Food Poisoning, Foodborne Illness Information and Research : International Food Safety Network : BarfBlog

Some American colleagues have said killing 22 customers with deli-meat would have led to a non-existent company. Not so in Canada, where $5.5 billion companies like Maple Leaf Foods can say with a straight face that listeria presented new challenges in the ready-to-eat food category.

Maple Leaf has been praised for its communication activities in the aftermath of the listeria outbreak last fall, but instead of taking a real leadership role they have fallen back on the tired and true – their stock went up, so everyone is happy.

Specifically, Maple Leaf has failed to provide point-of-sale warnings to at-risk populations like pregnant women and old folks, failed to publicly release listeria test data and failed to promote their food safety efforts at retail, to enhance the food safety culture back at the producer and processor level, and to build consumer confidence. A completely blown opportunity.

Well done: be aggressively mediocre. That’s how to get brownie points in Canada.

 

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Canadian Minister of Agriculture and wannabe listeria comedian Gerry-isn’t-my-moustache-awesome Ritz announced today the government will spend $75 million Canadian taxpayer dollars to make sure Maple Leaf Foods products don’t make people barf or kill them.

"The Government of Canada's highest priority is the safety of Canadians. We are making significant investments to hire more inspectors; update technologies and protocols; and, improve communication so that Canadians have the information they need to protect their families."

The government will:

• hire 166 new food safety staff with 70 focusing on ready-to-eat-meat facilities;

more inspectors with listeria-vision goggles won’t make a difference

• provide 24/7 availability of health risk assessment teams to improve support to food safety investigations;

the half-dozen people in my lab used to do that

• improve coordination among federal and provincial departments and agencies;

more meetings

• improve communications to vulnerable populations before and during a foodborne illness outbreak;

could do that now, have produced nothing

• improve tracking of potential foodborne illness outbreaks through a national surveillance system;

yawn, been saying that for years

• improve detection methods for Listeria monocytogenes and other hazards in food to reduce testing time and enable more rapid response during food safety investigations, as well as expanding the Government's ability to do additional Listeria testing; and

a few researchers get money for their testing protocols

• initiate a third-party audit to make sure Canada's food inspection system has the right resources dedicated to the right priorities.

Maybe they could hire the American Institute of Baking, from Manhattan (Kansas) the same third-party auditor geniuses who said Peanut Corporation of America was doing a bang-up job, that is until over 4,000 products were recalled.
 

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The best Canadian comedians move to the U.S. The worst apparently stay and become Minister of Agriculture or a vp at some $5.5 billion a year corporation that discovers food safety after killing 22 people.

First it was Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry-isn’t-my-moustache-awesome Ritz joking that he was dying by a thousand cold cuts.

Now, a Maple Leaf Foods vp is shown on YouTube, yucking it up for Canadian policy wonks in Ontario cottage country on August 8, 2009.

Every year, the witty and urbane of Canada put on their best Berkenstocks and retreat to the Couchiching conference. A barfblog.com fan e-mailed me at the time, and said via a redirected twitter post, Rory McAlpine of Maple Leaf Foods “suggests an approach to food safety that takes in the accountability of the consumer.”

At the time I thought, what an asshole. Are consumers supposed to be deep-frying their deli meats? But I had no further information, no verification, so didn’t bother blogging the story.

The video has surfaced.

I first heard this joke about the Toronto Maple Leafs, listeria and the Leafs inability to win hockey’s coveted Stanley Cup, a futility streak going back to 1967, last year.

I thought it was tasteless and said so at the time.

Guess Rory stayed in Canada, where he still may be considered funny.

So here’s Rory McAlpine, vice-president, Government and Industry Relations, Maple Leaf Foods, and former British Columbia deputy minister of Agriculture, with his rendition of, hey, my own kid got listeria from my products, what’s the big deal?
 

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On Aug. 23, 2008, 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.”

As laid bare in the Weatherill report on the 2008 listeria shit-fest, McCain’s invocation of food safety culture was as credible as the politicians and bureaucrats who lauded the workings of Canada’s food safety surveillance system, when it didn’t actually work at all.

Andre Picard, the long-time health reporter for Toronto’s Globe and Mail, picked up on this theme today when he wrote,

“the root of the listeriosis outbreak in Canada in 2008 was not two dirty meat slicers but rather a culture – in government and private enterprise alike – in which food safety was not a priority but an afterthought.”

Picard says Ms. Weatherill's most important recommendation – one that has been largely glossed over in media coverage of the report – is for a culture of safety or, as is stated bluntly in the report: “Actions, not words.”

Really, Canada, this is nothing new. There is a long history in developed countries of negligence, followed by remorse, promises to do better and … minimal changes. Didn’t Canada go through all this after E. coli O157:H7 entered the municipal water supply in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000, killing 7 and sickening 2,500 in a town of 5,000?

