October 16, 2024 • 28 mins
Can you imagine a team of detectives tirelessly working around the clock to solve mysteries that affect public health? On today’s podcast we’re shedding light on foodborne illness investigations in a guest podcast episode from Inspect and Protect, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s podcast with hosts Michelle Strong and Greg Rogers. Today’s expert panel of guests includes Tanis Kershaw and Courtney Smith from the Public Health Agency of Canada's Outbreak Management Division, Fred Jamieson, the Food Safety Recall Specialist in the Food Safety Investigation Recall Unit, and Angela Catford, Section Head of Health Risk Assessment at Health Canada.
From identifying outbreaks to tracing contaminated foods, their work is essential in safeguarding our health. Stay with us as we explore how these experts collaborate during outbreaks, from initial detection to risk assessment and more.
Guest Episode
Inspect and Protect is the official podcast of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with a focus on sharing stories about safe food, healthy animals and disease and pest-free plants.
Bios:
Greg Rogers
Greg Rogers is the Communications Manager for the four Atlantic provinces at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He also co-hosts “Inspect and Protect”, the CFIA's official podcast all about food safety, plant and animal health. He is based in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Michelle Strong
Michelle Strong is Senior Communications Advisor for Animal Health Programs for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. She is also co-host for “Inspect and Protect”, the CFIA's official podcast all about food safety, plant and animal health. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Tanis Kershaw
Tanis Kershaw is an acting manager with the Outbreak Management Division at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Experienced Epidemiologist with a demonstrated history of working in local, provincial, federal and international levels of public health over the past 17 years. Skilled in outbreak detection and investigation, surveillance, data analysis and research.
Courtney Smith
Courtney Smith is a senior epidemiologist and works alongside the Outbreak Management Division at the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Fred Jamieson
Fred Jamison is the Food Safety Recall Specialist with the Office of Food Safety Recall in the Food Safety Investigation Recall Unit.
Angela Catford
Angela Catford is the Section Head of the Health Risk Assessment Section at Health Canada.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From Canadian Food Focus. This is Ask a Farmer.
I'm your host Clinton Manuk . ASaskatchewan farmer. In this
podcast, we talk to foodexperts to answer your
questions about your food.
(00:29):
Welcome to the Ask a Farmerpodcast. Everyone. Can you
imagine a team of detectivesworking tirelessly around the
clock to solve mysteries thataffect public health? It's
kinda like Matlock . On today'spodcast, we're shedding light
on foodborne illnessinvestigations, and a guest
podcast episode from Inspectand Protect the Canadian Food
(00:53):
Inspection Agency's podcastwith host Michelle Strong and
Greg Rogers. Today's expertpanel of guests includes Tana
Kershaw and Courtney Smith fromthe Public Health Agency of
Canada's Outbreak Managementdivision, Fred Jameson , the
Food Safety Recall Specialistin the Food Safety
(01:15):
Investigation Recall Unit. AndAngela Catford section, head of
Health Risk Assessment atHealth Canada. From identifying
outbreaks to tracingcontaminated foods, their work
is essential in safeguardingour health. Stay with us as we
explore how these expertscollaborate during outbreaks
(01:35):
from initial detection to riskassessment and more.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
If you thought you had food poisoning, would you
report it? Would you gettested? When it comes to
foodborne illness outbreaks,there are teams of detectives
working tirelessly around theclock to find the culprits and
save lives.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
This episode, we'll be speaking with four of these
detectives who've investigatedmany cases across Canada.
Alright , Michelle , let'sintroduce our guests.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Let, hi Courtney. Hi Tanis . Do you wanna introduce
yourselves ?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Sure. Thank you so much for having us. So, I'm
Tanis Kershaw. I'm currently anacting manager with the
Outbreak Management Division atthe Public Health Agency of
Canada.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Hey , and yes, my name is Courtney Smith. I'm a
senior epidemiologist and Iwork right alongside Tanis in
the Outbreak ManagementDivision. You know, by the book
you might see an epidemiologistdefined as someone who
investigates you know, patternsand causes of disease and more
informally. We often explainthe role of an epidemiologist
as sort of a disease detective,and I'm doing air quotes for
(02:45):
those who, who can't see me,who are listening in .
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Um, I do, I do think of us like detectives. I'm not
sure if you know, realdetectives would appreciate the
analogy, but , uh, the diseasedetective that Courtney
mentioned, we, I really do feellike we are looking for clues
and pieces of evidence andtrying to put that all
together.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Next, we wanna introduce you to Fred, a food
inspector at the Canadian FoodInspection Agency.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
Hello , uh, I'm Fred Jameson . I'm , uh, the food
Safety recall specialist withthe , uh, office of Food Safety
Recall in the , uh, food safetyinvestigation , uh, recall
unit. I'm, I'm a little bit ofSherlock Holmes, a little bit
of , um, CSI because you , you, you kind of use the deductive
reasoning to create ahypothesis of the potential
(03:29):
source of root . However, youknow, unlike the TV show, it
takes longer than 45 minutesplus commercials to conduct a
food safety investigation.
There's no machine that you canput a sample in and get a
result in two minutes. And, andfinally, we , we don't get to
carry guns, which are probably,probably good 'cause I , that's
a thing I'd probably shoot mytoe off or something like that.
So, .
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And finally we have our fourth detective, Angela.
Speaker 8 (03:52):
So my name is Angela Catford and I am the section
head of the Health RiskAssessment Section. Um , at
Health Canada, I've actuallybeen in the food safety and in
the risk assessment , uh, worldfor over 13 years now. Um , wow
. It's a , it's an expertiseyou kind of build up over a
long time.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Have you ever gotten sick yourself from food? What
Speaker 3 (04:13):
A question
Speaker 8 (04:14):
. We know,
right? Uh , okay. It's our
greatest fear to hold a workpotluck and have an outbreak
associated from our team.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Hi, I am Greg.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And I'm Michelle .
And this is Inspect and Protectthe Canadian Food Inspection
Agency's official podcast
Speaker 4 (04:32):
All about food safety, animal health, and
plant health. So how do you goabout investigating a foodborne
illness outbreak? Like, can youwalk us through kind of a step
by step how it usually goes?
Speaker 5 (04:45):
So, in terms of how we detect the outbreak, first,
people have to be exposed tothe contaminated food and
become sick and then seek care.
