In recent weeks there have been many articles about the bystander effect - the reluctance of people to get involved when someone is in trouble.
I would like to suggest that the bystander phenomenon is far more wide spread than recent events would suggest. Here is an example: While 8000 to 12000 Canadians are dying from antibiotic-resistant superbug infections annually the joke is on us, as some countries still practice technology discovered by the Canadian, Felix d'Herelle in 1917. Phage therapy uses highly specific viruses, bacteriophages, which are harmless for humans, to treat bacterial infections. Phage therapy is not currently approved or practiced in Canada. According to a letter signed by a former federal health minister it can be made available legally to Canadians under the Special Access Program of our Food & Drugs Act! While lots of information on phage therapy is available in the medical and scientific literature, the Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a solution to the antibiotics crisis? ( see http://www.bacteriophagetherapy.info ) are available at Ottawa libraries. Information is available on phage therapy treatment in Georgia , Europe ( http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ), or Poland - ( http://www.aite.wroclaw.pl/phages/phages.html ) or more recently at the Wound Care Center, Lubbock, Texas ( http://www.woundcarecenter.net/ ) . What is perhaps more frustrating is that the Public Health Agency of Canada(PHAC) in it's Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-2010 ( http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/sds-sdd/sds-sdd2-c-eng.php ) assures: "Availability of phage therapy for E. coli O157:H7 in food animals". It seems to me that PHAC should focus on treating Canadians before food animals. Canada should establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics or are considering trips to seek treatment in other countries! Here is the bystander effect: How many persons (including the newspapers) who will read this will look at the literature to see if my information is scientifically valid and then write their elected officials or publish an article to object to the fact that phage therapy is not available in Canada? Remember all of us are potential victims of superbugs - when MRSA has come for a personal visit it will be too late!!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
CONSUMERS "R" US. - GOLDEN RULE OF FOOD SAFETY
CONSUMERS “R” US.
Prepared and submitted to:
Subcommittee on Food Safety of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food
Sixth Floor, 131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Canada
May 29, 2009
Ladies and gentlemen I would like to thank you for allowing me to address this Committee on foodborne listeria and food safety in general.
I would like to start over by addressing you as: Fellow Canadian consumers of the Canadian food supply because all of us eat up to 6 times a day (this includes snacks) – all of us are exposed to essentially the same risks. It is my opinion that food safety is not an area for politics because we know from past experience that bugs don’t care which party is in government. I also feel that food safety is not an area for Frankfurtian spin or rhetoric (see Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005 – On Bullshit, Princeton U. Press, Princeton), yet there is often far more of both then is good for all of us.
I have experienced the food business from starvation to regulation and I have worked in Canada in the food business from the manure pile to the sewage treatment plant; but one thing I have always kept in mind and that is: The food that resulted from these activities must be suitable for consumption by me and my family. Whether I was working for industry, academia or as a regulator I was always a consumer of food like everyone around this table. I often was disturbed by coworkers who appeared to forget that they are consumers by asserting that they represented industry, academia or regulatory – even professional consumer advocates seem to forget that all of us eat. Too often things are done for/to Canadians, for/to Consumers as in: “Protecting and promoting the health and safety of Canadians, their families and communities is of paramount importance to Health Canada.” How condescending!
THE GOLDEN RULE OF FOOD SAFETY:
Do onto others what you would want them to do onto you
if they were preparing food for you!
For the remainder of my 10 minutes I would like to give a few examples of failure related to the food safety system:
On the one hand the official body counters inform us that there are up to 13 million cases of microbial foodborne disease and up to 500 deaths in Canada each year (those are the current statistics which have changed from those used for many years – 30 deaths and 2 million cases). On the other hand every time there is an outbreak we pretend that we never heard of foodborne disease before! Between 2000 and 2005 our food regulatory system send out 12 million copies of a brochure entitled "Food Safety and You" which starts as follows: "There's a good reason why the foods we eat in Canada are safe." (This publication was also posted on the Internet). As a result of an ATIP request I found out that this publication was in response to: "public opinion research done in September 1999 indicated that 'confidence in the food safety system may be eroding slightly'." Therefore $2,600,000 was spent to distribute 12 million copies which also noted : “there are thousands of Canadians working every day so that you and your family can be confident that the foods you eat are safe.” As a consumer and food microbiologist I see two major problems associated with this careless use of the term "safe." First, it shows callous disrespect for those Canadian individuals who died from these risks and essentially denies their life, and it appears unkind to their surviving Canadian relatives. Second, it is clearly credibility-destroying behavior by the regulatory and scientific community. Is it any surprise that our credibility as scientists is being eroded? While we like to blame the media I believe that we, members of the regulatory/scientific community, are entirely to blame! Let me further add that the food supply has not been safe in the past, is not safe today and probably won’t be safe in the future. Recalls do not prove that the food safety system is working to provide a safe food supply; they are rather proof that the system is operating continuously in failure mode or as a former Health Canada colleague published – safe, virginity and sterility are absolutes and can not be qualified. The excessive use of “safe” results in a false sense of security by Canadians and in my opinion should/could result in liability under some circumstances as it appears to provide an implied warranty.
