Another Meat Recall--The Continuing and Deadly Problem with Meat inCanada

Published, by Al (Alex Alexander)D. Girvan, 09/09/2009 16:56 Pacific Daylight Time.

Consumers should avoid eating certain President's Choice brand steaks, roasts and ground beef products that are being pulled from store shelves due to possible contamination with E. coli, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says.
The agency issued the health hazard alert Tuesday as an expansion of a voluntary recall of beef products in the U.S. by JBS Swift Beef Company in Greeley, Colo.

It affects:
Fresh beef steaks roasts and ground beef bearing best-before dates between April 29 and June 16, inclusive, sold in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
Fresh beef knuckle roasts, four to five pounds (about 1.8 to 2.27 kilograms) in size, sold from Apr. 30 to June 10 at Sue's Market at 205 Don Head Village Blvd. in Richmond Hill, Ont.
The agency advises consumers who have purchased the affected products to throw them out.
As of Tuesday, no illnesses associated with the contamination had been reported.
Food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 may not look or smell spoiled, but eating it may cause serious and potentially life-threatening illnesses.
CFIA list of products affected by the recall
PC cab sirloin tip stk marinating sc.
PC cab sirloin tip oven roast sc.
PC cab strip loin grilling stk sc.
PC cab strp loin prem oven rst sc.
PC cab tenderloin grilling stk sc.
PC cab tnderloin prem. oven rst sc.
PC cab flank marinating steak sc.
PC tnt top sirloin steak cp.
PC tnt top sirloin beefeater steak.
PC tnt top sirloin cap steak.
PC tnt top sirloin steak.
PC tnt top sirloin oven roast.
PC tnt top sirloin steak.
PC tnt top sirlion steak cp.
PC tnt top sirloin roast.
PC tnt top srln c/o beefeater.
PC tnt top srln cap stk bnls.
PC tnt top srln cap stk bnls.
PC tnt top sirloin steak.
PC tnt top sirlion steak cp.
PC tnt top srln c/o beefeater.
PC tnt top sirloin oven roast.
PC cab beef ground xlean sc.
PC cab beef ground lean sc.
HOW MIGHT WE ELIMINATE THE PROBLEM OF DANGEROUSLY CONTAMINATED MEATS???

IT IS REALLY VERY EASILY DONE; ALL WE NEED TO DO IS GO BACK TO LOCALLY GROWN AND PRODUCED BEEF AND BEEF PRODUCTS. WE NEED TO LOOK AFTER CANADIANS AND THE CANADIAN ECONOMY BY SUPPORTING THE LOCAL FARMER, BUTCHER, AND PRODUCER INSTEAD OF MAKING THE CORPORATE GIANTS RICHER. REMEMBER WHAT IS TRUE FOR HAMBURGER IS TRUE OF ALL GROUND BEEF AND ALL OTHER MEAT AND MEAT PRODUCTS.
The answer is very simple: go back to Canadian and locally owned retailers who actually care about the consumer. Canadians need to realise, the source of the problem is not the meat, but the processing and handling methods, which are in use today. A butcher once said to a home economics teacher: "Do teach cooks that there are some good cuts of meat other than porterhouse? The customers of this meat dealer made it difficult for him to sell all parts of the animal. When he bought porterhouse or loin, he had to buy the whole hind quarter. For some cuts he had little demand.
Now days, in the United States, and to supermarkets, most large hotels and restaurants in Canada, only loins or other whole sale cuts are sold. This means the institution has to buy only the cuts which sell. Special cuts are usually shipped to local stores. Because of this policy, beef is no longer freshly ground in store, but rather in the harder to control food processing plants.
.The Federal labelling laws on fat content still apply. So at least a customer has some idea of where the meat is coming from and exactly when it was ground. Canada must also tighten laws as to re-cutting, re-fluffing, and re- packaging meat, and require that all imported meats or ground products containing previously frozen or meats of foreign origin be labelled as such. Research has more than proven that the boxes and containers used for all frozen food products greatly contribute to contamination.