So they need to go to thehospital or to a physician to,
or to have a stool specimentested. So if it comes back
positive for something like ecoli or salmonella, then what
(05:05):
will happen is it will bereported to the local public
health unit where that personlives. Someone will call them
up from the local public healthunit and they're gonna ask them
questions about the foods theyate before they got sick. Um,
animal contact. They might havehad travel water exposures. At
the same time, it's also goingfor further laboratory testing
Speaker 7 (05:26):
When there's an identification that , uh,
there's a foodborne illness ,uh, and in particular , uh,
where then by definition thatthere's two or more, then it's
an outbreak. So the first stepis , uh, identifying the
trigger. So this was the , uh,being notified there's an
outbreak. That's the trigger.
The next step is investigating
Speaker 8 (05:45):
And that's where the public health agency , um, can
kick in and they're, they'retrying to say, okay, I have to
start solving this mystery.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
So just to set the stage, Courtney and I work at
the Outbreak ManagementDivision, which is in the
Center for FoodborneEnvironmental and Zoonotic
Infectious Diseases, part ofthe Public Health Agency of
Canada. So we coordinate theoverall investigation and we
also conduct the epidemiologicpart of the investigation
Speaker 6 (06:12):
While investigating our outbreaks. We do have like
a lot of different tools in ourtool belt , but the main one is
definitely case interviewingand the focus is gathering
those very specific details onwhat the cases ate before they
were sick. So essentially aspart of that re-interview
process, we're calling eachcase in an outbreak to ask them
what they might have eaten in acertain number of days before
(06:34):
they were sick. And our goalultimately is to find, you
know, the commonality acrossall of the cases and the source
of the outbreak. But of course,like anything, there's a catch.
It can often take, you know,four to six weeks between when
a person is sick and betweenwhen we're giving them a call
for this re-interview. Uh, butluckily we have a lot of expert
interviewers and they have alot of different strategies to
(06:56):
help our cases, remember whatthey might have eaten one or
even two months ago, sometimeseven longer.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
So we're gonna be looking at, is there anything
in common in among these peoplein terms of the foods they ate,
are they all reporting? Um, arethey all healthy eaters
reporting a really, you know,fruit and vegetable type diet?
Or are they all reporting avery specific type of one food?
We're also looking at age. Arethey all , um, different ages
or are we seeing a lot of youngchildren in a cluster which
(07:25):
might give us a clue, you know,what would they be eating that
might be different from otherage groups? This is detective
work ? Yeah , so , we think so. Um, and
so we're also looking at , uh,where people live. So urban
versus rural in particular canbe a helpful clue. 'cause if
you live in a small town, theremight only be one grocery store
that you get your food from,and that might just limit the
(07:46):
availability of different fooditems.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
We might be asking even more questions about, for
example, you know, if they canlook into their bank statements
or their credit cardtransactions to see if they
went to a restaurant that dayor went to the grocery store or
a cafe , uh, we might ask ifthey have receipts from any
grocery store purchases forthat time period. You know, a
lot of people these days aretaking photos of food, you
(08:12):
know, on their phone . So wecan ask them to look back at
their phone to see if they haveany pictures of, you know,
particularly aestheticallypleasing meals they might have
photographed during the timethat we're interested in. And
we can even ask our cases abouttheir loyalty card information.
So for example, a lot ofgrocery stores these days, you
go in, you have a card andyou're collecting points, you
(08:33):
know , with a case's consent,we can take their loyalty card
number, follow up with thatgrocery store, and then get a
detailed record of everythingthey purchased in a very
specific timeframe. Wow .
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So we might've learned you had a salad, but
now we wanna know everyingredient that was in the
salad, the dressing that wasused, did you make it yourself?
Where did you purchase it from?
And then we also are lookingfor food safety information as
well. So that's where we workvery closely with the Canadian
Food Inspection Agency . Solooking at, you know, trace
back , um, one piece that'svery helpful for us is supplier
(09:09):
information. Sometimes we mightsee people reporting , um,
everyone's reporting yogurt,for example, but it's all
different brands. Well , is itpossible that these brands
could be made at the sameplace? That's something that
CFAA would be able to, youknow, look and see if that's a
possibility, helps us rule inor out different items as
potential sources?
Speaker 7 (09:31):
So , uh, what we'll do is that based on the
information we get, we kind ofdo the tracing the foods from
the consumer back through theretail, and then possibly in
the case of hotel, restaurant,institution issues back through
distribution to production, tothe pro processing facilities
to pinpoint, you know, thesuspect source of the problem.
So it's like much like in acriminal investigation that
(09:53):
everything seems to point at aparticular food. If we're
lucky, if they gave up aparticular product with a
particular brand and a code,then what we would look at is
we would reach out to thecompany to start getting
information on that particularproduct, the volume where it
was shipped and, and sent, youknow, if there's a shelf life.
And then at the same time we'relooking at if it's within
(10:13):
Canada. So we're trying to getlike production records, the
volumes, was there any qualityassurance issues? Was there any
sampling based on the nature ofthe , say it's a pathogen,
which is gonna cause afoodborne illness? Do they do
testing for it? Have they had aproblem? Is there any
indication there? So you'retrying to build that case to
build , uh, documentedevidence. Now what you happen
is how many different productswere involved, because normally
(10:35):
it could be one product,sometimes you could have
several. Sometimes they give usalmost like a laundry list or a
grocery list of products. Andso that, you know , so we've
had that. So a lot of it isthat the initial information,
can we confirm the suspect? Uh, you have to kinda like a ,
almost like an onion. You dothe first one, then you go back
and you do the sameinvestigation until you
(10:56):
literally go and and find it.
It can be go very quickly ifit's singular, but in some
cases they will bring us a list, uh, of a lot of products and
we have to run each down. Andthat can take weeks or even
longer. Uh, until we can getthe con confirmation. We have
to literally go through eachone and take them off the list
of suspect.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
So public health starts the , the ball rolling.
Um, when we start suspectingdifferent food sources, the
food inspection agency hops inand starts doing food safety
investigation. They're gonnastart looking for what's going
on at different , um, um,places where food is made
manufactured. Maybe they'regonna go take some food samples
(11:36):
and do some testing for thedifferent bacteria or parasites
or viruses. And all the , allthe time that this is
happening, we're allcontinually meeting all the
different , uh, folks at publichealth , uh, food inspection
and Health Canada. And we're onthe phone talking to each
other. And then when we startto have a clearer picture and
(11:57):
we say, okay, we know what'scausing this from the , um,
hazard point of view, thebacteria or the virus, and we
have a suspicion about whatfood is involved, then they're
gonna pass the ball to ourcourt and we're gonna do our
risk assessment at HealthCanada. Right? And then finally
we say, okay, we have anunderstanding. How bad would it
(12:18):
be? You know, what's thehazard? How, how sick could it
make someone? Is it possible?