Let me conclude this section by referencing two recent papers that try to come to grips with the current food safety crisis:
1. Maki, Dennis G. 2009 – Coming to Grips with Foodborne Infection --- Peanut Butter, Peppers, and Nationwide Salmonella Outbreaks, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 360, No. 10:940-953.
2. Moss, Michael 2009 Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers, The New York Times, May 15, 2009.
Maki describes recent large scale recalls of foods in the USA because of microbial contamination which are national and/or international in scale like the ready-to-eat luncheon meat listeria recall in Canada. What all these recalls seem to have in common is “reckless consolidation” without appropriate compensation to mitigate increased risk visibility, meaning that once product contamination occurs, distribution is wide. For example the Maple Leaf Class Action claims that “over 243 products were identified as potentially contaminated with the bacteria species Listeria monocytogenes, which may have caused persons to become sick or die.” Moss on the other hand describes a globalized food production system that no longer knows where ingredients come from and which has placed the onus for safety on consumers.
Doing more of the same things that have gotten us here and expecting different outcomes!
In spite of what some people would like you to believe, food microbiology is not a new science!
I have here my copy of Tanner, Fred W. 1944 (2nd edition) The Microbiology of Foods, Garrard Press, Champaign, Illinois. Reading this book one is overcome by the realization that many of the food safety issues have been around and documented for at least 100 years.
I also brought along a copy of COMMITTEE ON SALMONELLA 1969 An Evaluation of the Salmonella Problem, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Once again the salmonella problems we are seeing now are not new.
My final exhibit in this little show-and-tell is a copy of Health and Welfare Canada, 1981, CODE OF PRACTICE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FOOD HYGIENE FOR USE BY THE FOOD INDUSTRY IN CANADA. It may interest you that roughly 65,000 copies of this document were provided in Canada. Yet here we are many years later and rather than having seen an improvement in the microbial foodborne infections, they have officially gone from about 30 to 500 deaths and cases have gone from 2 million to as many as 13 million annually. It should be noted that the Canadian plant involved in the listeria recall appears to have been considered HACCP compliant (as listed on the CFIA website); however, it should be noted that HACCP by now is also a fairly old food safety system that has failed like GMP; perhaps because too many companies get on the band wagon and pay lip service to these systems.
Efficient redundancy or Mapleleafing:
One of the things that has frustrated me while working in food microbiology in Canada is the amount of hubris we have and which results in wasting our limited scientific resources blissfully reinventing technologies in use in other countries. I would like to finish my presentation with the example of phage therapy as applicable to both food technology and medicine.
Phage therapy was discovered by the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle in 1917. Phage therapy uses highly specific viruses, bacteriophages, which are harmless for humans, to treat bacterial infections and can also be used to reduce or eliminate bacteria in food processing applications. Phage therapy is not currently approved or practiced in Canada. However, according to a letter signed by a former federal health minister it can be made available legally to Canadians under the Special Access Program of our Food & Drugs Act! A discussion of phage therapy is currently very timely because of the release of the Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a solution to the antibiotics crisis? ( see http://www.bacteriophagetherapy.info ). Both references are available at Ottawa libraries.This file has dramatically changed because the US Food and Drug Administration has amended the US food additive regulations to provide for the safe use of a bacteriophages on ready-to-eat meat against Listeria monocytogenes (see http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/02f-0316-nfr0001.pdf ). Also http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opabacqa.html . The idea that ready-to-eat meat can be treated if contaminated with Listeria bacteria while a doctor could not get a pharmaceutical grade phage therapy product when faced with a patient suffering listeriosis strikes this author as absurd especially considering the recent massive recall of ready-to-eat meat in Canada due to contamination with listeria. Additionally, in the USA two other agencies, EPA and the USDA have approved the use of bacteriophages for various food processing applications. According to information from a Health Canada science manager to date there has not been a submission seeking approval of phages to mitigate microbial contamination of food products; however, should there be applications then we would treat these products as new and a complete review would be carried out. This clearly would be costly and cause significant delay in making this technology available in Canada giving USA food processors technological advantages. What is needed is a Canadian agency that has as it’s express responsibility to look at technologies available in other countries and if judged important there must be legal means of bringing them to Canada.