There must also be strict government inspection, not only as to meat quality, but also to bacterial and other chemical content, of all imported meats and especially any thing coming up into this country from the United States.
Clear-wrap packages, give you more of a visual choice, but as previously explained, are still no indication of freshness or quality. The meat should be red, with fat uniformly mixed. Fresh ground beef can be stored only in the coldest part of your refrigerator and should be used or frozen within two days.
To freeze ground beef, remove from market packaging and divide into specific recipe portions Wrap in plastic freezer wrap, waxed paper, or foil and then place in airtight, sealed, plastic, freezer bags. Freeze up to three months only.
When buying packaged ground beef, be sure there are no tears in the packaging and always check the expiration date. Bulk ground beef is now often sold in round, sausage like, chub rolls, vacuum-packed in a wrapper you cannot see through. Don't buy it. With this type of packaging you?re completely at the mercy of the market, since you cannot see the meat to make any visual judgements, and you know it can not be fresh. But since it is usually lower priced, if you do decide to buy some, pay attention to the expiration date(if there is one on the original packaging) and cross your fingers.
Since E coli 0157:H7 is found in the intestines of animals(ie. in the feces): if all animals were thoroughly washed, just before slaughter, and immediately after evisceration and skinning, there would be little or no chance of this contamination.
'I'd never seen anything like this,' expert says of listeria test results
Dangerous pathogen found in two-thirds of meat samples from hospitals, nursing homes in Toronto in August: CBC probe
Last Updated: Thursday, October 9, 2008
5:28 AM ET Comments134Recommend125CBC News
Two-thirds of meat samples taken from Toronto-area nursing homes and hospitals in mid-August for testing were contaminated with the bacteria listeria, according to records obtained by CBC News and the Toronto Star in a joint investigation.
Health officials warned the public in August about an outbreak of listeriosis, the illness caused by Listeria monocytogenes. The outbreak has been linked to the deaths of 20 Canadians and prompted the largest food recall in Canadian history.
Vinita Dubey, Toronto's associate medical officer of health, said the test results illustrate the extent of the contamination.
"I'd never seen anything like this," Dr. Dubey said after reviewing the test data for the first time.
'The fact that so many came back positive shows how contaminated the source was.'
Vinita Dubey, Toronto associate medical officer of health"Usually in our food investigations, we'll send a number of samples for testing and most will be negative. The fact that so many came back positive shows how contaminated the source was," she added.
The Ontario Ministry of Health and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in mid-August ordered public health units across the province to collect samples of processed meats such as turkey, ham and roast beef as part of the investigation into the outbreak. A federal government source confirmed Wednesday that half of the samples tested positive for listeria, and Toronto was a hot spot.
Toronto Public Health inspectors collected 26 samples from nursing homes, hospitals and HIV/AIDS hospices on Aug. 14 and Aug. 15. Seventeen of those samples ? roughly two-thirds of the total ? tested positive for a dangerous strain of listeria.
"There shouldn't be any positives," said Rick Holley, a microbiologist who teaches 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 [size] that are positive.? And it is a particularly virulent strain of listeria. It's one of the bad ones."
The results are also disturbing given that the samples were taken from institutions that house the elderly and infirm, Holley said. The highest risk groups in listeriosis outbreaks include people with weaker immune systems, such as children, pregnant women and the elderly.
So now , how safe are the other processing plants in Canada? This cannot just be isolated to Maple Leaf??
--Canalta
"In an environment where these products are going to be consumed by that minority of the population that has some predisposition to some serious infection, this would represent significant challenge for those people," he said.
Maple Leaf Foods has now confirmed that the test results, which it received on the evening of Aug. 16, prompted it to launch the massive recall of its meat products on Aug. 17.
"When we looked at [the test results], we felt it was important to do more and that's why we closed the plant and recalled 191 products," said Linda Smith, a spokeswoman for Maple Leaf.
The test results obtained by the CBC and the Toronto Star show that the meat had various levels of contamination, when the standard set by Health Canada calls for zero tolerance.