And how did it get there and ,and how much might been there
when someone ate the food? Andthen we'll make a determination
about the risk. Um, so , uh, weput it together and we identify
a level, and the level could beeither a health risk one, which
(12:39):
is the most , uh, serioushealth risk two, health risk
three. And you know, it'spossible that we can take a
look at everything and say, youknow, there's no health risk
too . So , um, or, or that thewhole situation doesn't result
in a health issue really forCanadians. Once we do the risk
assessment, it goes back to thefood inspection agency.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
So then a decision is made by the agency, they'll
do a recall, and in the case ofan outbreak and a pathogen and
a product , uh, it would go doa public release. So we'll
notify the company that, youknow, requesting a recall. Uh,
the company would then , uh,either say yes or no, whether
doing the recall,
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Does anyone ever refuse to recall the product.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Since 1999, there's been approximately about 10,000
recalls. And , uh, and, and,and in that time , uh, we've
only had , uh, seven what wecall mandatories. And this is
where again , uh, if a companyis not available or not willing
to conduct a recallvoluntarily, the Minister of
(13:40):
Health , uh, under the , uh,Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Act can order a company torecall a product where the
minister believes that it posesa risk to the public, animal
and public health. So , uh,when you think only seven
mandatories out of over, youknow, close to 10,000 recalls.
And the la the first one was in1999, just after, you know, the
, uh, agency was kind ofcreated. And the , and the last
(14:02):
one was actually in April,2004. So , uh, I think those
were learning moments for theindustry. Initially, they
waited for the investigationand the decision, but now many
companies are now conductingtheir own , uh, assessments.
And so they will come to us andsay, based on our information,
we wanna take this product off.
(14:22):
So they do it and, and more andmore because of after , uh, you
know, 23, 24 years, theindustry has learned to co to
get ahead of it. And they're ,and, and they've always been
very good at doing the rightthing at the right time. Uh,
once the information comes up,
Speaker 4 (14:37):
If you aren't already receiving food recall
alerts, we suggest you sign upusing our link in the
description. You'll be notifiedof products that are being
recalled for all kinds ofreasons, including allergens
and food safety .
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Tanis , you mentioned laboratory testing.
Can you tell us more about it?
Speaker 5 (14:56):
So one of the main methods that we use is called
whole genome sequencing. Andthis is a laboratory method
that is essentially DNAfingerprinting for a bacteria.
So for something like e coli,the bacteria have individual
DNA fingerprints, geneticfingerprints, just as people
have genetic fingerprints aswell. So then what we do is the
(15:18):
, these go into a nationaldatabase at the National
Microbiology Laboratory. And sothe ones that the bacteria that
have a similar , uh, strain,they are more likely to be
coming from a common source.
And this is the main way thatwe learn about kind of new ,
uh, clusters of illnesses thatare all kind of part of this
same genetic , um, profile.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
How quickly does all that happen? Like , I'm
just picturing waiting in theemergency room, they're like,
you're fine, Michelle, go home, , or, yeah, it can
definitely , they're
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Actually definitely take some time. So , um, you
know, once you get yourspecimen collected, it can take
a few days for testing. It hasto go through kind of the whole
chain , um, from the time theperson actually is tested, from
the time we learn about it canbe four to six weeks. So it's
definitely a big time lapsethere. You likely will know
that you have , um, e coli orhave salmonella within a couple
(16:12):
of weeks or a shorter period oftime. But to do that further,
laboratory testing does take alittle bit more time.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
So we talked about the successful , uh,
investigations, but are therelike cold case files, like the
ones that got away that youjust never Ooh , never. Like
I'm pictured like you guys. Um, this is , I'm thinking like
the seasoned detective, youknow, had this, this one
criminal that was just, you know, they could never
track down.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
This is true detective for sure ,
Speaker 6 (16:41):
For sure. I mean, we don't have a a hundred percent
success rate. We give it ourall for every outbreak we have
a motto to leave no stoneunturned. But you know,
certainly we're not always ,um, successful for a variety of
reasons.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
Some of the challenges we have is, is the
inability to , um, find theroot source or cause. And so
this happens often , uh, withoutbreaks associated with the ,
uh, consumption of, of shortshelf life vegetables. Good
example, like leafy greens,romaine lettuce. So when you
look at it that by the time theproduct is harvested shipped,
(17:18):
put on retail, you purchase it,you eat it, that could be a
couple days later. Now you'renot feeling well. You go to the
doctor, you have to give aspecimen that has to be
analyzed, it has to go off andhave this isolate or the , the
genetic fingerprint done weeksgo by and on a shelf life. So
then what happens is that thenyou have a challenge where ,
(17:39):
uh, by the time you , it comesto us and the information that
there's an outbreak, theproducts that are suspect,
there's no samples available,so we can't confirm it. And
then given the nature of someof the, the fresh greens that
are harvested, they do them bydifferent states and fields as
they move around. So it , it'ssometimes like it's very
difficult to identify.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
If we don't find the source, it means the outbreak
has ended. So we would neverstop investigating if new cases
are continuing to be reportedand we haven't identified what
that source is, we're alwaysgonna keep investigating until
it either ends or we'veidentified the source.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
We had an issue , uh, with um , leafy greens,
romaine lettuce, where itactually took three years of
recalls until every year we gota little closer until I think
it was the third year that theyactually identified the source.
And this is, and again, wow .
And again, too, when you lookat some , uh, greens, they're
mixing and matching and adding, uh, a variety of different
lettuces from differentsources. If you go to the
(18:34):
grocery store and you find oneof these mixed , uh, greens
packs, which source does it? Soit , yeah , so this is where it
becomes challenging, where yougot a variety of different
ingredients on short levels. Sothat's, you know, that's one of
the , uh, the , the biggestissue with , um, uh,
challenges.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You've got me. So curious, so what was like the
most notable foodborne illnessoutbreak you've ever worked on?
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Well, I'll go first.
Gosh , there's so many. Uh ,Tice , you go first with yours.
for me, I've worked onquite a few over the years, but
one of the most interestingones for me is still one of the
first ones I worked on, whichwas an e coli outbreak that was
found to be linked to flower .
And flower was not , uh, aknown source really at the
time. So it wasn't somethingthat was already on our
(19:17):
questionnaire. And it was thefirst time that this was
identified in Canada. So it wasquite a challenge because as
you can imagine, flour is not afood people eat. If I asked you
about what you ate in the last10 days, it's, I'm thinking
almost no one ingredient to ,no one is gonna say I ate flour
because it's an ingredient. Yes. So people are using it in
(19:37):
baking, but they're also usingit to make sauces, gravy , uh,
homemade Play-Doh even in somebeauty products. But another
challenge with flour is that alot of people transfer the
flour into a separate containerin their house. So there's no
lock coder best before date.