{Information is available on phage therapy treatment of human infections in Georgia , Europe ( http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ), or Poland - ( http://www.aite.wroclaw.pl/phages/phages.html ) or more recently at the Wound Care Center, Lubbock, Texas ( http://www.woundcarecenter.net/ ) .}
Getting Beyond Bullsh*t:
While it is easy to criticize the current failures of the food safety system, especially when I am no longer working in it, I feel fully justified to do so since it is my food supply that is being jeopardized. I would like to close with the message from a recent management book: Culbert, Samuel, A. 2008 Beyond Bullsh*t – Straight-Talk at Work, Stanford U. Press, Stanford, California. Canadians deserve honest, spin and rhetoric free communication when it comes to food safety and it is my opinion that that was not always the case in the past! Additionally we need to be more proactive in adopting technology and scientific evidence from other countries because larger populations may result in increased risk visibility.
Prepared by:
G.W. (Bill) Riedel, PhD Food Science/Microbiology
Prepared and submitted to:
Subcommittee on Food Safety of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food
Sixth Floor, 131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Canada
May 29, 2009
Ladies and gentlemen I would like to thank you for allowing me to address this Committee on foodborne listeria and food safety in general.
I would like to start over by addressing you as: Fellow Canadian consumers of the Canadian food supply because all of us eat up to 6 times a day (this includes snacks) – all of us are exposed to essentially the same risks. It is my opinion that food safety is not an area for politics because we know from past experience that bugs don’t care which party is in government. I also feel that food safety is not an area for Frankfurtian spin or rhetoric (see Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005 – On Bullshit, Princeton U. Press, Princeton), yet there is often far more of both then is good for all of us.
I have experienced the food business from starvation to regulation and I have worked in Canada in the food business from the manure pile to the sewage treatment plant; but one thing I have always kept in mind and that is: The food that resulted from these activities must be suitable for consumption by me and my family. Whether I was working for industry, academia or as a regulator I was always a consumer of food like everyone around this table. I often was disturbed by coworkers who appeared to forget that they are consumers by asserting that they represented industry, academia or regulatory – even professional consumer advocates seem to forget that all of us eat. Too often things are done for/to Canadians, for/to Consumers as in: “Protecting and promoting the health and safety of Canadians, their families and communities is of paramount importance to Health Canada.” How condescending!
THE GOLDEN RULE OF FOOD SAFETY:
Do onto others what you would want them to do onto you
if they were preparing food for you!
For the remainder of my 10 minutes I would like to give a few examples of failure related to the food safety system:
On the one hand the official body counters inform us that there are up to 13 million cases of microbial foodborne disease and up to 500 deaths in Canada each year (those are the current statistics which have changed from those used for many years – 30 deaths and 2 million cases). On the other hand every time there is an outbreak we pretend that we never heard of foodborne disease before! Between 2000 and 2005 our food regulatory system send out 12 million copies of a brochure entitled "Food Safety and You" which starts as follows: "There's a good reason why the foods we eat in Canada are safe." (This publication was also posted on the Internet). As a result of an ATIP request I found out that this publication was in response to: "public opinion research done in September 1999 indicated that 'confidence in the food safety system may be eroding slightly'." Therefore $2,600,000 was spent to distribute 12 million copies which also noted : “there are thousands of Canadians working every day so that you and your family can be confident that the foods you eat are safe.” As a consumer and food microbiologist I see two major problems associated with this careless use of the term "safe." First, it shows callous disrespect for those Canadian individuals who died from these risks and essentially denies their life, and it appears unkind to their surviving Canadian relatives. Second, it is clearly credibility-destroying behavior by the regulatory and scientific community. Is it any surprise that our credibility as scientists is being eroded? While we like to blame the media I believe that we, members of the regulatory/scientific community, are entirely to blame! Let me further add that the food supply has not been safe in the past, is not safe today and probably won’t be safe in the future. Recalls do not prove that the food safety system is working to provide a safe food supply; they are rather proof that the system is operating continuously in failure mode or as a former Health Canada colleague published – safe, virginity and sterility are absolutes and can not be qualified. The excessive use of “safe” results in a false sense of security by Canadians and in my opinion should/could result in liability under some circumstances as it appears to provide an implied warranty.
Let me conclude this section by referencing two recent papers that try to come to grips with the current food safety crisis:
1. Maki, Dennis G. 2009 – Coming to Grips with Foodborne Infection --- Peanut Butter, Peppers, and Nationwide Salmonella Outbreaks, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 360, No. 10:940-953.
2. Moss, Michael 2009 Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers, The New York Times, May 15, 2009.
Maki describes recent large scale recalls of foods in the USA because of microbial contamination which are national and/or international in scale like the ready-to-eat luncheon meat listeria recall in Canada. What all these recalls seem to have in common is “reckless consolidation” without appropriate compensation to mitigate increased risk visibility, meaning that once product contamination occurs, distribution is wide. For example the Maple Leaf Class Action claims that “over 243 products were identified as potentially contaminated with the bacteria species Listeria monocytogenes, which may have caused persons to become sick or die.” Moss on the other hand describes a globalized food production system that no longer knows where ingredients come from and which has placed the onus for safety on consumers.