In 1985, 19 of 55 affected people at a London, Ontario, nursing home died after eating sandwiches infected with E. coli O157:H7.  On Oct. 12, 1985, in response to an inquest, the Ontario government announced a training program for food-handlers in health-care institutions, “stressing cleaning and sanitizing procedures and hygienic practices in food preparation.” That training apparently didn’t include the food safety basic – don’t give unheated cold cuts to vulnerable populations, like old people, ‘cause they may die from listeria.

These days, food safety culture is the buzz. The same recommendation – to embrace and enhance food safety culture --  was embraced by the U.K. Food Standards Agency last week following an inquiry into the death of 5-year-old Mason Jones and the illness of 160 other schoolchildren who consumed E. coli O157:H7 contaminated cold cuts in Wales in 2005.

Sixteen years after E. coli O157:H7 killed four and sickened hundreds who ate hamburgers at the Jack-in-the-Box chain, the challenge remains: how to get people to take food safety seriously? 

Lots of companies do take food safety seriously and the bulk of Western meals are microbiologically safe. But recent food safety failures have been so extravagant, so insidious and so continual that consumers must feel betrayed.



Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. The culture of today’s food system (including its farms, food processing facilities, domestic and international distribution channels, retail outlets, restaurants, and domestic kitchens) is saturated with information but short on behavioral-change insights. Creating a culture of food safety requires application of the best science with the best management and communication systems, including compelling, rapid, relevant, reliable and repeated, multi-linguistic and culturally-sensitive messages.

Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart writes in his 2008 book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System, that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture.

The other guru of food safety culture, Chris Griffith of the University of Wales, features prominently in the report by Professor Hugh Pennington into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in Wales.

I’ve maintained for 16 years that, despite high-profile outbreaks and unacceptable loss of life, food safety in Canada is, as Weatherill stated, an afterthought.

Forget government. Michael McCain, you want to be a leader, lead, don’t just talk about it by throwing around words like food safety culture because they are suddenly fashionable.

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.

Weatherill says, action not words.

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If you ran a $5.5-billion-a-year corporation that made a variety of ready-to-eat deli meats, and those products killed 22 people and sickened another 53, causing the company to lose millions and trust in the food safety system to be further undermined, how would you go about rebuilding that trust, that brand?

Maybe make public all the listeria test results the corporation undertakes in the form of a live, continuously updated website; maybe have live video cameras that people could check out on the Internet to see how these delicious deli-meats are made; maybe market these food safety initiatives at retail.

Or blame consumers.

Maple Leaf Foods announced yesterday as part of their continuing Journey to Food Safety Leadership – I wish they were already there, but Don’t Stop Believin’ – they were launching a food safety at home website.

“In keeping with our mandate of becoming a leader in food safety education, we have launched a new website to help consumers understand the important role of food safety at Maple Leaf and in your homes.”

(I have this stupid Journey video on in the background that I’m about to paste below and I can’t tell whether it’s the music or that statement that just made me barf a bit in my mouth.)

If Maple Leaf believes they can be leaders in food safety education, why is there no mention that pregnant women shouldn’t eat Maple Leaf or any other deli meats or other refrigerated ready-to-eat foods?

More data; less Believin’.

And Journey still sucks.
 

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I got an e-mail from the vice-president of communications for Maple Leaf Foods on Saturday afternoon.

She was sending me a blog that her boss, Michael McCain wrote, about his new knowledge of listeria and the role of food safety inspectors.

I figure she’s making at least $150,000 to do her vp communicating, so, even though I was a dick, I felt OK responding,

“Thanks for forwarding this in a timely manner. I blogged about it yesterday.”

It was about 24 hours earlier.

And while McCain and Maple Leaf go about enhancing their communications reputations, even the mother country, land of the cook-your-turkey-till-it’s-piping-hot advice, has decided listeria is a problem, maybe we can’t rely on manufacturers, maybe listeria is everywhere like Michael McCain says, so maybe we better tell old people they could be at risk.

The U.K. Food Standards Agency commissioned a bunch of research and figured out that people over the age of 60 are more likely to take risks with 'use by' dates than younger people and that eating food like cold-cuts beyond its 'use by' date increases the risk of food poisoning from listeria.

A recent sharp rise in the number of people taken ill with listeria has seen more older people affected. The number of cases rose by 20% in 2007 and has doubled since 2000, this increase occurring predominantly among people over 60.

The number of cases of listeria in people over 60 years of age has doubled in the past nine years. And one in three of the people who get food poisoning caused by listeria die as a result.

Listeria is a type of food poisoning bacteria that can live and grow in a wide range of food – chilled ready-to-eat food in particular – for example pâté, cooked sliced meats, certain soft cheeses and smoked fish.