There's no packaging. Even ifyou didn't remember the brand
you bought, you know, you don'thave that bag anymore. Um,
(19:59):
labels are
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Important people
Speaker 5 (20:01):
it is
important. Yeah. Yes . So
eventually we were able tocrack the case. We did get a
positive sample and we wereable to link it all together.
And then it's been really, itwas a great learning because we
did make some changes fromthat. So flower is definitely
something we ask all cases nowabout , um, for any e coli
investigations. But also it'schanged public messaging too.
(20:22):
So I think before people were,you know, a bit aware of the
raw dough being a risk becauseof the potential for raw eggs.
But what this investigationtaught us is that raw flour is
also a risk. It's a rawagricultural product. It does
need to be cooked. And so , um,even on the bags, the industry
started putting that warningright on the bag that, you
(20:42):
know, do not eat raw flour, rawdough, they were updating
websites , uh, our own websiteswere updated. Social media. We
do know that saying not to eatraw dough is quite
controversial. We did get a lotof feedback, I would say, on
those social
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Media.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
A lot of people saying that they would never,
ever give that up. Um, and forus, you know what , that's a
choice, right? So our job is tomake sure that they have the
right information to make thatinformed decision about their
own health.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And on that particular example, how long
did it take to identify thesource that it was flour ?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Yeah, so I vividly recall we identified this
cluster at Christmas time in2016 because almost everyone
was off. And I remember going,oh, I think we have an outbreak
. And , um, it took usfrom there about two months,
about two and a half monthsbefore we were able to confirm
the source of that outbreak. Sothis was a longer one.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
So what was your example?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
The, the most notable outbreak when I was
kind of thinking of all theones I've worked on, I think
the most notable for me was anoutbreak of e coli in kimchi.
This outbreak was more or lessthe exact opposite of the
flower outbreak that Tana wasdescribing. 'cause we solved it
in less than 48 hours. Wow. Sokimchi is, as you can imagine,
(22:01):
a more unique exposure. Themajority of the population
isn't eating kimchi on aregular basis. So I love kimchi
. Oh, really? Okay. Soyou're one of these ones, maybe
eating it on a regular basis, . But when we had a , a
few cases reporting eatingkimchi within the 10 days
before they became sick, weknew we were onto something
pretty early, and it went very,very quickly from there. So we
(22:25):
worked closely with theCanadian Food Inspection Agency
, uh, and there was a recall ofa very specific kimchi product,
you know, within the same weekthat we identified the outbreak
and it was removed from themarket and nobody else got
sick, which was very rewardingfor this outbreak in particular
because it was a specificstrain of e coli that's known
(22:45):
to be very severe. So it was ,um, super rewarding that we
were able to, to find thesource so quickly. Um, and it
was also really interestingbecause I think many people,
including ourselves during thisoutbreak, thought that an
acidic food like kimchiwouldn't be conducive to
bacteria growth. Right? Right.
But, you know, we learned thatthat's not always the case. And
(23:08):
that's definitely a , a keytakeaway from working in
outbreaks for several years, isthat you cannot assume anything
. So we're always,always learning as we go.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Are there any other types of challenges with this
job?
Speaker 7 (23:22):
Some of the challenges, like as a person
doing an investigation, likeemotionally challenging, is
when there's illnesses , uh,that are hospitalization , uh,
deaths. So I've dealt manyinvestigations where, you know,
there were , uh, people thatpassed away that, that's tough
because it actually is thatmanifestation of the food
safety risk that we're tryingto protect. So that, that's
(23:43):
tough. In
Speaker 8 (23:44):
The last two years, I've already got several
examples where we're up at like2:00 AM um, to do our risk
assessment at Health Canada,it's all very well defined . We
have eight hours turnaroundtime, so it has to be done
basically in one working day.
Um, although when I say oneworking day, we , we often
receive our requests at the endof the day and our eight hours
(24:07):
starts, then
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Obviously we don't want these outbreaks to happen.
But when they do, it seems thelessons learned are valuable
and they make positive impacts.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
So every time we have an investigation, we're
always looking at, you know,what did we learn from this? Is
there something new that weshould be , um, letting people
in Canada know about? And , uh,one kind of real life example
of that was , um, in 2021, weinvestigated an outbreak of
salmonella that was found to belinked to frozen corn. And this
(24:38):
was the first investigation ofsalmonella to be found to be
linked to any frozen vegetable. So before this, it wasn't
really considered to be, youknow, a huge risk. And so we
have updated the messagingabout this now on the canada.ca
website so that people areaware that frozen vegetables do
need to be cooked according tothe package instructions.
(24:58):
They're not ready to eatproduct
Speaker 8 (25:00):
In the long term .
We all wanna work together tomake sure it doesn't happen
again. So we try and stop theoutbreak at the time that it's
happening, but then we alsowanna stop future similar
outbreaks, and that's where thepartners can also work together
and we can, you know ,implement food policies that
are different. We can do somemore research. Um, and there's
(25:22):
definitely work that thathappens afterwards. But that's
probably about two or threeother podcasts.,
worth of information, .
Speaker 7 (25:30):
Each one of 'em bring a different part of the ,
uh, expertise. It's like , ifyou wanna think baseball or
football, each one is a keyplayer on the team, and each
one's important. And if theydon't do their job like they
always do very well, we don'tsucceed. Things do happen. It
takes time. And I , Iunderstand when people are
getting sick, there's a lack ofpatience, but you do really
wanna get it right. You don'twanna make a mistake, you don't
(25:53):
want to recall the wrong thingbecause it'll continue to
happen. I would put ournational food safety emergency
Response team up against any inthe world.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Thank you so much for joining us , uh, today. I
learned a lot. Um, I just stillhave this detective kind of ,
uh, pictured in my mind, , you know, these ,
these cold case files of , youknow , uh, unsolved , uh,
unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us
on this.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Yeah, thank you so much for having us. Yes , thank
you.
Speaker 7 (26:23):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (26:25):
It's super exciting.
Like, I think all of us arereally passionate about our job
and, and you know, everybodyneeds to eat and nobody wants
to get sick from the food theyeat, so ,
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Right. For sure.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Foodborne illness outbreak investigations are a
team effort across Canada.