Doing more of the same things that have gotten us here and expecting different outcomes!
In spite of what some people would like you to believe, food microbiology is not a new science!
I have here my copy of Tanner, Fred W. 1944 (2nd edition) The Microbiology of Foods, Garrard Press, Champaign, Illinois. Reading this book one is overcome by the realization that many of the food safety issues have been around and documented for at least 100 years.
I also brought along a copy of COMMITTEE ON SALMONELLA 1969 An Evaluation of the Salmonella Problem, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Once again the salmonella problems we are seeing now are not new.
My final exhibit in this little show-and-tell is a copy of Health and Welfare Canada, 1981, CODE OF PRACTICE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FOOD HYGIENE FOR USE BY THE FOOD INDUSTRY IN CANADA. It may interest you that roughly 65,000 copies of this document were provided in Canada. Yet here we are many years later and rather than having seen an improvement in the microbial foodborne infections, they have officially gone from about 30 to 500 deaths and cases have gone from 2 million to as many as 13 million annually. It should be noted that the Canadian plant involved in the listeria recall appears to have been considered HACCP compliant (as listed on the CFIA website); however, it should be noted that HACCP by now is also a fairly old food safety system that has failed like GMP; perhaps because too many companies get on the band wagon and pay lip service to these systems.
Efficient redundancy or Mapleleafing:
One of the things that has frustrated me while working in food microbiology in Canada is the amount of hubris we have and which results in wasting our limited scientific resources blissfully reinventing technologies in use in other countries. I would like to finish my presentation with the example of phage therapy as applicable to both food technology and medicine.
Phage therapy was discovered by the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle in 1917. Phage therapy uses highly specific viruses, bacteriophages, which are harmless for humans, to treat bacterial infections and can also be used to reduce or eliminate bacteria in food processing applications. Phage therapy is not currently approved or practiced in Canada. However, according to a letter signed by a former federal health minister it can be made available legally to Canadians under the Special Access Program of our Food & Drugs Act! A discussion of phage therapy is currently very timely because of the release of the Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a solution to the antibiotics crisis? ( see http://www.bacteriophagetherapy.info ). Both references are available at Ottawa libraries.This file has dramatically changed because the US Food and Drug Administration has amended the US food additive regulations to provide for the safe use of a bacteriophages on ready-to-eat meat against Listeria monocytogenes (see http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/02f-0316-nfr0001.pdf ). Also http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opabacqa.html . The idea that ready-to-eat meat can be treated if contaminated with Listeria bacteria while a doctor could not get a pharmaceutical grade phage therapy product when faced with a patient suffering listeriosis strikes this author as absurd especially considering the recent massive recall of ready-to-eat meat in Canada due to contamination with listeria. Additionally, in the USA two other agencies, EPA and the USDA have approved the use of bacteriophages for various food processing applications. According to information from a Health Canada science manager to date there has not been a submission seeking approval of phages to mitigate microbial contamination of food products; however, should there be applications then we would treat these products as new and a complete review would be carried out. This clearly would be costly and cause significant delay in making this technology available in Canada giving USA food processors technological advantages. What is needed is a Canadian agency that has as it’s express responsibility to look at technologies available in other countries and if judged important there must be legal means of bringing them to Canada.
{Information is available on phage therapy treatment of human infections in Georgia , Europe ( http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ), or Poland - ( http://www.aite.wroclaw.pl/phages/phages.html ) or more recently at the Wound Care Center, Lubbock, Texas ( http://www.woundcarecenter.net/ ) .}
Getting Beyond Bullsh*t:
While it is easy to criticize the current failures of the food safety system, especially when I am no longer working in it, I feel fully justified to do so since it is my food supply that is being jeopardized. I would like to close with the message from a recent management book: Culbert, Samuel, A. 2008 Beyond Bullsh*t – Straight-Talk at Work, Stanford U. Press, Stanford, California. Canadians deserve honest, spin and rhetoric free communication when it comes to food safety and it is my opinion that that was not always the case in the past! Additionally we need to be more proactive in adopting technology and scientific evidence from other countries because larger populations may result in increased risk visibility.
Prepared by:
G.W. (Bill) Riedel, PhD Food Science/Microbiology
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Book review - Book review: Chopra, Shiv, 2008 - Corrupt to the Core - Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower
Book review: Chopra, Shiv, 2008 - Corrupt to the Core - Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, (ISBN 978-0-9731945-7-9) KOS PUBLISHING INC., 1997 Beechgrove Rd. Caledon, Ontario, Canada, L7K 0N3, Tel 613-927-1049, Fax 519-927-9542, email - helke@sympatico.ca .