Dr Andrew Wadge, Chief Scientist at the FSA, said,

The rise in listeria food poisoning among older people is worrying. Listeria can make people very ill, and 95% of cases end up needing treatment in hospital.

'There are some really simple steps people can take to prevent getting ill in the first place: be aware that 'use by' dates indicate how long food will remain safe, and then make sure you stick to them; always follow the storage instructions on the label; and make sure your fridge is cold enough – between 0°C and 5°C is ideal.

'These are the three messages that our new campaign is focusing on and Food Safety Week is a good time to be raising awareness of them."

VP communications thingy: stop sending me e-mails that you or any of your underlings – and I know how many people at Maple Leaf subscribe to bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com – know was repetition and maybe work on an information strategy so that the genius dieticians in Canadian old-folks homes stop serving unheated cold-cuts to their patients. That’s how 22 people died last year.

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When to go public remains a difficult question for public health types, but us mere mortals were offered a glimpse yesterday.

"To wait until one has evidence beyond doubt . . . is often too late to protect the public," McKeown said.

In front of a parliamentary subcommittee Wednesday, the medical health officers for Ontario and the City of Toronto chastised the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for its handling of last summer's listeriosis outbreak.

"This was a national outbreak, but it wasn't clear that the national public health dofficer had a mandate for leadership at the federal level," Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, told the committee.

Williams, along with Dr. David McKeown, Toronto Public Health medical officer, testified at a special parliamentary probing the state of food safety in Canada.

The committee was called after people consumed contaminated meat last summer from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto, resulting in the death of 22 Canadians.

That death toll was exacerbated by "a lack of effective communication" among health agencies, Williams said, along with what the health officers suggest are differences in reporting procedures between the federal health authorities, and their local and provincial counterparts.

Public health officials should act when there are "reasonable and probable grounds to believe food products poses a health hazard," McKeown explained, adding this "standard" is included in Ontario's public health legislation. But the CFIA generally waited for "conclusive evidence" a specific product is responsible for documented human illness before taking action, he said.

So, all these people died, the president of Maple Leaf thinks he's a food safety hero cause he's learned so much about listeria, and the food safety types at various levels are still talking bullshit.

The locals were left hanging by the omnipotence of the single food inspection agency.
 

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He may ooze empathy and smooth, but Canadian politicians on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food’s Subcommittee on Food Safety beware: Michael McCain (below, not exactly as shown) really isn’t that into you.

Sure he got dressed up for the committee appearance last night, prefaced it with a little foreplay at a luncheon for business types, and said I’m sorry, it was all me, but when a guy says that, he really means, it’s all you.

McCain just wants to get into your pants, or pants pockets, in the form of public tax dollars for inspections to ensure a future food safety façade so the profits at Maple Leaf Foods won’t be further inconvenienced by death and illness from deli meats.

McCain of Maple Leaf Foods has become the latest corporate type to ask for government help in the form of increased inspection. The dude from Kellogg’s did the same thing in the U.S., as did the growers of lettuce and spinach in California, and tomatoes in Florida. They all said the same thing: we can’t figure out how to provide a safe product while sucking in profits, so government, please, do it for us (that way, when there is an outbreak, we can at least say we met enhanced government standards). If anyone wants to know why government at best sets a minimal standard, read the testimony of Carole Swan, President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Dr. Brian Evans, Executive Vice-President of CFIA.

All of this is tragically embarrassing.

And this ain’t rocket surgery.

Opposition MPs praised McCain for taking responsibility for the tragedy and questioned whether the government should do more to accept part of the blame.

No. Stop being taken in by the fabulously handsome McCain. The best food producers and processors will go far beyond government standards to provide a safe product; they make the profit; they should make it safe. They should brag about it.

McCain told business leaders earlier on Monday, perhaps after a lunch of liquor and delicious deli meats, that the food industry "has to raise its game" because it doesn't take food safety seriously enough.

“This industry has to raise its game. It has to take food safety more seriously, it has to invest more in food safety, and it has to improve its record of delivering safe food to consumers."

Wow. Sixteen years after Jack-in-the-Box and McCain and his $5.5 billion a year company discovers food safety after killing 21 people. He also felt it necessary to lecture parliamentarians and others that ‘poke and sniff’ methods of inspection were outdated. That rhetoric is at least 20-30 years outdated.

You know (a listener said my overuse of ‘you know’ on a Baltimore phone-in show yesterday was appalling and that as a professor lecturing to ‘glasses’ I should know better; I told him I had a voice for print and he should watch his spelling) Amy and I need people to help out with baby Sorenne. I’m not sure we need a village, but babysitters and friends are handy a few hours a week so we can slog through some work. Or shower. Sorenne is 4-months-old.

I’m somewhat baffled, however, when the so-called leaders of multi-billion dollar corporations or producer groups ask for babysitters in the form of government inspectors. Are your managers 4-month-olds that need someone to play ga-ga with? Help to get in their walker?

