Pat's Note: A piece of top class reporting from the Hamilton
Spectator.

Were we as lucky in Britain!

These guys don't rely on their Ministry releases.

The point about tracing should not be missed in Britain

DNA does not just catch criminals years after the event, it also
traces anyone that lies about the source of disease epidemics.

Dangerous science is DNA.

Anyway, Maple Leaf did handle this well.


http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/427294

From food recall to deadly outbreak


STEVE BUIST
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 30, 2008) 
The trouble started innocuously enough for Maple Leaf Foods.

On Sunday, Aug. 17, Canada's largest food processing company announced
it was recalling two types of packaged roast beef products because of
concerns they may have been contaminated with bacteria known as
Listeria monocytogenes.

A food recall. Never a welcome event for a company that processes
food, but then again, not completely uncommon either. The Canadian
Food Inspection Agency website has listed dozens of recalls and alerts
already for 2008.

The next morning's Hamilton Spectator carried a tiny 81-word item
about the recall at the bottom of a column of news briefs on 

page A7. The Toronto Star didn't even run its first story about the
Listeria outbreak until four days after the announcement -- when the
first death with a suspected link to the tainted meat was identified.

And then the roller-coaster reached the top of that first hill and
started hurtling down at breakneck speed.

Each day since has brought news of additional illnesses and deaths, as
well as a growing list of affected products.

As of yesterday, there were 29 confirmed and 35 suspected cases of
listeriosis, nine confirmed deaths, another six deaths under
investigation and more than 200 different products pulled from store
shelves across the country.

The past week has left Maple Leaf reeling.

At its worst point, the economic reverberations from the outbreak
stripped more than $300 million in paper value from the company's
stockholders.

Twice within the past seven days, Maple Leaf president Michael McCain
has stood grim-faced before the press, accepted responsibility for the
"tragedy," as he described it, offered his apologies to those affected
and promised the company would rebuild the public's shattered trust in
Maple Leaf products.

"Knowing that there is a desire to assign blame, I want to reiterate
that the buck stops right here," McCain candidly told a news
conference Wednesday.

"We have excellent systems and processes in place, but this week, it's
our best efforts that failed, not the regulators or the Canadian food
safety system.

"This is our accountability," he added, "and it is ours to fix."

McCain's candour and quick action may have saved his company from
ruin.

* * *

Tracking an outbreak of Listeria contamination these days is part
high-tech science, part old-fashioned police detective work.

Listeria monocytogenes -- named, ironically, after Joseph Lister, the
grandfather of antiseptic methods and sterile surgery -- is a
particularly virulent pathogen that can be fatal in as many as one in
three cases.

Normally, there are about 60 cases of listeriosis sprinkled across
Canada in a year.

The first hint of an outbreak is when public health officials notice a
small cluster of positive Listeria results from patients, identified
from the collection of fecal samples.

In earlier times, determining the source of the contamination was
plain old sleuthing.

"A lot of it is just interviewing people, saying what's the
commonality here?" said Dr. Keith Warriner, a professor of food
microbiology at the University of Guelph. "Did they all eat tomatoes,
or did they all eat deli meats?

"It's very unusual to actually isolate the guilty strain of Listeria
pathogen from the food product because food products are normally very
perishable," he added.

In this case, officials caught a break -- testing of samples from
Maple Leaf's Toronto processing plant conducted earlier in August had
also identified positive results for the Listeria bacteria.

With positive results from both patients and food samples, scientists
were able to turn to a sophisticated genetic identification technique
called pulsed field gel electrophoresis to see if the two sides
matched.

Listeria, like people and other living organisms, has its genetic
sequence encoded into a dual strand of DNA. The genes are glued
together with intergenic sequences, and it's the variation in these
intergenic sequences that makes one strain of Listeria different from
the next.

Once the Listeria is isolated from a sample, its DNA is extracted and
then mixed with special enzymes that snip the DNA strand at specific
points to create different-sized pieces.

The pieces are then placed on the gel mix and an electrical current
causes the pieces to migrate at different speeds, based on the size of
the DNA chunks.

Each unique strain of Listeria will create its own unique migration
pattern -- "like a bar code or a fingerprint," Warriner noted.

"It's a bit like tracking criminals with fingerprints, so that one
strain can actually be linked to that plant," he said.

"When they can match that fingerprint up with an isolate, say, from
the Maple Leaf plant, then they can say 'Yes, this strain of Listeria
was connected to this meat product.'"