When University of Manitoba Professor John S. McCullum reviewed Harry G. Frankfurt’s book ‘On Bullshit’ he proclaimed that ‘On Bullshit’ is not bullshit. After reading Chopra’s newly released ‘Corrupt to the Core - Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower’ this author wants to proclaim to the world: "This is a book about bullshit" or your taxes at work for you in Ottawa. In slow motion, yet fascinating so that the reader can not put down the book once started, Chopra allows Canadians to enter the usually secretive world of management in the bureaucracy; the abuse of Canadians by Canadians while almost nothing gets accomplished at great cost. Email by email, memo by memo, meeting after meeting managers fail to resolve issues as problems fester.
Dr. Chopra’s book deserves to become a Canadian best seller and belongs on the shelf of every public and private library. This book should be under the Christmas tree of every family in Canada this year; however, the main beneficiaries would be young recent graduates contemplating a first entry into the workplace. It should also be read by immigrants, especially professionals trying to get their credentials validated in Canada - the workplace is all about bullshitting and sycophanting a.h.! Sadly this author knows of no college or university that provides a course on the academics of bullshit and sycophanting.
When University of Manitoba Professor John S. McCullum reviewed Harry G. Frankfurt’s book ‘On Bullshit’ he proclaimed that ‘On Bullshit’ is not bullshit. After reading Chopra’s newly released ‘Corrupt to the Core - Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower’ this author wants to proclaim to the world: "This is a book about bullshit" or your taxes at work for you in Ottawa. In slow motion, yet fascinating so that the reader can not put down the book once started, Chopra allows Canadians to enter the usually secretive world of management in the bureaucracy; the abuse of Canadians by Canadians while almost nothing gets accomplished at great cost. Email by email, memo by memo, meeting after meeting managers fail to resolve issues as problems fester.
Dr. Chopra’s book deserves to become a Canadian best seller and belongs on the shelf of every public and private library. This book should be under the Christmas tree of every family in Canada this year; however, the main beneficiaries would be young recent graduates contemplating a first entry into the workplace. It should also be read by immigrants, especially professionals trying to get their credentials validated in Canada - the workplace is all about bullshitting and sycophanting a.h.! Sadly this author knows of no college or university that provides a course on the academics of bullshit and sycophanting.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
HAPINESS IS GETTING BEYOND BULLSHIT!
Food Safety: Getting Beyond Bullshit und Überbullshit!
THE CONSUMER "R" US!
As a consumer, former meat research microbiologist (Canada Packers) and former regulatory microbiologist and program planner/evaluator (Health Canada), I would like suggest that it is time to stop bullshitting ( see Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005 - On Bullshit, Princeton U. Press or http://bullshitcitynorth.blogspot.com ) about food safety. On the one hand the official body counters inform us that there are up to 13 million cases of microbial foodborne disease and up to 500 deaths in Canada each year. On the other hand every time there is an outbreak we pretend that we never heard of foodborne disease before! Perhaps the most sickening part during the current listeria crisis was the games that were being played by various interest groups, from political parties to unions representing inspectors. It makes very little difference how many inspectors there are - food safety will ultimately always be the responsibility of the manufacturer and that includes the whole range of quality control/assurance, process development and sanitation etc. The role of the regulator will always be to create an environment where manufacturers produce foods that are compliant and represent minimal risk to all consumers - and the consumers 'R' us! Finally, past experience has shown that it does not matter whether the liberals or the conservatives are in power - bullshit appears to be the first response. In 2000 our food regulatory system send out 12 million copies of a brochure entitled "Food Safety and You" which starts as follows: "There's a good reason why the foods we eat in Canada are safe." Knowing that that is simply not true I filed an ATIP request to see why this publication was sent out to Canadians. Here is what I found out: "public opinion research done in September 1999 indicated that 'confidence in the food safety system may be eroding slightly'." Therefore $2,600,000 was spent to distribute 12 million copies of this bullshit statement. As a consumer and food microbiologist I see two major problems associated with this careless use of the term "safe." First, it shows callous disrespect for those individuals who died from these risks and essentially denies their life, and it appears unkind to their surviving relatives. Second, it is clearly credibility-destroying behaviour by the regulatory and scientific community. Is it any surprise that our credibility as scientists is being eroded? While we like to blame the media I believe that we members of the regulatory/scientific community are entirely to blame!
Presented at the:
OCTG - Ottawa Creative Thinking Group Meeting, October 15, 2008, Ottawa, Ontario
by G.W. (Bill) Riedel, PhD
HAPPINESS IS GETTING BEYOND BULLSHIT!
THAT THAT IS IS. THAT THAT IS NOT IS NOT.
