The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is condemning the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency for its role in a recall of 31,000 pounds
of ground beef Cargill Meat
Solutions of Calgary supplied to Wal-Mart stores across Western Canada.
FoodNet Canada idenfied E. coli 0157:H7 in a sample of the
meat it picked up from a Wal-Mart store in British Columbia and alerted the
CFIA on Nov. 28 about its test results.
The public notice of a recall didn’t go out from the CFIA
until Dec. 3, past the “best before” dating on the packaged meat that was
shipped from Calgary Nov. 19 and 20.
“The timelines suggest the entire food safety system managed
by Canadian Food Inspection Agency failed to either detect . . . or recall the
problem batch . . .” says the CBC.
The CBC further reports that the “CFIA says
it began an investigation immediately. But, the meat was not ordered recalled
until after confirmatory test results were known on Dec. 1.
“Then the agency asked
for a risk assessment to be performed. The results of that analysis came
back late on Dec. 1.
“The news
release announcing the recall to consumers was dated that same day, but was not
sent out by distribution services until the next morning -- three full
days after the first packages of meat would have begun to pass their best
before dates.”
I think the CBC is unduly harsh on the CFIA. First, there have been no reports of anybody getting sick, so maybe the populations of E. Coli 0157:H7 in the ground beef were quite low.
Second, it's not the CFIA that is mainly responsible for sampling and testing meat at the packing plant. That's the responsibility of Cargill Meat Solutions. The CFIA's role has been to check that the company's random sampling and testing protocols and performance meet standards.
Third, a great deal of reputation, plus significant costs, are involved in a public recall. Given that Wal-Mart was involved across the Western provinces, it's understandable that the CFIA wanted to be sure that the FoodNet Canada results were accurate, and not a false positive or a flawed sample collection.