Canadian parliamentarians, stop being swooned by this guy. NDP MP Malcolm Allen said, “The only way you can get trust back with the public is through third-party verification.”

Apparently the star-struck Mr. Allen, thinking he was asking a tough question, showed himself as the star-struck girlfriend, who knows nothing about food safety, like the shitfest of third-party (non)verification at the Peanut Corporation of America plant which led to nine dead and 600 sick from Salmonella.

Here’s what is appalling about all this: no one, or at least me, expects anything but the bare minimum from government. The CFIA types can say they’re sorry all day, they’ll still have jobs and still go off for six-months of French lessons to move up in the Canadian government bureaucracy.

Michael McCain (above, exactly as shown), who runs that $5.5. billion a year company manufacturing products identified for decades at high risk of listeria, could stick with, yeah, we screwed up, we should have learned from all these past listeria outbreaks, we should have paid attention to the positive test results sitting in our filing cabinets, we’re sorry.

As Steve Martin once said, ‘But Noooooooooooo.’

Instead, McCain makes a big deal out of hiring a food safety dude after the fact, and lectures the rest of the industry and the country on what should be done; instead it’s like dating the worst kind of reformed smoker or born-again addict preaching to everyone else: forget minimal government regulations, forget the preaching, sell safe food. Listeria didn’t just come along 10, 20, 30 years ago, or yesterday, as you would have Canadians believe.

McCain, take care of your own shop, the one that happily makes money. Then maybe we can talk about another date.

Until then, I’m just not that into you.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

“There are downsides to publicizing everything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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Let the dancing begin – the wordplay salsa, the Ottawa shuffle, the Rideau skate.

Whatever it’s called there’s a lot of wordsmithing this morning as Canadian Press reports that listeria was discussed at a July 24, 2008 meeting between suits from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Maple Leaf, despite previous denials that listeria was ever mentioned.

CFIA and Maple Leaf now say they initially denied Listeria came up at the July meeting because it was not mentioned in the context of Canada's outbreak, which at that date had yet to be confirmed by lab tests.

So media outlets are running with the story, even though CFIA executive vice-president Brian Evans has a perfectly solid explanation that there was "absolutely no discussion" during the meeting about Listeria being linked to one of Maple Leaf's Toronto processing plants.

"Discussions focused on ensuring consistency of import monitoring with other jurisdictions for microbial pathogens, including Listeria.

"As the executive vice-president of CFIA, I have had countless conversations about Listeria and microbial control with industry. This kind of general conversation about food safety is par for the course during meetings with industry."

That’s probably true. But CFIA and Maple Leaf  -- especially Maple Leaf if it’s the world-class thingy it claims to be – need to publicly state, for the record, who knew what when, instead of continuous damage control every time someone asks a question.

Notes from the July meeting, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, show that while Mr. Evans and Mr. McAlpine (of Maple Leaf) did talk about hog and pork operations, they also discussed "food safety in relation to Listeria."

Further information is blanked out in the documents released by the CFIA.

Way to build consumer confidence. Stop being reactive and take control of the situation. Or maybe there is something to hide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chapman and I have thrown around the idea that one of the reasons Canadians seem complacent about foodborne illness – despite several high-profile devastating outbreaks – is the availability of public health care. If someone loses a kidney because of E. coli O157:H7 or a liver because of hepatitis A, the cost is borne by the system. In the U.S. those without health care coverage would be out $100,000 – at a minimum. So Canadian lawsuits are kept to a minimum, media coverage remains stagnant, and everyone goes back to sleep.

As Jim Romahn wrote in Dec. after a $27 million settlement for victims in the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that killed 20 and sickened hundreds was announced, CEO Michael H. McCain is a wily strategist.

For $27 million, tops, he has bought freedom from a court case that could have proven highly embarrassing to Maple Leaf. The ongoing coverage could well have become the final nail in consumer confidence in Maple Leaf products. The lawyers were sure to ask who knew what and when. They were sure to ask about the degree of plant contamination as the company continued to ship products, failing to first hold them for testing and clearance.

What does that $27 million buy?

• Someone who was ill for up to 48 hours would receive $750

• Up to a week receives $3,000

•Up to two weeks receives $5,500

• Up to a month receives $8,000

• If listeriosis led to a secondary infection that didn't cause ongoing symptoms, such as meningitis or pneumonia, the settlement is $35,000

• If listeriosis caused sustained or permanent symptoms, the settlement is $75,000 plus $750 for each day of hospitalization

• If secondary complications affected the nervous system and caused “serious and permanent impairment of physical and/or mental function,” payment is $125,000 plus $750 for each day of hospitalization. A family member who was affected psychologically could receive $10,000.