But it's a complicated, time-consuming process. Running the gel
electrophoresis samples alone takes several days, Warriner said, and
the testing needs to be repeated.

"I know on CSI it takes two hours, but in this case it takes up to
four or five days," Warriner said dryly.

"People say 'Well, why does it take so long to get this match?'" he
added. "They have to be very sure because as Maple Leaf is going to
find out, it's millions of dollars, even a $1-billion sort of mistake
that you could be making."

* * *

When the Toronto stock market opened for business on Aug. 18, the
morning after the recall announcement, Maple Leaf's share price stood
at $10.97.

It turned out to be a surprisingly uneventful day for Maple Leaf stock
-- just 39,000 shares changed hands, and the stock even closed up four
cents on the day at $11.01.

But by the end of the first week, Maple Leaf's shares closed at $9.80
and the trading volume had started rising ominously, to 238,500 shares
on Aug. 22.

Then came the panic.

Monday's closing price was $8.80, with 1.1 million shares traded.
Tuesday's price dipped to $7.95 on a trading volume of 2.4 million
shares.

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Maple Leaf's share fell to $7.60, a drop of more
than 30 per cent in 10 days, and a low not seen in Maple Leaf stock
since 2001. At that point, more than $330 million in stock value had
washed away since the recall was announced.

But two hours later, the price rebounded to $8.42. By Thursday, the
day after McCain's second press conference, Maple Leaf's shares traded
as high as $8.75, and yesterday, they opened at $8.80.

Stock market analysts who cover Maple Leaf have remained positive
about the company in the midst of the crisis -- one has even upgraded
his recommendation this week from "hold" to "buy."

"The history of these incidents suggests that, when handled promptly
and candidly, the resulting impact on brand equity and sales volumes
can be short-lived," according to Cherilyn Radbourne, a Scotia Capital
financial analyst who tracks Maple Leaf Foods. "In our judgment, the
company's response has been consistent with best practices."

Much of the credit for the quick stabilization has gone to McCain, who
reacted swiftly and didn't attempt to deflect responsibility or duck
tough questions.

"Michael McCain, on the weekend, said the two advisers he's not
listening to right now are lawyers and accountants," said Terry Flynn,
a McMaster University business professor who specializes in crisis
management and corporate public relations.

"Their CFO has said it's not about market share right now, it's not
about what the exact cost is, it's about doing the right thing for our
customers right now."

Flynn said that Maple Leaf is setting the new benchmark for how a
company should deal with a crisis.

"They were fast off the mark, they were very communicative, they were
honest, they were transparent, they were apologetic, they've given
people a sense of what they're going to do," said Flynn, adding that
by his estimate, the company has already spent around $5 million to
deal with the crisis, not counting the cost of recalled products.

Flynn said he has spoken with reporters who were invited into Maple
Leaf's Toronto plant to tour the facility on the day the recall was
announced.

"They said it was unexpected and kind of unnerving, because they were
being very transparent and very honest and open," Flynn noted.

"Obviously that's not normal," he added. "It's the right thing to do,
but it's not normal."

Flynn's one piece of advice for Maple Leaf would be to keep the
processing plant closed until the company is absolutely certain that
the contamination is eradicated.

"You only get one chance to create a first impression," Flynn said,
"and right now people are giving you the benefit of the doubt."

* * *

For now, the source of the outbreak remains a mystery.

Matching the Listeria strains from patients and the plant will likely
be easier than identifying the precise source of the contamination
within the Maple Leaf facility.

Unlike other types of bacteria, Listeria has adapted to survive in
colder temperatures, which makes it a particular concern in
refrigerated meat-packing plants.

"It doesn't like when there's other bacteria around because it can be
outcompeted very easily," said Warriner. "So you'll always find it in
these environments that other bacteria can't really grow in."

Human handling isn't a typical transmission route because the bug is
shed quickly from the body in feces, and any Listeria present in a
living animal would have been killed in the cooking process.

That leaves an environmental source as the likeliest method of
contamination -- drains, condensing coils, floors, walls, conveyors or
cutting equipment.

"If it was a case the cooking process wasn't adequate, the Listeria
would survive, but so would the spoilage bacteria normally found in
meat, so your meat would be rotting on the shelf," said Warriner.
"It's obvious that this meat looked fine."

McCain said Wednesday that the Toronto facility will be fully
sanitized and outside experts have been hired to examine all aspects
of the processing system.

