Public health & safety

TSB Calls for Action on Aviation Safety Recommendations

Topics: 
TSB, Transport Canada, Public health & safety, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
0

May 9, 2013

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released its annual reassessment of responses to Board recommendations. When the TSB identifies serious safety deficiencies during an investigation, it issues recommendations to the regulator or industry, putting a direct spotlight on what needs to be addressed.

Troubled by slow progress, the TSB is now calling on Transport Canada to intensify efforts on a number of outstanding safety recommendations, especially in aviation.

Canada’s top whistleblower watchdog missing in action

Topics: 
PSIC, Mario Dion, Integrity Commissioner, Dr. Shiv Chopra, Public health & safety
Rating: 
0

David Hutton – May 6, 2013

Canada’s Integrity Commissioner Mario Dion has been in the news twice recently—for what he is doing, and also for what he is not. What he has done is to report his office’s finding a fifth case of wrongdoing uncovered by his office: the egregious and sometimes bizarre misbehaviour of Shirish Chotalia, former head of the Human Rights Tribunal of Canada (HRTC).

What Dion has not done—and still refuses to do—is to investigate allegations, originally made in 2002, of misbehaviour by Health Canada in the approval of drugs for use in our food supply. Dion’s refusal was the subject of a judicial review hearing before a Federal Court judge on April 23.

Apotex warned by U.S. to raise quality control standards

Topics: 
Pharmaceutical industry, Public health & safety, Regulatory oversight, Health Canada
Rating: 
0

CBC News – April 26, 2013

Canadian generic drug maker Apotex Inc.'s exports to the United States could be blocked if the company doesn't correct quality control problems, according to a warning letter from a U.S. regulator.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's website includes a warning letter sent to Apotex describing "repeated deficiencies" in quality control, such as ensuring drug products at one of its Toronto-area plant were free of bacterial or fungal contamination.

Contractor whistleblower in fight with Public Works after asbestos exposure

Topics: 
Prisons, Workplace conditions, Public health & safety, Public Works, PSIC, Mario Dion, Asbestos industry, Audio
Rating: 
0

Julie Ireton – April 25, 2013

Don Garrett says it should have been one of the simplest construction jobs he'd ever done. Instead, the British Columbia contractor said he was exposed to high levels of asbestos, almost lost his business and has been fighting with federal government bureaucrats for more than three years.

"I was taking this material home, it was on my clothes. I didn’t know I was dealing with asbestos so it entered my household," said Garrett. Garrett owns a construction business in Hope, B.C. In 2009, he was contracted by Public Works Government Services Canada to replace 160 sinks and toilets inside the Kent Institution — a maximum security, federal prison in B.C.'s Fraser Valley.

US railway whistleblowers get some federal protection at last

Topics: 
USA, Workplace conditions, Public health & safety
Rating: 
2
The following are selected extracts

Kari Lydersen – April 15, 2013

The 19th-century railroad boom enabled not only the settling of the American West, the industrial revolution and the growth of American cities, but also the creation of a new class of corporate owners.

The railroad magnates of the 19th and early 20th centuries amassed such wealth and wielded such political clout that they seemed almost omnipotent.

Government to oppose legislation to reduce sodium consumption

Topics: 
Public health & safety, Food safety
Rating: 
3

Sarah Schmid –February 4, 2013

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said Friday the government will oppose legislation that would require her to implement recommendations of her own expert panel aimed at getting Canadians to use less salt.

A private member’s bill from NDP health critic Libby Davies, debated at second reading in the House of Commons on Friday, calls on Aglukkaq to act on the advice of members of the Sodium Working Group, convened by her Conservative predecessor in the health portfolio, Tony Clement, to devise a strategy to reduce the sodium intake of Canadians.

Silence on the slaughterhouse floor

Topics: 
Food safety, Workplace conditions, Public health & safety, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
4
The following are selected extracts

Jean Lian – January 10, 2013

The recent meat recall at XL Foods Inc. in Brooks, Alberta is not wanting in superlatives. It is one of the most massive meat recalls in Canadian history involving one of the country’s largest beef packing plants that processes more than 4,000 head of cattle a day.

Meat tainted with E. coli sickened a four-year-old boy and numerous others, resulting in the facility being shut down for a month and thousands of workers laid off.

E. coli strain blamed for five illnesses matched to burgers recalled across Canada

Topics: 
Food safety, Food industry, Public health & safety
Rating: 
4

December 17, 2012

Government inspectors have linked Canada’s latest E. coli outbreak to a recalled batch of Butcher’s Choice brand beef burgers sold across the country. The strain of E. coli bacteria found in Butcher’s Choice Garlic Peppercorn Beef Burgers was the same one that made five people sick in Ontario and Alberta, officials told a news conference Monday.

“All of this product was recalled from the marketplace between Dec. 12 and Dec. 15,” said Paul Mayers, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s vice-president of programs. The frozen burgers are sold at Loblaws stores across Canada.

Tobacco historian says industry relies on incomplete reports in court

Topics: 
Tobacco industry, Corruption, Public health & safety
Rating: 
3

The Canadian Press – November 27, 2012

Academics hired by the tobacco industry to paint a historical portrait of how much the public knew about the harmful effects of tobacco use left out an important element, according to a witness at a class-action trial: internal documents from the companies themselves.

Robert Proctor is testifying for the plaintiffs before the Quebec Superior Court at a landmark $27 billion lawsuit that pits an estimated 1.8 million Quebecers against the country's three major tobacco manufacturers — Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd.; Rothmans, Benson & Hedges; and JTI-Macdonald.

Antibiotics banned in EU unleash deadly bacteria

Topics: 
Pharmaceutical industry, Food industry, Food safety, Public health & safety, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
2

Dr. Mercola – December 19, 2012

The United States uses nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics annually in food production. Livestock antibiotic use accounts for 80 percent of the total antibiotics sold in the US, and unnecessary use of antibiotics in food animals (cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys) is a major driving force behind the rampant development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Compare this to the 6 million pounds of antibiotics that are used for every man woman and child in the US combined. But unlike human use, in which antibiotics are prescribed to treat serious infection, in animals, drugs such as penicillins and tetracyclines are routinely added to animal feed as a cheap way to make the animals grow faster.

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