The meat samples that tested positive for listeria had best-before dates ranging from early August to early October. Holley said this suggests the meat from the Toronto Maple Leaf Foods plant was being contaminated over a period of nearly two months.
"Whatever the defect was here, it had to be a continuing source of contamination. There had to be a reservoir of the bacteria growing."
Long-standing problems threaten Canadian food safety, experts warn
Flaws in Canadian Food Inspection Agency's inspection and public warning systems flagged in 2005 review
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
6:51 AM ET Comments141Recommend126CBC News
Canadian food officials were made aware of serious problems in the inspection system that could threaten public safety three years before an outbreak of the food-borne illness listeriosis that has been linked to 18 deaths, according to an internal report by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
A food inspector in Montreal takes cheeses that may have been cross-contaminated with listeria away to be destroyed. (Peter McCabe/Canadian Press)
The 2005 report, titled the Food Emergency Response Review, documented problems with some of the CFIA's food inspection procedures, delays in issuing public warnings about potentially dangerous food products, and a lack of followup after problems were identified.
"The safety of food in Canada is somewhat unpredictable," Rick Holley, professor of food microbiology and food safety in the department of food science at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, said after reading the report. "There should be a reasonable level of confidence that the food that we eat is not going to make us sick."
CFIA review
Read the in-depth CBC report on the CFIA's internal review.
The inspection agency's review was conducted from January to March 2005 by the CFIA's corporate planning, reporting and accountability branch. CBC News obtained the review using the federal Access to Information Act, as part of a joint CBC News/Toronto Star investigation into food safety.
The reviewers were trying to answer three key questions: who is responsible for what when the agency recalls bad food, what followup is conducted once the food has been recalled, and how do investigators assess risk?
The blunt review concluded that there was "no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning," that there was no "common understanding of what is meant by recall followup," and that "processes and strategies do not appear to be in place for systematically dealing with repeat [recall] offenders."excerpts from 2005 CFIA Food Emergency Response Review
Within CFIA there is no common understanding of what is meant by recall followup, more specifically for longer-term followup.
Concerns have been raised that too much reliance is being placed on information provided by the establishment, or in the case of imports, the foreign country.
In some areas, it has been noted that inspection staff may not be receiving sufficient hands-on experience in inspection activities and interview techniques.
This situation [problems in the inspection and warning process] results from confusion regarding who has the lead. It causes delays in obtaining required information, questions are raised about the laboratories concerning the appropriateness of taking additional samples and/or different advice [is] given to the area field staff on the need to expand the investigation to other projects or firms.
Information on recalls could be shared more widely: a public warning may be issued depending on the seriousness of the health risk. There is no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning.
Many of the concerns highlighted in the 2005 review were raised in two previous internal reviews dating back to when the agency was first established, in 1997. Canada's auditor general also expressed similar concerns in 2000.
It's difficult to determine whether changes have been made to the CFIA's procedures as a result of the report, as agency staff have refused to be interviewed on the subject by CBC News and the Toronto Star.
CFIA food inspectors say problems still exist, according to Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents inspectors. After circulating the internal review to union members, Kingston said one inspector wrote to him in an e-mail that, "Industry just calls a voluntary recall and no enforcement action is taken. We have no teeth to speak of."
Kingston said a second inspector wrote in another e-mail: "If a recall is deemed ineffective, food safety will ask for the recall to be repeated and a letter is written.? Some inspectors may have time to do followup inspections, but mostly they move on to the next complaint/recall."
Mike McBane, national director of the public health-care advocacy group the Canadian Health Coalition, called the 2005 report "shocking."
"No clear policy on a recall. Can you imagine? An emergency response program that has no policy on recalls?"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Sept. 3 that the government would conduct an investigation into the recent listeriosis outbreak, which was tied to meat from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. The report is due before March 15, 2009. Investigators will not draw conclusions nor make recommendations about civil or criminal liability of individuals or organizations.
Critics such as Amir Attaran, the University of Ottawa's Canada Research Chair in law, population health and global development policy, who has read the 2005 CFIA report, are calling for a full government inquiry into the outbreak.