"We will not restart the plant until this investigation is complete
and I've signed off on it personally," said McCain.

Improvements in the ability to track products through a meat-packing
plant have helped make recalls more effective.

"It doesn't really guarantee safety, but it limits the impact of an
outbreak," said Warriner. "Traceability is fairly easy in the meat
industry because you can give a bar code to each individual cut and
trace it right back to the animal, which can be traced right back to
the farm."

But as processing plants consolidate and get larger, the impact of a
bacterial outbreak also grows.

"There is a balancing act," Warriner concluded. "When it does break
down, it's going to break down big time."

-- 
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com  and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/

On Aug 30, 9:35 am, Pat Gardiner 
wrote:
> Pat's Note: A piece of top class reporting from the Hamilton
> Spectator.
>
> Were we as lucky in Britain!
>
> These guys don't rely on their Ministry releases.
>
> The point about tracing should not be missed in Britain
>
> DNA does not just catch criminals years after the event, it also
> traces anyone that lies about the source of disease epidemics.
>
> Dangerous science is DNA.
>
> Anyway, Maple Leaf did handle this well.
>
> http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/427294
>
> From food recall to deadly outbreak
>
> STEVE BUIST
> The Hamilton Spectator
> (Aug 30, 2008)
> The trouble started innocuously enough for Maple Leaf Foods.
>
> On Sunday, Aug. 17, Canada's largest food processing company announced
> it was recalling two types of packaged roast beef products because of
> concerns they may have been contaminated with bacteria known as
> Listeria monocytogenes.
>
> A food recall. Never a welcome event for a company that processes
> food, but then again, not completely uncommon either. The Canadian
> Food Inspection Agency website has listed dozens of recalls and alerts
> already for 2008.
>
> The next morning's Hamilton Spectator carried a tiny 81-word item
> about the recall at the bottom of a column of news briefs on
>
> page A7. The Toronto Star didn't even run its first story about the
> Listeria outbreak until four days after the announcement -- when the
> first death with a suspected link to the tainted meat was identified.
>
> And then the roller-coaster reached the top of that first hill and
> started hurtling down at breakneck speed.
>
> Each day since has brought news of additional illnesses and deaths, as
> well as a growing list of affected products.
>
> As of yesterday, there were 29 confirmed and 35 suspected cases of
> listeriosis, nine confirmed deaths, another six deaths under
> investigation and more than 200 different products pulled from store
> shelves across the country.
>
> The past week has left Maple Leaf reeling.
>
> At its worst point, the economic reverberations from the outbreak
> stripped more than $300 million in paper value from the company's
> stockholders.
>
> Twice within the past seven days, Maple Leaf president Michael McCain
> has stood grim-faced before the press, accepted responsibility for the
> "tragedy," as he described it, offered his apologies to those affected
> and promised the company would rebuild the public's shattered trust in
> Maple Leaf products.
>
> "Knowing that there is a desire to assign blame, I want to reiterate
> that the buck stops right here," McCain candidly told a news
> conference Wednesday.
>
> "We have excellent systems and processes in place, but this week, it's
> our best efforts that failed, not the regulators or the Canadian food
> safety system.
>
> "This is our accountability," he added, "and it is ours to fix."
>
> McCain's candour and quick action may have saved his company from
> ruin.
>
> * * *
>
> Tracking an outbreak of Listeria contamination these days is part
> high-tech science, part old-fashioned police detective work.
>
> Listeria monocytogenes -- named, ironically, after Joseph Lister, the
> grandfather of antiseptic methods and sterile surgery -- is a
> particularly virulent pathogen that can be fatal in as many as one in
> three cases.
>
> Normally, there are about 60 cases of listeriosis sprinkled across
> Canada in a year.
>
> The first hint of an outbreak is when public health officials notice a
> small cluster of positive Listeria results from patients, identified
> from the collection of fecal samples.
>
> In earlier times, determining the source of the contamination was
> plain old sleuthing.
>
> "A lot of it is just interviewing people, saying what's the
> commonality here?" said Dr. Keith Warriner, a professor of food
> microbiology at the University of Guelph. "Did they all eat tomatoes,
> or did they all eat deli meats?
>
> "It's very unusual to actually isolate the guilty strain of Listeria
> pathogen from the food product because food products are normally very
> perishable," he added.
>
> In this case, officials caught a break -- testing of samples from
> Maple Leaf's Toronto processing plant conducted earlier in August had
> also identified positive results for the Listeria bacteria.
>
> With positive results from both patients and food samples, scientists
> were able to turn to a sophisticated genetic identification technique
> called pulsed field gel electrophoresis to see if the two sides
> matched.
>
> Listeria, like people and other living organisms, has its genetic
> sequence encoded into a dual strand of DNA. The genes are glued
> together with intergenic sequences, and it's the variation in these
> intergenic sequences that makes one strain of Listeria different from
> the next.
>
> Once the Listeria is isolated from a sample, its DNA is extracted and
> then mixed with special enzymes that snip the DNA strand at specific
> points to create different-sized pieces.
>
> The pieces are then placed on the gel mix and an electrical current
> causes the pieces to migrate at different speeds, based on the size of
> the DNA chunks.
>
> Each unique strain of Listeria will create its own unique migration
> pattern -- "like a bar code or a fingerprint," Warriner noted.
>
> "It's a bit like tracking criminals with fingerprints, so that one
> strain can actually be linked to that plant," he said.
>
> "When they can match that fingerprint up with an isolate, say, from
> the Maple Leaf plant, then they can say 'Yes, this strain of Listeria
> was connected to this meat product.'"
>
> But it's a complicated, time-consuming process. Running the gel
> electrophoresis samples alone takes several days, Warriner said, and
> the testing needs to be repeated.
>
> "I know on CSI it takes two hours, but in this case it takes up to
> four or five days," Warriner said dryly.
>
> "People say 'Well, why does it take so long to get this match?'" he
> added. "They have to be very sure because as Maple Leaf is going to
> find out, it's millions of dollars, even a $1-billion sort of mistake
> that you could be making."