Local, provincial, territorial,and federal public health units
work together to identify theissue and recall all related
products.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
If you aren't currently receiving food
recalls and alerts, you shouldreally sign up for them. We've
put the link in our descriptionor in the learn more section on
our webpage.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
This was inspect and Protect the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency's officialpodcast.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's interesting to hear how foodborne illness
investigations span multipleagencies to safeguard public
health. Food safety is acollective effort involving
federal, provincial, and localhealth authorities working
together to keep Canadianssafe. If you wanna be proactive
and stay informed, considersigning up for the Food Recall
(27:32):
alerts on the Government ofCanada website. The link is
available in our podcastdescription. Thank you for
tuning in and be sure to checkout more episodes from Inspect
and Protect the Canadian FoodInspection Agency podcast. I
(27:55):
want to thank you for takingthe time to listen to our Ask a
Farmer podcast. We at CanadianFood Focus value the input from
our listeners and ask that youshare the podcast with your
friends and family. Remember,this is a two-Way street, so we
seek your input for futuresegments that are of interest
to you about food and farming.
(28:17):
To do this, please click on theAsk us icon at the top of our
website, canadian foodfocus.org . While you're there,
feel free to follow ournumerous social media links and
sign up for our newsletter.
This segment was produced andedited by Angela Larson,
research and Writing by DorothyLong and Penny Eaton. Music by
(28:39):
Andy Elson . I'm your hostClinton Moncha , and from all
of us at Canadian Food Focus,we wish you good health and
great eats.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From Canadian Food Focus. This is Ask a Farmer.
I'm your host Clinton Manuk . ASaskatchewan farmer. In this
podcast, we talk to foodexperts to answer your
questions about your food.
(00:29):
Welcome to the Ask a Farmerpodcast. Everyone. Can you
imagine a team of detectivesworking tirelessly around the
clock to solve mysteries thataffect public health? It's
kinda like Matlock . On today'spodcast, we're shedding light
on foodborne illnessinvestigations, and a guest
podcast episode from Inspectand Protect the Canadian Food
(00:53):
Inspection Agency's podcastwith host Michelle Strong and
Greg Rogers. Today's expertpanel of guests includes Tana
Kershaw and Courtney Smith fromthe Public Health Agency of
Canada's Outbreak Managementdivision, Fred Jameson , the
Food Safety Recall Specialistin the Food Safety
(01:15):
Investigation Recall Unit. AndAngela Catford section, head of
Health Risk Assessment atHealth Canada. From identifying
outbreaks to tracingcontaminated foods, their work
is essential in safeguardingour health. Stay with us as we
explore how these expertscollaborate during outbreaks
(01:35):
from initial detection to riskassessment and more.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
If you thought you had food poisoning, would you
report it? Would you gettested? When it comes to
foodborne illness outbreaks,there are teams of detectives
working tirelessly around theclock to find the culprits and
save lives.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
This episode, we'll be speaking with four of these
detectives who've investigatedmany cases across Canada.
Alright , Michelle , let'sintroduce our guests.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Let, hi Courtney. Hi Tanis . Do you wanna introduce
yourselves ?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Sure. Thank you so much for having us. So, I'm
Tanis Kershaw. I'm currently anacting manager with the
Outbreak Management Division atthe Public Health Agency of
Canada.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Hey , and yes, my name is Courtney Smith. I'm a
senior epidemiologist and Iwork right alongside Tanis in
the Outbreak ManagementDivision. You know, by the book
you might see an epidemiologistdefined as someone who
investigates you know, patternsand causes of disease and more
informally. We often explainthe role of an epidemiologist
as sort of a disease detective,and I'm doing air quotes for
(02:45):
those who, who can't see me,who are listening in .
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Um, I do, I do think of us like detectives. I'm not
sure if you know, realdetectives would appreciate the
analogy, but , uh, the diseasedetective that Courtney
mentioned, we, I really do feellike we are looking for clues
and pieces of evidence andtrying to put that all
together.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Next, we wanna introduce you to Fred, a food
inspector at the Canadian FoodInspection Agency.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
Hello , uh, I'm Fred Jameson . I'm , uh, the food
Safety recall specialist withthe , uh, office of Food Safety
Recall in the , uh, food safetyinvestigation , uh, recall
unit. I'm, I'm a little bit ofSherlock Holmes, a little bit
of , um, CSI because you , you, you kind of use the deductive
reasoning to create ahypothesis of the potential
(03:29):
source of root . However, youknow, unlike the TV show, it
takes longer than 45 minutesplus commercials to conduct a
food safety investigation.
There's no machine that you canput a sample in and get a
result in two minutes. And, andfinally, we , we don't get to
carry guns, which are probably,probably good 'cause I , that's
a thing I'd probably shoot mytoe off or something like that.
So,
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And finally we have our fourth detective, Angela.
Speaker 8 (03:52):
So my name is Angela Catford and I am the section
head of the Health RiskAssessment Section. Um , at
Health Canada, I've actuallybeen in the food safety and in
the risk assessment , uh, worldfor over 13 years now. Um , wow
. It's a , it's an expertiseyou kind of build up over a
long time.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Have you ever gotten sick yourself from food? What
Speaker 3 (04:13):
A question
Speaker 8 (04:14):
greatest fear to hold a workpotluck and have an outbreak
associated from our team.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Hi, I am Greg.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And I'm Michelle .
And this is Inspect and Protectthe Canadian Food Inspection
Agency's official podcast
Speaker 4 (04:32):
All about food safety, animal health, and
plant health. So how do you goabout investigating a foodborne
illness outbreak? Like, can youwalk us through kind of a step
by step how it usually goes?
Speaker 5 (04:45):
So, in terms of how we detect the outbreak, first,
people have to be exposed tothe contaminated food and
become sick and then seek care.
So they need to go to thehospital or to a physician to,
or to have a stool specimentested. So if it comes back
positive for something like ecoli or salmonella, then what
(05:05):
will happen is it will bereported to the local public
health unit where that personlives. Someone will call them
up from the local public healthunit and they're gonna ask them
questions about the foods theyate before they got sick. Um,
animal contact. They might havehad travel water exposures. At
the same time, it's also goingfor further laboratory testing
Speaker 7 (05:26):
When there's an identification that , uh,
there's a foodborne illness ,uh, and in particular , uh,
where then by definition thatthere's two or more, then it's
an outbreak. So the first stepis , uh, identifying the
trigger. So this was the , uh,being notified there's an
outbreak. That's the trigger.