BUT WE KNOW NOT WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT
SO WE BULLSHIT A LOT!
Selected references:
1. Lecours, Pierre; Gilles Paquet - Communication and ethics, how to scheme virtuously, Optimum online, vol. 36(2), June 2006 - note Lecours is Project Manager at the Center for Workplace Ethics at Health Canada.
2. Neil Postman - "Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection", paper delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English on November 28, 1969 in Washington,
D.C.
3. Wildeman, Alan - Mad Cow Disease in Canada: Where do we go from here, Optimum online, vol. 36(2), June 2006 - note list of participants and para. 5, page 5.
4. Berkun, Scott - #53 - How to detect bullshit - http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/53-how-to-detect-bullshit/ (accessed Nov. 18, 2008) August 9, 2008.
5. McGinn, Colin, 2008, Mindfucking - A Critique of Mental Manipulation, Acumen
6. Maki, Dennis, G. 2009 - Coming to Grips with Foodborne Infection -- Peanut Butter, Peppers,
and Nationwide Salmonella Outbreaks, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 360 No. 10:949-953 (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/10/949 accessed March 6, 2009)
Other presentations:
Superbugs, Phage Therapy: Getting Beyond Bullshit und Ueberbullshit!
The following headlines might have appeared in Canada:
1917: Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle, discovers natural nanotechnology, bacteriophage therapy, that can cure and prevent superbug infections and foodborne bacterial disease.
2008: Canadians continue to suffer and die unnecssarily from superbug infections and foodborne disease because Canada is too venal to approve and use natural nanotchnology, bacteriophage therapy, discovered by Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle in 1917.
While 8000 to 12000 Canadians are dying from antibiotic-resistant superbug infections annually the joke is on us, as some countries still practice technology discovered by the Canadian, Felix d'Herelle in 1917. Phage therapy uses highly specific viruses, bacteriophages, which are harmless for humans, to treat bacterial infections. Phage therapy is not currently approved or practised in Canada. According to a letter signed by a former federal health minister it can be made available legally to Canadians under the Special Access Program of our Food & Drugs Act! A discussion of phage therapy is currently very timely because of the release of the Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a solution to the antibiotics crisis? ( see http://www.bacteriophagetherapy.info ). Both references are available at Ottawa libraries.
This file has dramatically changed because the US Food and Drug Administration has amended the US food additive regulations to provide for the safe use of a bacteriophages on ready-to-eat meat against Listeria monocytogenes (see http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/02f-0316-nfr0001.pdf ). Also http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opabacqa.html . The idea that ready-to-eat meat can be treated if contaminated with Listeria bacteria while a doctor could not get a pharmaceutical grade phage therapy product when faced with a patient suffering listeriosis strikes this author as absurd especially considering the recent massive recall of ready-to-eat meat in Canada due to contamination with listeria. Information is available on phage therapy treatment in Georgia , Europe ( http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ), or Poland - ( http://www.aite.wroclaw.pl/phages/phages.html ) or more recently at the Wound Care Center, Lubbock, Texas ( http://www.woundcarecenter.net/ ) .
Canada should establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics.
The Illusion of Change: Getting Beyond Bullshit.
The Academics of Bullshit 101
THE CONSUMER "R" US!
As a consumer, former meat research microbiologist (Canada Packers) and former regulatory microbiologist and program planner/evaluator (Health Canada), I would like suggest that it is time to stop bullshitting ( see Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005 - On Bullshit, Princeton U. Press or http://bullshitcitynorth.blogspot.com ) about food safety. On the one hand the official body counters inform us that there are up to 13 million cases of microbial foodborne disease and up to 500 deaths in Canada each year. On the other hand every time there is an outbreak we pretend that we never heard of foodborne disease before! Perhaps the most sickening part during the current listeria crisis was the games that were being played by various interest groups, from political parties to unions representing inspectors. It makes very little difference how many inspectors there are - food safety will ultimately always be the responsibility of the manufacturer and that includes the whole range of quality control/assurance, process development and sanitation etc. The role of the regulator will always be to create an environment where manufacturers produce foods that are compliant and represent minimal risk to all consumers - and the consumers 'R' us! Finally, past experience has shown that it does not matter whether the liberals or the conservatives are in power - bullshit appears to be the first response. In 2000 our food regulatory system send out 12 million copies of a brochure entitled "Food Safety and You" which starts as follows: "There's a good reason why the foods we eat in Canada are safe." Knowing that that is simply not true I filed an ATIP request to see why this publication was sent out to Canadians. Here is what I found out: "public opinion research done in September 1999 indicated that 'confidence in the food safety system may be eroding slightly'." Therefore $2,600,000 was spent to distribute 12 million copies of this bullshit statement. As a consumer and food microbiologist I see two major problems associated with this careless use of the term "safe." First, it shows callous disrespect for those individuals who died from these risks and essentially denies their life, and it appears unkind to their surviving relatives. Second, it is clearly credibility-destroying behaviour by the regulatory and scientific community. Is it any surprise that our credibility as scientists is being eroded? While we like to blame the media I believe that we members of the regulatory/scientific community are entirely to blame!