> "The history of these incidents suggests that, when handled promptly
> and candidly, the resulting impact on brand equity and sales volumes
> can be short-lived," according to Cherilyn Radbourne, a Scotia Capital
> financial analyst who tracks Maple Leaf Foods. "In our judgment, the
> company's response has been consistent with best practices."
>






> "Obviously that's not normal," he added. "It's the right thing to do,
> but it's not normal."





> Unlike other types of bacteria, Listeria has adapted to survive in
> colder temperatures, which makes it a particular concern in
> refrigerated meat-packing plants.


>
> Human handling isn't a typical transmission route because the bug is
> shed quickly from the body in feces, and any Listeria present in a
> living animal would have been killed in the cooking process.
>
> That leaves an environmental source as the likeliest method of
> contamination -- drains, condensing coils, floors, walls, conveyors or
> cutting equipment.

>

>
> "It doesn't really guarantee safety, but it limits the impact of an
> outbreak," said Warriner. "Traceability is fairly easy in the meat
> industry because you can give a bar code to each individual cut and
> trace it right back to the animal, which can be traced right back to
> the farm."
>

Hi, Pat:   Two observations and comments:

1.   Scotia Bank is involved.   That's not altogether good news.
Scotia Bank also bought Creekstone Farms whose efforts to test for BSE
were officially bashed last week.   Whatever the quoted financial
analyst, in this case a woman of unknown history says, is being said
to be taken with serious consideration as to whose and what actual
ownership/equity interests are at stake.   In this case, if Maple
Leaf's stock values drop, Scotia Bank stands to lose a lot of money,
as well as cut off the money supply to Maple Leaf.....and that's bad
news for the Canadian Producers caught up in having livestock to sell
through these incidents and reports.

2.  Traceability.    Well what this all boils down to is someone took
a sit on a pot and didn't clean up after wiping their ass, before
going back to work.   Someone that was mixing and blending commingled,
processed meat.   That person went back to the job station with raw
shit on his/her hands,   batching more mixed emulsion to be pumped
through that system as the packages were being filled.   No doubt
Maple Leaf has state of the art equipment, but the open hole is when a
contaminated human comes in contact with a mixed, blended emulsion.
Brsides that, any of Maple Leaf's employees that touched the door,
opening to their restroom, could have washed before returning to work,
but re-infected themselves by pushing the door open, with their hands,
upon their return to work.

Get it????????