• A death would lead to a $120,000 payment to the victim's estate. A spouse would be eligible for an additional $35,000, while children could receive $30,000, parents could receive $20,000 and siblings or grandchildren could receive $5,000. Funeral expenses up to $13,500 would also be covered.

• Anyone who “sustained psychological injuries or trauma for up to 60 days” after eating tainted meat, without any injuries, could receive up to $4,000.

• Anyone who was at particular risk, such as pregnant women and the elderly, but did not become ill could receive up to $6,000 for psychological trauma that lasted up to 60 days.

• If psychological symptoms lasted more than 60 days, compensation is set at $13,500.

• Those in the vulnerable group who experienced psychological symptoms for more than 60 days could receive $17,500.
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• who knew what when;

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

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

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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.

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.
 

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The most effective risk communication is also the most personal.

It’s about walking the talk.

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

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

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

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

• who knew what when;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

McCain concludes his letter to the Star by saying,

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

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

Then work on something that is actually compelling.

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

It gets worse.

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

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

Wow.

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

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

• who knew what when;



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



• make your listeria data public.

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Who is that Hamm dude? He hosted Saturday Night Live, on Saturday, and his show, Mad Men, wrapped up Sunday night.

Included was a sketch for the fast-paced lifestyle, the one of eating on the run. Or with the runs. Jon's ham is on a roll in the bathroom across from the toilet paper. Sounds like listeria; or a new market for Maple Leaf Foods Inc., which posted a third-quarter loss this morning of $12.9 million.  Order now, and receive a free mustard soap. And remember, "if it feels like a slice of ham, don't wipe your ass with it."
 

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Spirits were high Saturday night as the Toronto Maple Leafs opened their at-home hockey season night to the rhythms of the Smashing Pumpkins.

Fresh off an unexpected victory against defending Stanley Cup champs, the Detroit Red Wings, on Thursday, and with a bad Def Leopard live performance following the game, things were looking up for the Leafs.

The Leafs lost horribly to Montreal on Saturday night and reality set in.

Companies, like hockey teams, can also show flashes of brilliance, only to revert to old ways.

Michael McCain, president and CEO of Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods, was widely praised for his compassionate and heartfelt response to the deaths of now 20 people from Maple Leaf cold-cuts.

But now Mr. McCain has taken to lecturing Canadians on the realities – or at least Mr. McCain’s realities – of the inevitability of listeria in everything, reminding me of the Tragically Hip song that goes, “I thought you beat the death of inevitability to death just a little bit. …

“We don’t’ go to hell, the memories of us do.”

McCain is using the increased media spotlight not to call for increased warnings to vulnerable populations, like the 20 who died, and pregnant woman (because, after all, listeria is everywhere) but to say how unfair it is that McCain’s Maple Leaf Foods has to compete with small plants.

"Right now, we have two-tier system. It is clear to me and, I think, most scientists would agree with this, that the provincial standards are not at the same level as the federal standards. … Right now, saying it's acceptable for Canadian consumers to have one standard that applies to companies like Maple Leaf and another standard that is significantly below that for many, many others who are provincially inspected is not right for consumers. …

"That's actually the travesty. If they were aware and they made a conscious choice that's acceptable to them, everybody is free to make a good choice. But I think the travesty here is they're probably not even aware of different standards out there."

OK, Mr. McCain, give consumers the choice and, as Carl says, stop whining. Market food safety. Advertize your allegedly superior food safety protocols. Put it on the label. And warn those populations who are particularly vulnerable – and missing from your latest missives.

Below is a video clip from the Canadian band and hockey fanatics, The Tragically Hip, with some apt lyrics:

Oh, and the joke making the rounds in Canada?

“Q & A's from Health Canada

“ Q: The Stanley Cup was recently on tour in my town, and I kissed it. Do I have to worry about being infected by listeria?

“A: You are safe.  The Stanley Cup has not been in contact with any Maple Leaf in over 40 years.”

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

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

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

Mr. McCain also reiterated that,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A new report shows that of the 78 residents of the Canadian province of British Columbia who contracted listeriosis in the past six years, 10 per cent were pregnant women whose infections put them at high risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

The majority -- nearly 60 per cent -- of pregnant women diagnosed with listeriosis either miscarry or have stillbirths.

In a case described in the current B.C. Medical Journal, a pregnant woman in her 30s went to a Lower Mainland hospital complaining of a stiff neck, fever, back pain and headache. After arriving, she delivered a stillborn baby at 21 weeks gestation.

The authors wrote,

"Health care providers [want] better information for themselves and resources they could share with pregnant women. … The information provided to pregnant women by health care providers needs to be targeted and clear," and that as a result of the spring survey, BCCDC will start a project to better inform health care providers and their patients about food safety risks during pregnancy.