Presented at the:
OCTG - Ottawa Creative Thinking Group Meeting, October 15, 2008, Ottawa, Ontario
by G.W. (Bill) Riedel, PhD
HAPPINESS IS GETTING BEYOND BULLSHIT!
THAT THAT IS IS. THAT THAT IS NOT IS NOT.
BUT WE KNOW NOT WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT
SO WE BULLSHIT A LOT!
Selected references:
1. Lecours, Pierre; Gilles Paquet - Communication and ethics, how to scheme virtuously, Optimum online, vol. 36(2), June 2006 - note Lecours is Project Manager at the Center for Workplace Ethics at Health Canada.
2. Neil Postman - "Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection", paper delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English on November 28, 1969 in Washington,
D.C.
3. Wildeman, Alan - Mad Cow Disease in Canada: Where do we go from here, Optimum online, vol. 36(2), June 2006 - note list of participants and para. 5, page 5.
4. Berkun, Scott - #53 - How to detect bullshit - http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/53-how-to-detect-bullshit/ (accessed Nov. 18, 2008) August 9, 2008.
5. McGinn, Colin, 2008, Mindfucking - A Critique of Mental Manipulation, Acumen
6. Maki, Dennis, G. 2009 - Coming to Grips with Foodborne Infection -- Peanut Butter, Peppers,
and Nationwide Salmonella Outbreaks, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 360 No. 10:949-953 (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/10/949 accessed March 6, 2009)
Other presentations:
Superbugs, Phage Therapy: Getting Beyond Bullshit und Ueberbullshit!
The following headlines might have appeared in Canada:
1917: Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle, discovers natural nanotechnology, bacteriophage therapy, that can cure and prevent superbug infections and foodborne bacterial disease.
2008: Canadians continue to suffer and die unnecssarily from superbug infections and foodborne disease because Canada is too venal to approve and use natural nanotchnology, bacteriophage therapy, discovered by Canadian microbiologist, Felix d'Herelle in 1917.
While 8000 to 12000 Canadians are dying from antibiotic-resistant superbug infections annually the joke is on us, as some countries still practice technology discovered by the Canadian, Felix d'Herelle in 1917. Phage therapy uses highly specific viruses, bacteriophages, which are harmless for humans, to treat bacterial infections. Phage therapy is not currently approved or practised in Canada. According to a letter signed by a former federal health minister it can be made available legally to Canadians under the Special Access Program of our Food & Drugs Act! A discussion of phage therapy is currently very timely because of the release of the Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a solution to the antibiotics crisis? ( see http://www.bacteriophagetherapy.info ). Both references are available at Ottawa libraries.
This file has dramatically changed because the US Food and Drug Administration has amended the US food additive regulations to provide for the safe use of a bacteriophages on ready-to-eat meat against Listeria monocytogenes (see http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/02f-0316-nfr0001.pdf ). Also http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opabacqa.html . The idea that ready-to-eat meat can be treated if contaminated with Listeria bacteria while a doctor could not get a pharmaceutical grade phage therapy product when faced with a patient suffering listeriosis strikes this author as absurd especially considering the recent massive recall of ready-to-eat meat in Canada due to contamination with listeria. Information is available on phage therapy treatment in Georgia , Europe ( http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ), or Poland - ( http://www.aite.wroclaw.pl/phages/phages.html ) or more recently at the Wound Care Center, Lubbock, Texas ( http://www.woundcarecenter.net/ ) .
Canada should establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics.
The Illusion of Change: Getting Beyond Bullshit.
The Academics of Bullshit 101
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Bullshit und Überbullshit über alles!
Some people would like to compare the Walkerton E. coli-in-water crisis to the current Listeria in ready-to-eat-meats. That is not right because:
Walkerton was a crisis due to incompetence and bullshit/bovine faeces;
the Listeria in ready-to-eat-meat is a crisis due to competence and bullshit und Überbullshit.
The outcome in both cases is the same - deaths and more bullshit und Überbullshit!
"Consumer product safety is not about leadership. It is about doing the right thing!"
Walkerton was a crisis due to incompetence and bullshit/bovine faeces;
the Listeria in ready-to-eat-meat is a crisis due to competence and bullshit und Überbullshit.
The outcome in both cases is the same - deaths and more bullshit und Überbullshit!
"Consumer product safety is not about leadership. It is about doing the right thing!"
