin-type,
"Your name (was removed) from sponsored accounts as we could not think of any reason why you needed a UofG account."
Oh well. The hacks and posers can busy themselves with e-mail account access management. I have news and research to produce. In the 68 F sun. With my family. In Kansas.
And there are some big changes coming to the daily news. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me, at Kansas State University, dpowell@ksu.edu.
Don't eat poop.
Doug Powell discusses on-farm food safety -- 2001
This film provides a good example of bad hair and shaky camera angles. And sheep.