The next step is investigating
Speaker 8 (05:45):
And that's where the public health agency , um, can
kick in and they're, they'retrying to say, okay, I have to
start solving this mystery.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
So just to set the stage, Courtney and I work at
the Outbreak ManagementDivision, which is in the
Center for FoodborneEnvironmental and Zoonotic
Infectious Diseases, part ofthe Public Health Agency of
Canada. So we coordinate theoverall investigation and we
also conduct the epidemiologicpart of the investigation
Speaker 6 (06:12):
While investigating our outbreaks. We do have like
a lot of different tools in ourtool belt , but the main one is
definitely case interviewingand the focus is gathering
those very specific details onwhat the cases ate before they
were sick. So essentially aspart of that re-interview
process, we're calling eachcase in an outbreak to ask them
what they might have eaten in acertain number of days before
(06:34):
they were sick. And our goalultimately is to find, you
know, the commonality acrossall of the cases and the source
of the outbreak. But of course,like anything, there's a catch.
It can often take, you know,four to six weeks between when
a person is sick and betweenwhen we're giving them a call
for this re-interview. Uh, butluckily we have a lot of expert
interviewers and they have alot of different strategies to
(06:56):
help our cases, remember whatthey might have eaten one or
even two months ago, sometimeseven longer.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
So we're gonna be looking at, is there anything
in common in among these peoplein terms of the foods they ate,
are they all reporting? Um, arethey all healthy eaters
reporting a really, you know,fruit and vegetable type diet?
Or are they all reporting avery specific type of one food?
We're also looking at age. Arethey all , um, different ages
or are we seeing a lot of youngchildren in a cluster which
(07:25):
might give us a clue, you know,what would they be eating that
might be different from otherage groups? This is detective
work
so we're also looking at , uh,where people live. So urban
versus rural in particular canbe a helpful clue. 'cause if
you live in a small town, theremight only be one grocery store
that you get your food from,and that might just limit the
(07:46):
availability of different fooditems.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
We might be asking even more questions about, for
example, you know, if they canlook into their bank statements
or their credit cardtransactions to see if they
went to a restaurant that dayor went to the grocery store or
a cafe , uh, we might ask ifthey have receipts from any
grocery store purchases forthat time period. You know, a
lot of people these days aretaking photos of food, you
(08:12):
know, on their phone . So wecan ask them to look back at
their phone to see if they haveany pictures of, you know,
particularly aestheticallypleasing meals they might have
photographed during the timethat we're interested in. And
we can even ask our cases abouttheir loyalty card information.
So for example, a lot ofgrocery stores these days, you
go in, you have a card andyou're collecting points, you
(08:33):
know , with a case's consent,we can take their loyalty card
number, follow up with thatgrocery store, and then get a
detailed record of everythingthey purchased in a very
specific timeframe. Wow .
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So we might've learned you had a salad, but
now we wanna know everyingredient that was in the
salad, the dressing that wasused, did you make it yourself?
Where did you purchase it from?
And then we also are lookingfor food safety information as
well. So that's where we workvery closely with the Canadian
Food Inspection Agency . Solooking at, you know, trace
back , um, one piece that'svery helpful for us is supplier
(09:09):
information. Sometimes we mightsee people reporting , um,
everyone's reporting yogurt,for example, but it's all
different brands. Well , is itpossible that these brands
could be made at the sameplace? That's something that
CFAA would be able to, youknow, look and see if that's a
possibility, helps us rule inor out different items as
potential sources?
Speaker 7 (09:31):
So , uh, what we'll do is that based on the
information we get, we kind ofdo the tracing the foods from
the consumer back through theretail, and then possibly in
the case of hotel, restaurant,institution issues back through
distribution to production, tothe pro processing facilities
to pinpoint, you know, thesuspect source of the problem.
So it's like much like in acriminal investigation that
(09:53):
everything seems to point at aparticular food. If we're
lucky, if they gave up aparticular product with a
particular brand and a code,then what we would look at is
we would reach out to thecompany to start getting
information on that particularproduct, the volume where it
was shipped and, and sent, youknow, if there's a shelf life.
And then at the same time we'relooking at if it's within
(10:13):
Canada. So we're trying to getlike production records, the
volumes, was there any qualityassurance issues? Was there any
sampling based on the nature ofthe , say it's a pathogen,
which is gonna cause afoodborne illness? Do they do
testing for it? Have they had aproblem? Is there any
indication there? So you'retrying to build that case to
build , uh, documentedevidence. Now what you happen
is how many different productswere involved, because normally
(10:35):
it could be one product,sometimes you could have
several. Sometimes they give usalmost like a laundry list or a
grocery list of products. Andso that, you know , so we've
had that. So a lot of it isthat the initial information,
can we confirm the suspect? Uh, you have to kinda like a ,
almost like an onion. You dothe first one, then you go back
and you do the sameinvestigation until you
(10:56):
literally go and and find it.
It can be go very quickly ifit's singular, but in some
cases they will bring us a list, uh, of a lot of products and
we have to run each down. Andthat can take weeks or even
longer. Uh, until we can getthe con confirmation. We have
to literally go through eachone and take them off the list
of suspect.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
So public health starts the , the ball rolling.
Um, when we start suspectingdifferent food sources, the
food inspection agency hops inand starts doing food safety
investigation. They're gonnastart looking for what's going
on at different , um, um,places where food is made
manufactured. Maybe they'regonna go take some food samples
(11:36):
and do some testing for thedifferent bacteria or parasites
or viruses. And all the , allthe time that this is
happening, we're allcontinually meeting all the
different , uh, folks at publichealth , uh, food inspection
and Health Canada. And we're onthe phone talking to each
other. And then when we startto have a clearer picture and
(11:57):
we say, okay, we know what'scausing this from the , um,
hazard point of view, thebacteria or the virus, and we
have a suspicion about whatfood is involved, then they're
gonna pass the ball to ourcourt and we're gonna do our
risk assessment at HealthCanada. Right? And then finally
we say, okay, we have anunderstanding. How bad would it
(12:18):
be? You know, what's thehazard? How, how sick could it
make someone? Is it possible?
And how did it get there and ,and how much might been there
when someone ate the food? Andthen we'll make a determination
about the risk. Um, so , uh, weput it together and we identify
a level, and the level could beeither a health risk one, which
(12:39):
is the most , uh, serioushealth risk two, health risk
three. And you know, it'spossible that we can take a
look at everything and say, youknow, there's no health risk
too . So , um, or, or that thewhole situation doesn't result
in a health issue really forCanadians. Once we do the risk
assessment, it goes back to thefood inspection agency.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
So then a decision is made by the agency, they'll
do a recall, and in the case ofan outbreak and a pathogen and
a product , uh, it would go doa public release. So we'll
notify the company that, youknow, requesting a recall. Uh,
the company would then , uh,either say yes or no, whether
doing the recall,
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Does anyone ever refuse to recall the product.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Since 1999, there's been approximately about 10,000
recalls. And , uh, and, and,and in that time , uh, we've
only had , uh, seven what wecall mandatories. And this is
where again , uh, if a companyis not available or not willing
to conduct a recallvoluntarily, the Minister of
(13:40):
Health , uh, under the , uh,Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Act can order a company torecall a product where the
minister believes that it posesa risk to the public, animal
and public health. So , uh,when you think only seven
mandatories out of over, youknow, close to 10,000 recalls.
