Salmonella outbreak proof that monitoring system works: Buckerfield’s CEO
KELOWNA – The recent spike of salmonella cases connected to live poultry sales is a good news story, proof the system works rather than an indictment of its failings, according to a local business.
“Fourteen cases is a very small number and it was detected and caught and the public was actually protected from what could have been a much more widespread occurrence,” Kelvin McCulloch says.
Public health officials in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan disclosed last week they were investigating 37 cases of salmonellosis, (including nine within Interior Health.) Wednesday morning, June 3, the Public Health Agency of Canada added seven new cases to the list, totalling 14 in B.C., 22 in Alberta, four in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba.
McCulloch is CEO of Buckerfield's, a small agricultural supply store with eight locations in B.C., that distributes live poultry amongst many other things.
He’s careful not to dismiss the seriousness of salmonella for the individuals that picked up the virus but says this pales in significance when compared to something like mad cow disease or sudden acquired respiratory syndrome.
“This is a serious public health issue and for those unfortunate people who came down with this, I’m very sorry,” he says. “But the vast majority of people will recover within four to seven days without any antibiotics."
If he’s critical of anything, it’s the lack of clarity and context in the response by public health authorities that has left some backyard birders scratching their heads.
“People are confused by the information put out by the Alberta Ministry of Agriculture. They do not say go out and destroy your flock and they haven't said clearly in their circular that this is not a widespread epidemic,” he adds.
McCulloch points out that Rochester Hatchery, one of the sources of the outbreak in Alberta, detected and reported the outbreak themselves during routine testing, before public health in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. got involved.
“Rochester destroyed the entire flock on the spot, 89,000 eggs, even thought that’s far more than the number of infected eggs,” he says. “So this thing is stopped right there.”
McCulloch says the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and the Interior Health Authority need to follow up the initial reports about the outbreak with contextual information.
“It’s rather vague. They need to inform people they are not going to get salmonella by handling chicks, if done right. Nobody knows that the few cases that have occured are part of 800 cases they see every year,” he says. “Salmonella is everywhere. It’s part of animal living. It’s not an unnatural part of the environment. Marginal leakage will always occur from time to time in our food chain. Everyone whould be aware of that. With proper handling precautions, salmonella is not a factor."
To contact the reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
Corrected – 11:02 a.m. Monday, June 8, 2004. Part of a quote inadvertently deleted was added back in.
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2 responses
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Hi Bill.. you made some great points here. I live in Canada BC and got chicks from Miller hatcheries, 30 of them last year.. and all but one died.. then we ordered them again this year from the same local feed supply store and we have 4 out of 30 left.. we got them in mid may.. so they are not that old.. I have been handling them and fortunate not to have gotten sick for I did not know what was the cause.. I am confused by the reports in the news articles and no one in claiming responsibility.. it is sad for me to loose these babies this way.. they end up just sleepy looking, not eating or drinking.. then their breathing becomes shallow, and they end up flapping their wings for a second and then they are dead.. Even though we want to raise them for meat, we believe in giving all life here a good life, until their time is done.. so much to read and gets to be that I don’t know what is what and I find a real lack of finding out what is being done.. I have heard that the disease comes from the hens and is passed on through the eggs.. now if this is true I wonder how the problem at this hatchery mentioned here, is at hand when they only destroyed the eggs.. hmmm.. I am confused.. I enjoyed reading your words Bill.. thanks so much…~ Melanie~
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Recalls and outbreaks, no matter how small, are not proof that the system is working as it should as they simply prove that the system is working in failure mode on a continuous basis. What is a problem is the rhetoric provided by the public health system: On the one hand consumers are told that our food supply is safe. On the other hand they are advised that foodborne is very common – sometimes in the same communication. Example: “Estimates of Food-borne Illness in Canada. The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that each year roughly one in eight Canadians (or four million people) get sick due to domestically acquired food-borne diseases. This estimate provides the most accurate picture yet of which food-borne bacteria, viruses, and parasites (“pathogens”) are causing the most illnesses in Canada, as well as estimating the number of food-borne illnesses without a known cause.In general, Canada has a very safe food supply;” http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/efwd-emoha/efbi-emoa-eng.php.I believe Canadians should be given the risk involved with every type of food (consumer product) in an easily accessible dictionary or data base. After all, the British Medical Association put it plainly years ago by stating: “Nothing in Life is Safe” – to which I add ‘not even a condom!’ I always wonder why communicators feel entitled to try and spin such information. As a collector and speaker on the academic literature On Bullshit (by Harry Frankfurt) I believe one of the recent books by Joe Bennett (2012) Double Happiness – How Bullshit Works should be on the reading list of Canadians.
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