Burkie

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:30:27 -0700 (PDT), Burkie 
wrote:

>On Aug 30, 9:35 am, Pat Gardiner 
>wrote:
>> Pat's Note: A piece of top class reporting from the Hamilton
>> Spectator.
>>
>> Were we as lucky in Britain!
>>
>> These guys don't rely on their Ministry releases.
>>
>> The point about tracing should not be missed in Britain
>>
>> DNA does not just catch criminals years after the event, it also
>> traces anyone that lies about the source of disease epidemics.
>>
>> Dangerous science is DNA.
>>
>> Anyway, Maple Leaf did handle this well.
>>
>> http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/427294
>>
>> From food recall to deadly outbreak
>>
>> STEVE BUIST
>> The Hamilton Spectator
>> (Aug 30, 2008)
>> The trouble started innocuously enough for Maple Leaf Foods.
>>
>> On Sunday, Aug. 17, Canada's largest food processing company announced
>> it was recalling two types of packaged roast beef products because of
>> concerns they may have been contaminated with bacteria known as
>> Listeria monocytogenes.
>>
>> A food recall. Never a welcome event for a company that processes
>> food, but then again, not completely uncommon either. The Canadian
>> Food Inspection Agency website has listed dozens of recalls and alerts
>> already for 2008.
>>
>> The next morning's Hamilton Spectator carried a tiny 81-word item
>> about the recall at the bottom of a column of news briefs on
>>
>> page A7. The Toronto Star didn't even run its first story about the
>> Listeria outbreak until four days after the announcement -- when the
>> first death with a suspected link to the tainted meat was identified.
>>
>> And then the roller-coaster reached the top of that first hill and
>> started hurtling down at breakneck speed.
>>
>> Each day since has brought news of additional illnesses and deaths, as
>> well as a growing list of affected products.
>>
>> As of yesterday, there were 29 confirmed and 35 suspected cases of
>> listeriosis, nine confirmed deaths, another six deaths under
>> investigation and more than 200 different products pulled from store
>> shelves across the country.
>>
>> The past week has left Maple Leaf reeling.
>>
>> At its worst point, the economic reverberations from the outbreak
>> stripped more than $300 million in paper value from the company's
>> stockholders.
>>
>> Twice within the past seven days, Maple Leaf president Michael McCain
>> has stood grim-faced before the press, accepted responsibility for the
>> "tragedy," as he described it, offered his apologies to those affected
>> and promised the company would rebuild the public's shattered trust in
>> Maple Leaf products.
>>
>> "Knowing that there is a desire to assign blame, I want to reiterate
>> that the buck stops right here," McCain candidly told a news
>> conference Wednesday.
>>
>> "We have excellent systems and processes in place, but this week, it's
>> our best efforts that failed, not the regulators or the Canadian food
>> safety system.
>>
>> "This is our accountability," he added, "and it is ours to fix."
>>
>> McCain's candour and quick action may have saved his company from
>> ruin.
>>
>> * * *
>>
>> Tracking an outbreak of Listeria contamination these days is part
>> high-tech science, part old-fashioned police detective work.
>>
>> Listeria monocytogenes -- named, ironically, after Joseph Lister, the
>> grandfather of antiseptic methods and sterile surgery -- is a
>> particularly virulent pathogen that can be fatal in as many as one in
>> three cases.
>>
>> Normally, there are about 60 cases of listeriosis sprinkled across
>> Canada in a year.
>>
>> The first hint of an outbreak is when public health officials notice a
>> small cluster of positive Listeria results from patients, identified
>> from the collection of fecal samples.
>>
>> In earlier times, determining the source of the contamination was
>> plain old sleuthing.
>>
>> "A lot of it is just interviewing people, saying what's the
>> commonality here?" said Dr. Keith Warriner, a professor of food
>> microbiology at the University of Guelph. "Did they all eat tomatoes,
>> or did they all eat deli meats?
>>
>> "It's very unusual to actually isolate the guilty strain of Listeria
>> pathogen from the food product because food products are normally very
>> perishable," he added.
>>
>> In this case, officials caught a break -- testing of samples from
>> Maple Leaf's Toronto processing plant conducted earlier in August had
>> also identified positive results for the Listeria bacteria.
>>
>> With positive results from both patients and food samples, scientists
>> were able to turn to a sophisticated genetic identification technique
>> called pulsed field gel electrophoresis to see if the two sides
>> matched.
>>
>> Listeria, like people and other living organisms, has its genetic
>> sequence encoded into a dual strand of DNA. The genes are glued
>> together with intergenic sequences, and it's the variation in these
>> intergenic sequences that makes one strain of Listeria different from
>> the next.
>>
>> Once the Listeria is isolated from a sample, its DNA is extracted and
>> then mixed with special enzymes that snip the DNA strand at specific
>> points to create different-sized pieces.
>>
>> The pieces are then placed on the gel mix and an electrical current
>> causes the pieces to migrate at different speeds, based on the size of
>> the DNA chunks.
>>
>> Each unique strain of Listeria will create its own unique migration
>> pattern -- "like a bar code or a fingerprint," Warriner noted.
>>
>> "It's a bit like tracking criminals with fingerprints, so that one
>> strain can actually be linked to that plant," he said.
>>
>> "When they can match that fingerprint up with an isolate, say, from
>> the Maple Leaf plant, then they can say 'Yes, this strain of Listeria
>> was connected to this meat product.'"
>>
>> But it's a complicated, time-consuming process. Running the gel
>> electrophoresis samples alone takes several days, Warriner said, and
>> the testing needs to be repeated.
>>
>> "I know on CSI it takes two hours, but in this case it takes up to
>> four or five days," Warriner said dryly.
>>
>> "People say 'Well, why does it take so long to get this match?'" he
>> added. "They have to be very sure because as Maple Leaf is going to
>> find out, it's millions of dollars, even a $1-billion sort of mistake
>> that you could be making."
>
>> "The history of these incidents suggests that, when handled promptly
>> and candidly, the resulting impact on brand equity and sales volumes
>> can be short-lived," according to Cherilyn Radbourne, a Scotia Capital
>> financial analyst who tracks Maple Leaf Foods. "In our judgment, the
>> company's response has been consistent with best practices."
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> "Obviously that's not normal," he added. "It's the right thing to do,
>> but it's not normal."
>
>
>
>
>
>> Unlike other types of bacteria, Listeria has adapted to survive in
>> colder temperatures, which makes it a particular concern in
>> refrigerated meat-packing plants.
>
>
>>
>> Human handling isn't a typical transmission route because the bug is
>> shed quickly from the body in feces, and any Listeria present in a
>> living animal would have been killed in the cooking process.
>>
>> That leaves an environmental source as the likeliest method of
>> contamination -- drains, condensing coils, floors, walls, conveyors or
>> cutting equipment.
>
>>
>
>>
>> "It doesn't really guarantee safety, but it limits the impact of an
>> outbreak," said Warriner. "Traceability is fairly easy in the meat
>> industry because you can give a bar code to each individual cut and
>> trace it right back to the animal, which can be traced right back to
>> the farm."
>>
>
>Hi, Pat:   Two observations and comments:
>
>1.   Scotia Bank is involved.   That's not altogether good news.
>Scotia Bank also bought Creekstone Farms whose efforts to test for BSE
>were officially bashed last week.   Whatever the quoted financial
>analyst, in this case a woman of unknown history says, is being said
>to be taken with serious consideration as to whose and what actual
>ownership/equity interests are at stake.   In this case, if Maple
>Leaf's stock values drop, Scotia Bank stands to lose a lot of money,
>as well as cut off the money supply to Maple Leaf.....and that's bad
>news for the Canadian Producers caught up in having livestock to sell
>through these incidents and reports.