It’s a national embarrassment that statistics on listeriosis in Canada are either not available or hopelessly unreliable. Further, the call to action probably never would have gotten noticed were it not for the 24 deaths and dozens of illnesses in the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak. Pregnant women and other at-risk populations deserve better.
 

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Three weeks after the Maple Leaf financial dude told the markets the plant would reopen, the Maple Leaf listeria plant is about to reopen and produce deli-meats.

The company has videos, a long list of food safety enhancements they are adopting, and has created the position of 'chief food safety officer.'

Guess I thought a $5 billion a year company would already have one of those. But that’s one of the things I find most challenging – how to compel everyone from maintenance crews to CEOs that food safety matters, especially in the absence of an outbreak. Now there’s an outbreak, 24 suspected or confirmed dead, 56 ill.

"Throughout this incident we have steadfastly placed consumers' interests first" said Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods.

That remains to be seen as more is uncovered about why there were delays and lousy notification as news of the outbreak initially trickled out. But yes, once the problem became publicly apparent, the company acted in great fashion.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal yesterday called for a full public inquiry. Not necessary, and a waste of taxpayers money. A few Bill Marler lawsuits would reveal far more about who knew what when.

Or people could do their jobs:

• Maple Leaf in conjunction with the various public authorities should provide a full public accounting of who knew what when and what was done to find out more;

• some sort of warning system about the risk of listeriosis in foods must be developed for at-risk populations – especially pregnant women and the elderly because they are the ones who get sick and die; and,

• make all data of listeria testing in plants public so others in the industry can improve and consumer confidence can be enhanced with data not just words.

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Maple Leaf Foods continues its textbook risk communication, being the first to publicly provide information about the source of the listeria contamination that has killed 19 and sickened dozens.

But is it enough?

“After careful study of the records, the physical plant and product test results received from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), internal and external experts have concluded that the most likely source was a possible collection point for bacteria located deep inside the mechanical operations of two slicing machines on lines 8 and 9. Rigorous sanitization of this equipment was completed on a daily basis in accordance with or exceeding the equipment manufacturer's recommendations. However, upon full disassembly, areas were found where bacteria may accumulate deep inside the slicing machines and avoid the sanitization process. There were also other environmental factors, not on product contact surfaces, that may have contributed to the contamination.

"We deeply regret this incident and the impact it has had on people's lives," said Michael McCain, President and CEO. "We have the highest food safety standards and we have worked around the clock and left no stone unturned to identify the root cause and eliminate the source of this contamination. Throughout this crisis we have done whatever it takes to place our consumers' interests and public health first. It's now up to us to earn back your confidence."

Concerns with slicing machines are hardly new regarding listeria. The company has taken some good steps, but can do more:

• 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?

• Support 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, unless they are heated or some other kill step is employed.

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The listeria outbreak in Canada goes from bad to worse as authorities announced Sunday afternoon (Aug. 31/08) there are now 11 confirmed and 6 suspected deaths linked to consumption of Maple Leaf deli meats; further, 33 are confirmed ill and another 25 are suspected of being ill with the outbreak strain. However, no comprehensive timeline for the onset of illnesses has been provided.

The developments over the past week are difficult to keep straight. As journalists probe how this happened – how the risk of Listeria monocytogenes was managed – a number of revelations have emerged:

• employees are alleging that sanitation at the suspect plant was substandard prior to the outbreak and that daily cleaning procedures were not consistently followed or thorough enough;

• U.S. Department of Agriculture audits found that 19 of 20 Canadian plants were not complying with sanitation standards, while Canadian inspectors were not always aware of their duties, "and were not well trained in the performance of their inspection tasks;" Canadian regulators urged the Americans to soften their language;

• Rick Holley of the University of Manitoba said Canada lacks the surveillance systems that could lead to better detection of foodborne illnesses, in stark contrast to the United States, which takes a much more active approach to addressing food safety through the FoodNet system.

• until Friday, when David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, revealed that most of the fatalities in Ontario occurred in July, no details had been released on when individuals died or when they first became sick;

• a separate outbreak of listeria in cheese has emerged in Quebec sickeneing 47 people and leading to the suspension of product sales from the Île aux Grues cheese company;

• an additional separate outbreak of Salmonella in cheese in Quebec has killed one and sickened at least 87 others and lead to additional recalls of three cheeses manufactured by Fromages La Chaudiere Inc.; and,

• Canada’s minister of agriculture and agri-food, Gerry Ritz, held a news conference Thursday to assure Canadians "our food safety system is the best in the world" and that work will continue to improve it.

And now, a message from Canada's chief public health officer that went on youtube Thursday.

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My friend Marty will think this is hilarious, but I’m a bit of a fancier of words.

Really.

Except I have a habit of using an apt sounding word that means something totally different from what I was trying to convey. Marty has been making fun of that quirk for 25 years, going back to our university newspaper days. Fortunately, the computer dictionary has helped.

