In the most recent news conference by Michael McCain, President of Maple Leaf Foods, he still has no idea when the plant will reopen. What is known for sure is that the disaster began with tainted meat that came off Line 8 or 9 in the Bartor Road plant in Toronto sometime in July. Bacterium Listeria monocytogenes has been found in Maple Leaf products.

I have never heard of bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, and I’m sure that most of you haven’t either. What scares the daylights out of me is that this is not some rare, exotic strain of bacteria. It is commonly found in soil, vegetation, animal feed, and feces. Anyone ingesting this bacterium may experience nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, headache, constipation, or persistent fever. In more severe cases it can spread to the nervous system, producing symptoms including headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, or convulsions.

To date 26 cases have been directly linked to this outbreak. There have been 6 deaths directly linked to this outbreak and there are 8 more deaths under investigation. There are still 29 cases under investigation. We are not out of the woods yet. Unfortunately this bacterium has a long incubation period and symptoms can appear up to 70 days after the bacterium has been ingested.

Maple Leaf has expanded its recall from 23 product lines to 220, which represents every product line that came out of the Bartor Road Plant in Toronto. Some of the well known brands that have been recalled include:
• Boston Pizza
• Burns
• Compliments
• Coorsh
• Equality
• Hickory Farms
• Hygrade
• Kirkland Signature
• Main Street Deli
• Maple Leaf
• Mayfair/Marque
• McDonalds
• Mr. Sub
• No Name
• Our Compliments
• Safeway
• Schneiders
• Shopsys.

Here is a complete list of recalled products. (PDF)
http://files.newswire.ca/464/RecallList.pdf

Michael McCain, the President of Maple Leaf Food is doing the best that he can under the circumstances. He has accepted full responsibility and not tried to pass the buck. We still don’t know how this tragedy began. How will we be able to ensure that this won’t happen again? According to food safety experts, sufficient doses of radiation will kill deadly bacteria but Health Canada will not approve the process until 2009. Why?