Saturday, March 29, 2008
BOILERPLATE FOR WRITING TO CLIENTS
Dear Stakeholder:
This routine, bureaucratic-say-nothing-bullshit acknowledgement is in response
to your letter dated XXXXXX. I am a corporate sycophant and am not authorized
to engage in intelligent information exchange with our customers who buy our products
and services so corporate staff can enjoy gainful employment and good wages - making
possible the good life! Frankly, we do not really have time to deal with letters from
our customers because we think:
* those customers who write are cranks who can never be satisfied;
* those customers who write are just out to get something for free;
* we think we know what our customers need and deserve and that is what we supply;
* frankly, we are too busy taking "Total Quality Service" courses to waste time implementing what we learn;
* we are not interested in consumer complaints as it makes our management unhappy;
* we think that you do not have enough intelligence to fully understand our services and products and that you do not appreciate the superior minds that have created them for you;
* if you really knew what goes on around here you would not waste your time writing to us; you would see your lawyer or certainly not be a repeat customer.
You can be assured that your letter has been:
* filed in file 13 (the waste basket);
* has been placed in the corporate mail system for transfer to our office closest to you for follow-up action - this usually ensures that it goes lost.
We hope this reply closes this matter to your satisfaction. Enclosed is one of our computer-readable client satisfaction survey forms. Please ensure that all ratings are indicated by using a BLACK, SOFT pencil and that the entire block is darkened.
Our corporation is dedicated to continuous improvement through the application of technology and total quality management principles. If the computer detects any written comments on the survey form, it will send it to this division, authorizing a corporate sycophant to do a follow-up by issuing another copy of this moronic, bureaucratic-say-nothing-bullshit acknowledgement!
We want to hear what you have to say, as long as you say what we want to hear!
We are not in the business of providing anything to anybody;
we are strictly in the business of making a living.
This routine, bureaucratic-say-nothing-bullshit acknowledgement is in response
to your letter dated XXXXXX. I am a corporate sycophant and am not authorized
to engage in intelligent information exchange with our customers who buy our products
and services so corporate staff can enjoy gainful employment and good wages - making
possible the good life! Frankly, we do not really have time to deal with letters from
our customers because we think:
* those customers who write are cranks who can never be satisfied;
* those customers who write are just out to get something for free;
* we think we know what our customers need and deserve and that is what we supply;
* frankly, we are too busy taking "Total Quality Service" courses to waste time implementing what we learn;
* we are not interested in consumer complaints as it makes our management unhappy;
* we think that you do not have enough intelligence to fully understand our services and products and that you do not appreciate the superior minds that have created them for you;
* if you really knew what goes on around here you would not waste your time writing to us; you would see your lawyer or certainly not be a repeat customer.
You can be assured that your letter has been:
* filed in file 13 (the waste basket);
* has been placed in the corporate mail system for transfer to our office closest to you for follow-up action - this usually ensures that it goes lost.
We hope this reply closes this matter to your satisfaction. Enclosed is one of our computer-readable client satisfaction survey forms. Please ensure that all ratings are indicated by using a BLACK, SOFT pencil and that the entire block is darkened.
Our corporation is dedicated to continuous improvement through the application of technology and total quality management principles. If the computer detects any written comments on the survey form, it will send it to this division, authorizing a corporate sycophant to do a follow-up by issuing another copy of this moronic, bureaucratic-say-nothing-bullshit acknowledgement!
We want to hear what you have to say, as long as you say what we want to hear!
We are not in the business of providing anything to anybody;
we are strictly in the business of making a living.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
LIFE IS A TERMINAL DISEASE!
Life is a Terminal Disease!
To live today is a risky deal.
If a superbug won't get you,
the bird flu will!
You eat some food and before you know it
foodborne illness makes you throw up!
You go to hospital and soon you reel
in a bed full of Clostridium difficile!
And if you go out of doors a mosquito will
give you the virus from West Nile!
You leave the hospital and you think you are O.K.
only to find that you acquired MRSA!
For some companionship you make a spiel
only to find that now you got HIV
and now if the TB won't get you
the terrorists will!
No matter how clever your bullshit is,
only one thing is certain,
life is a sexually transmitted, always terminal disease! (bsguyx@gmail.com)
To live today is a risky deal.
If a superbug won't get you,
the bird flu will!
You eat some food and before you know it
foodborne illness makes you throw up!
You go to hospital and soon you reel
in a bed full of Clostridium difficile!
And if you go out of doors a mosquito will
give you the virus from West Nile!
You leave the hospital and you think you are O.K.
only to find that you acquired MRSA!
For some companionship you make a spiel
only to find that now you got HIV
and now if the TB won't get you
the terrorists will!
No matter how clever your bullshit is,
only one thing is certain,
life is a sexually transmitted, always terminal disease! (bsguyx@gmail.com)
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