I don't know anything about this particular case, but I do know that
the secrecy sometimes in evidence in the UK gives considerable scope
for "Insider trading."

That makes it tough for small farmers. The big boys know more than
they do, and may well be tempted to exploit it for personal gain

We know for example that the during the famous "avian flu" outbreak in
Scotland, the BBC were fuming because the RSPB  were being given
information before they were.

You can do it, and you can probably get away with it for a time....
>
>2.  Traceability.    Well what this all boils down to is someone took
>a sit on a pot and didn't clean up after wiping their ass, before
>going back to work.   Someone that was mixing and blending commingled,
>processed meat.   That person went back to the job station with raw
>shit on his/her hands,   batching more mixed emulsion to be pumped
>through that system as the packages were being filled.   No doubt
>Maple Leaf has state of the art equipment, but the open hole is when a
>contaminated human comes in contact with a mixed, blended emulsion.
>Brsides that, any of Maple Leaf's employees that touched the door,
>opening to their restroom, could have washed before returning to work,
>but re-infected themselves by pushing the door open, with their hands,
>upon their return to work.
>
>Get it????????

Yep. I've been about. I can still recall the "Lascar Lavs" in the
London Docks.

Bearing in mind the intelligence of some of the employees attracted to
this kind of wok, what can one do?

However, some of the allegations made by some of the employees at
Maple Leaf about the frequency of cleaning of some of the machines -
and the visual results...

-- 
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com  and http://animal-epidemics.blogspot.com/
>
>Burkie