And the la the first one was in1999, just after, you know, the
, uh, agency was kind ofcreated. And the , and the last
(14:02):
one was actually in April,2004. So , uh, I think those
were learning moments for theindustry. Initially, they
waited for the investigationand the decision, but now many
companies are now conductingtheir own , uh, assessments.
And so they will come to us andsay, based on our information,
we wanna take this product off.
(14:22):
So they do it and, and more andmore because of after , uh, you
know, 23, 24 years, theindustry has learned to co to
get ahead of it. And they're ,and, and they've always been
very good at doing the rightthing at the right time. Uh,
once the information comes up,
Speaker 4 (14:37):
If you aren't already receiving food recall
alerts, we suggest you sign upusing our link in the
description. You'll be notifiedof products that are being
recalled for all kinds ofreasons, including allergens
and food safety .
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Tanis , you mentioned laboratory testing.
Can you tell us more about it?
Speaker 5 (14:56):
So one of the main methods that we use is called
whole genome sequencing. Andthis is a laboratory method
that is essentially DNAfingerprinting for a bacteria.
So for something like e coli,the bacteria have individual
DNA fingerprints, geneticfingerprints, just as people
have genetic fingerprints aswell. So then what we do is the
(15:18):
, these go into a nationaldatabase at the National
Microbiology Laboratory. And sothe ones that the bacteria that
have a similar , uh, strain,they are more likely to be
coming from a common source.
And this is the main way thatwe learn about kind of new ,
uh, clusters of illnesses thatare all kind of part of this
same genetic , um, profile.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
How quickly does all that happen? Like
just picturing waiting in theemergency room, they're like,
you're fine, Michelle, go home,
definitely , they're
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Actually definitely take some time. So , um, you
know, once you get yourspecimen collected, it can take
a few days for testing. It hasto go through kind of the whole
chain , um, from the time theperson actually is tested, from
the time we learn about it canbe four to six weeks. So it's
definitely a big time lapsethere. You likely will know
that you have , um, e coli orhave salmonella within a couple
(16:12):
of weeks or a shorter period oftime. But to do that further,
laboratory testing does take alittle bit more time.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
So we talked about the successful , uh,
investigations, but are therelike cold case files, like the
ones that got away that youjust never Ooh , never. Like
I'm pictured like you guys. Um, this is , I'm thinking like
the seasoned detective, youknow, had this, this one
criminal that was just
track down.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
This is true detective for sure ,
Speaker 6 (16:41):
For sure. I mean, we don't have a a hundred percent
success rate. We give it ourall for every outbreak we have
a motto to leave no stoneunturned. But you know,
certainly we're not always ,um, successful for a variety of
reasons.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
Some of the challenges we have is, is the
inability to , um, find theroot source or cause. And so
this happens often , uh, withoutbreaks associated with the ,
uh, consumption of, of shortshelf life vegetables. Good
example, like leafy greens,romaine lettuce. So when you
look at it that by the time theproduct is harvested shipped,
(17:18):
put on retail, you purchase it,you eat it, that could be a
couple days later. Now you'renot feeling well. You go to the
doctor, you have to give aspecimen that has to be
analyzed, it has to go off andhave this isolate or the , the
genetic fingerprint done weeksgo by and on a shelf life. So
then what happens is that thenyou have a challenge where ,
(17:39):
uh, by the time you , it comesto us and the information that
there's an outbreak, theproducts that are suspect,
there's no samples available,so we can't confirm it. And
then given the nature of someof the, the fresh greens that
are harvested, they do them bydifferent states and fields as
they move around. So it , it'ssometimes like it's very
difficult to identify.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
If we don't find the source, it means the outbreak
has ended. So we would neverstop investigating if new cases
are continuing to be reportedand we haven't identified what
that source is, we're alwaysgonna keep investigating until
it either ends or we'veidentified the source.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
We had an issue , uh, with um , leafy greens,
romaine lettuce, where itactually took three years of
recalls until every year we gota little closer until I think
it was the third year that theyactually identified the source.
And this is, and again, wow .
And again, too, when you lookat some , uh, greens, they're
mixing and matching and adding, uh, a variety of different
lettuces from differentsources. If you go to the
(18:34):
grocery store and you find oneof these mixed , uh, greens
packs, which source does it? Soit , yeah , so this is where it
becomes challenging, where yougot a variety of different
ingredients on short levels. Sothat's, you know, that's one of
the , uh, the , the biggestissue with , um, uh,
challenges.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You've got me. So curious, so what was like the
most notable foodborne illnessoutbreak you've ever worked on?
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Well, I'll go first.
Gosh , there's so many. Uh ,Tice , you go first with yours.
one of the most interestingones for me is still one of the
first ones I worked on, whichwas an e coli outbreak that was
found to be linked to flower .
And flower was not , uh, aknown source really at the
time. So it wasn't somethingthat was already on our
(19:17):
questionnaire. And it was thefirst time that this was
identified in Canada. So it wasquite a challenge because as
you can imagine, flour is not afood people eat. If I asked you
about what you ate in the last10 days, it's, I'm thinking
almost no one ingredient to ,no one is gonna say I ate flour
because it's an ingredient. Yes. So people are using it in
(19:37):
baking, but they're also usingit to make sauces, gravy , uh,
homemade Play-Doh even in somebeauty products. But another
challenge with flour is that alot of people transfer the
flour into a separate containerin their house. So there's no
lock coder best before date.
There's no packaging. Even ifyou didn't remember the brand
you bought, you know, you don'thave that bag anymore. Um,
(19:59):
labels are
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Important people
Speaker 5 (20:01):
eventually we were able tocrack the case. We did get a
positive sample and we wereable to link it all together.
And then it's been really, itwas a great learning because we
did make some changes fromthat. So flower is definitely
something we ask all cases nowabout , um, for any e coli
investigations. But also it'schanged public messaging too.
(20:22):
So I think before people were,you know, a bit aware of the
raw dough being a risk becauseof the potential for raw eggs.