So has Amy. She’s really sharpened my word usage and helped me become a better writer. One of Amy’s greatest pleasures is identifying when people mix up it’s and its.

So when a wire story came out this morning with the lede,

“As Canada grapples with a deadly outbreak of listeriosis, a leading food safety expert says the federal government has not done enough to educate pregnant women and seniors about the potential dangers of eating deli meats.
”

I went a bit nuts.

I would never say that anyone needs to be educated. It’s arrogant. Sure, I’m perceived as arrogant about lots of things, but on this I’m clear: provide information, preferably in a compelling manner, and individuals will decide whether they want to be educated or not. I’m writing a paper about this. I’ve brought students to tears for using the educate people line.


"Maybe we need warning labels (on the food), because the message isn't getting out there," said Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.
"

The Health Canada response was typically bureaucratic.

"There are a number of food safety tips and fact sheets and a lot of consumer education on this," said Paul Duchesne of Health Canada.

Show me the data. Show anyone the evaluation you’ve done with your big budgets to ensure Canadians at risk are aware. Demonstrate the effectiveness of your fact sheets and consumer education which are best used as a sleep aid.

Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has publicly admitted, new strategies are required to reach people about food safety issues. As I said earlier this year,

"The CDC data show existing efforts to reduce fodborne illness have stalled. We need new messages using new media to really create a culture that values microbiologically safe food."

It’s not like this stuff is hard. We wrote a paper on it last year.

Powell, D.A., Surgeoner, B.V., Wilson, S.M. and Chapman, B.J. 2007. The media and the message: Risk analysis and compelling food safety information from farm-to-fork. Aust. J. Dairy Tech. 62(2), 55-59.

Abstract
The potential for stigmatization of food is enormous. Well-publicized outbreaks of foodborne illness through traditional and new media demonstrate the rapid and dependent interactions between science, policy and public perception. Current risk management research indicates that it is essential for risk managers from farm-to-fork to demonstrate they are reducing, mitigating or minimizing a particular foodborne risk. Those responsible must be able to effectively communicate their risk reduction efforts in multiple media and to provide evidence that these efforts are actually reducing levels of risk.

Guess the folks at CFIA didn't get that paper. A well-meaning staffer at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency sent me an e-mail the other day, stating,

“The Media Monitoring Team here at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been asked by our Director to start monitoring reputable food safety related blogs.
 
“I was wondering if you would happen to have a prepared list of any of these sites, and, if so, if you would be willing to share these with us?”
 
Sure. Always ready to help the government when asked. I told him barfblog.com and marlerblog.com. The other posers just run headlines.

But maybe I’m just a crazy Kansas-type. Jennie Garth, who is reprising her role as Kelly Taylor on a new 90210, enlightened the world as to why the new "90210" is likely to resonate with young viewers.

"It's going to reflect teenagers as they are. It's not going to sugarcoat it. You know teenagers are teenagers no matter if they live in Beverly Hills or if they live in crazy Kansas somewhere. All the kids are the same. They're going through the same elemental issues and problems."
 

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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.

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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.

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Relying on the government is a really bad strategy to rebuild confidence in a consumer brand. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada and any number of other agencies – 50 per cent of government press release content contains praise for other agencies  -- have provided scant data during the listeria outbreak in Canada. A technical briefing last night was little more than another opportunity for government types to praise … themselves.

When was the first onset of illness? When were the various deaths recorded, and when were they identified as cases of listeriosis? How many pregnant women have been stricken and have there been any miscarriages or stillbirths?

Yesterday, Michael H. McCain, president & CEO of listeria-embattled Maple Leaf said in a press release,

"If there is any question in the consumers' mind about any product from that plant, then the onus is on us, and the CFIA, to act decisively and swiftly to restore consumer confidence. Our actions are guided by putting public health first."

I’d keep CFIA out of it. They test the plants for listeria a few times a year. As 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, she said.

"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, 2008 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.

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If your products kill and sicken people, it’s a good idea to say sorry. Many people think that saying sorry is an admission of guilt and will be used in court. Lawyer Bill Marler says that is not the case. To me, saying sorry is an expression of empathy. It’s a basic human response.

Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, took not only to the airwaves but to the Intertubes to convey his empathy and resolve at fixing the listeria situation. It’s an excellent piece of risk communication.

But communicating effectively about risks like listeria is never enough. Eventually, journalists and juries will start asking some tough questions about who knew what when. The Odwalla 1996 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in unpasteurized juice was also textbook risk communication, but the company was eventually revealed to have cut corners and ignored warning signs.

This is a tough situation that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Oh, and the critics who say that food produced locally would result in fewer illnesses are statistically challenged: to make a fair comparison between small and big producers, the number of illnesses per meals consumed is the true measure, and no one has offered that up; further, outbreaks involving local producers may never get picked up by the surveillance system.; and the big folks have the resources to invest in food safety. McCain says Maple Leaf has a culture of food safety. Maybe. The evidence will be laid out over the weeks and months to come.

