Month: October 2009

The BBC reported a very interesting case involving a dead camel. The camel fell into a hole that was dug by an oil company to store crude. The owner claims the camel was entered in a beauty contest. The damages, are based on the value that experts have placed on the camel.

By Canadian standards the owner would have had to prove that the camel would have had a good chance of winning the pageant. Not entirely sure how this case will play out in Saudi Arabia especially since oil corporations are the countries largest financial contributors.

The Dallas Morning News recently reported:

Thousands of people in the heart of Frisco are exposed to toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant that wants to expand production.

Concern was raised due to increased lead emissions noticed in the air quality.

The article states:

that even low levels of lead can pose serious health risks especially in children. Frisco has a lead smelter right in the middle of town. The plant was originally built in 1964 and acquired by Exide Technologies in 2000.

The article states:

The Frisco plant crushes used automotive and industrial batteries, uses heat to extract the lead and converts it into lead oxide to make recycled batteries. The process releases some of the lead into the environment.

It seems that in the past Frisco has had to deal with other lead issues because of the smelter. In 1992:

it was found that battery pieces had been used as fill decades earlier in building a parking lot, company officials worked with the city to clean up the contaminated material. And later, when contaminated water from the plant's operations made its way to the city's Stewart Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the company took responsibility for containment and cleanup.

Lead is bad. While in Canada our government continues to supervise the issue we still don’t know what happens in other countries. In fact, a recent article in the Food Safety Magazine states:

In this new era of global food trade, FDA will have to acquire a better understanding of food ingredients and food production practices in other countries. Some countries have not imposed controls on uses of lead within their own borders. Given the potential for lead to be used in a wide variety of agricultural and industrial applications abroad, increased food imports from countries that have yet to put lead exposure controls in place for their own populations could potentially raise U.S. consumers’ exposure to lead once again.

Mexican candies containing lead based wrappers were discovered in 1994 and is cited in the article as an example of what we should watch out for when importing products.

It would be hard to imagine that third world countries would have the same standards for lead screening in food products.

The Government of Canada reminds Canadians of the dangers of unpasteurized fruit juice and cider. Click here for the complete story.

Health Canada warns that unpasterurized juice and milk can contain harmful harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli.

What’s used in both the storage of nuclear waste and baby nipples? Lead.

According to Health Canada, studies have suggested that even low levels of lead in the blood “may have harmful health effects on the intellectual and behavioural development of infants and young children.

According to a study reported by the L.A. Times children exposed to low levels of lead from before birth into adulthood were linked to violent crimes.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention:

Approximately 250,000 U.S. children aged 1-5 years have blood lead levels greater than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, the level at which CDC recommends public health actions be initiated. Lead poisoning can affect nearly every system in the body.

Pursuant to Canada’s Hazardous Products Act, lead-based paint is not legal for use on toys sold in Canada.

A workers compensation dispute between the airliner (employer) verses the flight attendant (employee) resulted in the airliner seeking a subpoena seeking:

....all documents, electronic or otherwise, related directly or indirectly, to all activities, writings, photos, comments, e-mails, and/or postings" on Hensley's Facebook account.

However, Facebook resisted the subpoena on the grounds of privacy rights and was eventually cited in contempt of court.

The article states:

Facebook's response to Tabb sent last week says that "users such as Ms. Hensley rely on Facebook to protect their data and vigorously enforce the privacy decisions they make on Facebook." It adds: "Courts have interpreted the ECPA to prohibit services such as Facebook from producing a non-consenting subscriber's communications even when those communications are sought pursuant to a court order or subpoena."

The party seeking the documents backed down.

Recently it was reported that the subpoena would not be necessary after all as the Plaintiff lawyer agreed to a release executed by the Plaintiff authorizing Facebook to disclose.

This case is different from other cases involving Facebook in the context of litigation in that the service provider itself was being asked to disclose and preserve material on an individual.  As opposed to a party going before a court and seeking production from the Plaintiff.

Of course, requesting a Plaintiff to either preserve and or produce a Facebook profile could prove to be useless. It’s easy for someone to pull down their page or delete incriminating photos and only produce harmless evidence.

A simple hamburger caused a young children’s dance instructor to become violently ill, in a coma for 9 days and ultimately left paralyzed. Later it was revealed that e-coli was the culprit.

The New York Times Sunday edition paper published an in-depth investigation about the outbreak. The investigation is probably the best researched article ever and will surely do more for the American beef industry than any lawyer, legislator, or lobbyist ever will.

The Times traced the story of the burger that Smith (the dance instructor) consumed. Ground beef is usually produced by companies referred to as grinders or processing plants. In this case it was Cargill.

The meat is typically purchased from slaughterhouses, “a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses.”

In this case, confidential Cargill records indicated that the hamburger was made from, “a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.”

Note, there are no Federal requirement for the grinder to test the meat purchased from the slaughterhouses. In fact, the article states that slaughterhouses might refuse to sell the meat if they know that the grinder is testing the meat.

Furthermore:

the largest ingredient was beef trimmings known as “50/50” — half fat, half meat — that cost about 60 cents a pound, making them the cheapest component.

Cargill bought these trimmings — fatty edges sliced from better cuts of meat — from Greater Omaha Packing, where some 2,600 cattle are slaughtered daily and processed in a plant the size of four football fields.

It was reported that:

Cattle often arrive with smears of feedlot feces that harbour the E.coli pathogen, and the hide must be removed carefully.

This is a lengthy article that is difficult to summarize. Click here for NY Times anatomy of a burger.

Trade secret, confidential logs redacted, federal inspectors noting citations and lack of adequate industry standards seems to have contributed to this outbreak.

A new national standard has been launched by Canada’s Food Inspection Agency announced October 6, 2009 regarding the poultry industry for the safety of animals and Canada’s food supply.

The press release states:

The National Avian On-Farm Biosecurity Standard focuses on disease prevention and protection measures, collectively known as biosecurity which play an important role in keeping diseases off the farm and out of the Canadian food chain.

"Biosecurity is the best investment producers can make to safeguard the health of their animals on the farm and make the most of their business," said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. "This national standard will guide producers on good biosecurity practices so that together we can protect Canada’s poultry industry against disease."

A few examples of on-farm biosecurity practices include:

• Washing your hands and changing into clean clothes and footwear before and after coming into contact with your animals.
• Routinely cleaning barns, pens, feeders and watering equipment and disinfecting them when necessary.
• Controlling visitor access to your animals.

Ruby Chinese Restaurant at 1571 Sandhurst Circle. Exterior and partial interior of restaurant.. recent salmonella poisoning incidents. Couple leaving the restaurant covering their faces ..note there is a photo of the woman inside as well.

Toronto Star/Michael Stuparyk

The Toronto Star has reported that Ruby Chinese Restaurant located at 1571 Sandhurst Circle in Scarborough, Ontario was closed due to a salmonella outbreak that has left 36 ill and one individual dead.

The Star reported that Howard Shapiro, Toronto's associate medical officer of health stated:

....health officials found several infractions in Wednesday's inspection that forced the restaurant to close. "Certain foods were not being protected from contamination," Shapiro said.

Inspectors also noticed raw meat wasn't kept at the correct temperature, and utensils and cooking surfaces were inadequately cleaned. There was also a cockroach infestation and the floor was "dirtier than we would find acceptable."

The restaurant was closed with a sign stating it was due to renovations. One individual who identified himself as a waiter stated that he has worked at the establishment for 15 years and has never had a problem like this.

City of Toronto's DineSafe website indicates that the restaurant passed every inspection from 2007 to 2009.