But what this investigationtaught us is that raw flour is
also a risk. It's a rawagricultural product. It does
need to be cooked. And so , um,even on the bags, the industry
started putting that warningright on the bag that, you
(20:42):
know, do not eat raw flour, rawdough, they were updating
websites , uh, our own websiteswere updated. Social media. We
do know that saying not to eatraw dough is quite
controversial. We did get a lotof feedback, I would say, on
those social
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Media.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
A lot of people saying that they would never,
ever give that up. Um, and forus, you know what , that's a
choice, right? So our job is tomake sure that they have the
right information to make thatinformed decision about their
own health.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And on that particular example, how long
did it take to identify thesource that it was flour ?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Yeah, so I vividly recall we identified this
cluster at Christmas time in2016 because almost everyone
was off. And I remember going,oh, I think we have an outbreak
about two and a half monthsbefore we were able to confirm
the source of that outbreak. Sothis was a longer one.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
So what was your example?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
The, the most notable outbreak when I was
kind of thinking of all theones I've worked on, I think
the most notable for me was anoutbreak of e coli in kimchi.
This outbreak was more or lessthe exact opposite of the
flower outbreak that Tana wasdescribing. 'cause we solved it
in less than 48 hours. Wow. Sokimchi is, as you can imagine,
(22:01):
a more unique exposure. Themajority of the population
isn't eating kimchi on aregular basis. So I love kimchi
eating it on a regular basis,
few cases reporting eatingkimchi within the 10 days
before they became sick, weknew we were onto something
pretty early, and it went very,very quickly from there. So we
(22:25):
worked closely with theCanadian Food Inspection Agency
, uh, and there was a recall ofa very specific kimchi product,
you know, within the same weekthat we identified the outbreak
and it was removed from themarket and nobody else got
sick, which was very rewardingfor this outbreak in particular
because it was a specificstrain of e coli that's known
(22:45):
to be very severe. So it was ,um, super rewarding that we
were able to, to find thesource so quickly. Um, and it
was also really interestingbecause I think many people,
including ourselves during thisoutbreak, thought that an
acidic food like kimchiwouldn't be conducive to
bacteria growth. Right? Right.
But, you know, we learned thatthat's not always the case. And
(23:08):
that's definitely a , a keytakeaway from working in
outbreaks for several years, isthat you cannot assume anything
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Are there any other types of challenges with this
job?
Speaker 7 (23:22):
Some of the challenges, like as a person
doing an investigation, likeemotionally challenging, is
when there's illnesses , uh,that are hospitalization , uh,
deaths. So I've dealt manyinvestigations where, you know,
there were , uh, people thatpassed away that, that's tough
because it actually is thatmanifestation of the food
safety risk that we're tryingto protect. So that, that's
(23:43):
tough. In
Speaker 8 (23:44):
The last two years, I've already got several
examples where we're up at like2:00 AM um, to do our risk
assessment at Health Canada,it's all very well defined . We
have eight hours turnaroundtime, so it has to be done
basically in one working day.
Um, although when I say oneworking day, we , we often
receive our requests at the endof the day and our eight hours
(24:07):
starts, then
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Obviously we don't want these outbreaks to happen.
But when they do, it seems thelessons learned are valuable
and they make positive impacts.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
So every time we have an investigation, we're
always looking at, you know,what did we learn from this? Is
there something new that weshould be , um, letting people
in Canada know about? And , uh,one kind of real life example
of that was , um, in 2021, weinvestigated an outbreak of
salmonella that was found to belinked to frozen corn. And this
(24:38):
was the first investigation ofsalmonella to be found to be
linked to any frozen vegetable. So before this, it wasn't
really considered to be, youknow, a huge risk. And so we
have updated the messagingabout this now on the canada.ca
website so that people areaware that frozen vegetables do
need to be cooked according tothe package instructions.
(24:58):
They're not ready to eatproduct
Speaker 8 (25:00):
In the long term .
We all wanna work together tomake sure it doesn't happen
again. So we try and stop theoutbreak at the time that it's
happening, but then we alsowanna stop future similar
outbreaks, and that's where thepartners can also work together
and we can, you know ,implement food policies that
are different. We can do somemore research. Um, and there's
(25:22):
definitely work that thathappens afterwards. But that's
probably about two or threeother podcasts.
Speaker 7 (25:30):
Each one of 'em bring a different part of the ,
uh, expertise. It's like , ifyou wanna think baseball or
football, each one is a keyplayer on the team, and each
one's important. And if theydon't do their job like they
always do very well, we don'tsucceed. Things do happen. It
takes time. And I , Iunderstand when people are
getting sick, there's a lack ofpatience, but you do really
wanna get it right. You don'twanna make a mistake, you don't
(25:53):
want to recall the wrong thingbecause it'll continue to
happen. I would put ournational food safety emergency
Response team up against any inthe world.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Thank you so much for joining us , uh, today. I
learned a lot. Um, I just stillhave this detective kind of ,
uh, pictured in my mind,
these cold case files of , youknow , uh, unsolved , uh,
unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us
on this.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Yeah, thank you so much for having us. Yes , thank
you.
Speaker 7 (26:23):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (26:25):
It's super exciting.
Like, I think all of us arereally passionate about our job
and, and you know, everybodyneeds to eat and nobody wants
to get sick from the food theyeat, so ,
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Right. For sure.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Foodborne illness outbreak investigations are a
team effort across Canada.
Local, provincial, territorial,and federal public health units
work together to identify theissue and recall all related
products.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
If you aren't currently receiving food
recalls and alerts, you shouldreally sign up for them. We've
put the link in our descriptionor in the learn more section on
our webpage.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
This was inspect and Protect the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency's officialpodcast.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's interesting to hear how foodborne illness
investigations span multipleagencies to safeguard public
health. Food safety is acollective effort involving
federal, provincial, and localhealth authorities working
together to keep Canadianssafe. If you wanna be proactive
and stay informed, considersigning up for the Food Recall
(27:32):
alerts on the Government ofCanada website. The link is
available in our podcastdescription. Thank you for
tuning in and be sure to checkout more episodes from Inspect
and Protect the Canadian FoodInspection Agency podcast. I
(27:55):
want to thank you for takingthe time to listen to our Ask a
Farmer podcast. We at CanadianFood Focus value the input from
our listeners and ask that youshare the podcast with your
friends and family. Remember,this is a two-Way street, so we
seek your input for futuresegments that are of interest
to you about food and farming.
(28:17):
To do this, please click on theAsk us icon at the top of our
website, canadian foodfocus.org . While you're there,
feel free to follow ournumerous social media links and
sign up for our newsletter.
This segment was produced andedited by Angela Larson,
research and Writing by DorothyLong and Penny Eaton. Music by
(28:39):
Andy Elson . I'm your hostClinton Moncha , and from all
of us at Canadian Food Focus,we wish you good health and
great eats.
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