 If you go to the youtube post, you can see the comments, which already include,

“I just had further look at your recent earnings for the last quarter....if you are truly sorry, the families of those who lost loved ones should never have to work another day in their life. Whether you pay the victim’s families the millions of dollars that you can afford or not will tell if you are truly sorry.”

There will be more harsh words. McCain and Maple Leaf deserve praise for their risk communication efforts: how the risk was managed – who knew what when and what actions were taken – remains to be seen.
 

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Depending on what sources are cited, there are now four confirmed deaths in Ontario and one in B.C. from the same strain of listeria. Several more deaths are being investigated, and the number of ill will continue to rise.

The spin that various social actors and politicians are putting on this listeria outbreak is beyond gross – it’s set a new low for unwarranted aggrandizing.

While preparing to do a live interview with CBC NewsWorld on Thurs., the host introduced the program by saying that the first case of listeria was in a 36-year-old pregnant woman in late June. As a pregnant Amy looked on – she’s very supportive of my media activities and viciously edits much of my writing, and vice-versa – I tried not to go, WTF, as the cameras were rolling.

So I’m baffled why various politicians and health types are bragging about how well the system worked to identify this outbreak.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday that it was Ontario that "blew the whistle," stating,

"We've put in place a new system that allows us to detect an outbreak and to see a pattern very early in the game. I'm glad we got hold of it early and now we'll take serious steps working with the feds to put it behind us."

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.

"The fact that it actually moved along, got investigated, ended up at CFIA and others finding samples that were positive in the food was actually quite fast in terms of how these things could progress.”

Premier and PHAC dude, two months after the first case is not an early warning system. And while you’re blowing yourselves, how about a little empathy for the sick and dead?

On Friday, Michael McCain, president of Maple Leaf Foods, published  a full-page open letter in major Canadian newspapers, stressing the steps the company has taken, including a voluntary recall of 23 meat products.

In an internal e-mail to Maple Leaf employees Thursday morning, McCain said,

“I'm sure most of you have read the newspapers and listened to the TV or radio reports like I have. This isn't something we should ever want to be in the news about, but we have no reason to hang our heads - we're doing what is the right thing to do in this situation…acting responsibly and with extraordinary precaution.

“The headlines certainly suggest that our product are the cause of the illness and single death reported. It is important to note that:

• Listeria exists all around us in our environment, all the time. 10% of us carry it on us (according to some reports), and it exists in broad types of food in small percentages.
• Listeriosis, caused by Listeria Monocytogenes, occurs regularly (some 60 cases per year in Canada), and is mostly effecting the immune deficient (see previous descriptions), and very sadly people do die from this who are susceptible
• All we know factually is this….we have had three small samples of two items test positive for LM, and that Public Health tell us there is an increase in listeriosis illness all connected to a single DNA pattern, with one related death. We DO NOT have factual linkage that these are related to our product, although we could not say it is impossible, given our own positive (albeit small sample) test result. Again, there is no factual linkage we are aware of.
• That is why we took the dramatic action we did - recall all the product (ALL - not just the products in question) from these lines, and shut down the plant for a "deep clean". These were precautionary measures, all made with the most conservative view in mind - well beyond what the CFIA was asking of us.
• The CFIA and Public Health are continuing their investigation.

Of course the media will extend that, and we expected this.”

Did you expect that more people would die? Did you or do you warn pregnant women about the risks associated with consuming your products?

Also, the Globe and Mail reports in Saturday’s edition that four days before Maple Leaf Foods Inc. warned the public that two varieties of sliced meat may have been contaminated with listeria, the company told its distributors to stop shipping three different products and that federal health authorities were investigating its Toronto plant.

On Aug. 13, Maple Leaf sent a letter to its distributors requesting that, as a precautionary measure, they stop shipping the company's Sure Slice roast beef, corned beef and Black Forest ham because the processing plant in Toronto where the meat was produced was under investigation by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

On Aug. 17, Maple Leaf recalled its Sure Slice roast beef and corned beef after the roast beef tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes, a food-borne bacterium that can cause serious illness in pregnant women and the elderly.

Then on Aug. 20, after being informed that both the Sure Slice roast beef and corned beef tested positive for listeria in later tests, the company recalled more than 20 deli meats and shut down its Toronto plant for sanitization.

CFIA says they may have some DNA fingerprint results Saturday (its not that hard, some kids figured out half the high-scale fish in New York was bogus). This outbreak is not an early warning system working, it’s a mess. At some point, the politicians and bureaucrats may realize that several people died and dozens are sick unnecessarily. The advice to pregnant women in Canada remains shamefully inadequate.
 

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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.

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
 

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