Meat is Murder...

indeed: 6 deaths linked to tainted meat in Canada
OTTAWA - Public health officials attributed two more deaths to a deadly bacterial outbreak linked to tainted meat, raising Canada's confirmed listeriosis death toll to six.

Six additional deaths were being investigated to determine if the dangerious ailment was a contributing factor, Mark Raizenne, director-general of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Monday.

Listeriosis is a type of food poisoning that can be dangerous to the elderly, newborns, pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions. Symptoms include fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

All of the deaths are part of a total of 26 cases of listeriosis across Canada, the bulk of them in Ontario, with confirmed links to the outbreak, Raizenne said.

Another 29 suspected cases are under investigation to determine if they are linked to the outbreak, said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Raizenne warned that the number of suspected and confirmed cases are both likely to rise.

Test results announced over the weekend have linked the outbreak with ready-to-eat meat produced by Maple Leaf Foods that was tainted with the Listeria bacterium. Maple Leaf has recalled 220 forms of meat products, as well as everything made at the company's Toronto plant.

A Calgary-based distributor of ready-made sandwiches recalled dozens of goods sold in Saskatchewan and Alberta, saying some of them could contain recalled meat products.

The CFIA said the sandwiches, manufactured by Lucerne Foods, could contain some of the pre-packaged meat products recalled by Maple Leaf Foods.

Maple Leaf sells products in several countries but the company said the recall for tainted meat is limited to Canada.

Maple Leaf, with revenues of more than $4.95 billion, said Monday that it is bracing for a decline in sales on top of the $19-million product recall.

In newspaper and television ads released this weekend, Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain apologized.

"We have an unwavering commitment to keeping your food safe with standards well beyond regulatory requirements, but this week our best efforts failed and we are deeply sorry," McCain said in the ad, which was also posted on Internet sites.

Officials with the Public Health Agency of Canada said Monday that Canadians should remain on guard for at least a few more weeks, given listeriosis' lengthy incubation of up to 70 days.

On the Net: Maple Leaf has posted a full list of products affected on the company's web site www.mapleleaf.ca.
Posted: 2008-08-26 01:34:12

I can not really say that is much of a surprise,i am not so smug in my veganism to say "thats what you get" but it is scary ,its actually impressive that more cases like that do not happen.

Its a shame that its listeria as that is not something intrinsic to meat, often found on any chilled ready to eat foods, including a vegan salad! Maybe if it was E coli or something people might be more willing to accept the argument that meat is bad for you as that is found in the guts of cattle and can be expected to be found on most raw meat0. There was a big recall of houmous in the UK recently but I cant remember which food poisoning bacteria that was - either listeria or salmonella.

A famous (and posh) department store over here has been caught selling expired meat products three times this year already. I have to admit it did make me feel a little bit smug.

As ODB would have said "***** please"

Tainted Meat would be a great name for a band or a snuff film.

It's all over the news here, quite sad. At times like this I am very glad I don't eat meat. I've never heard of anyone dying from a tainted vegetable.

Arsenal said:

It's all over the news here, quite sad. At times like this I am very glad I don't eat meat. I've never heard of anyone dying from a tainted vegetable.

Click to expand...

Its happened many times what are you talking about?

Arsenal said:

It's all over the news here, quite sad. At times like this I am very glad I don't eat meat. I've never heard of anyone dying from a tainted vegetable.

Click to expand...

Really? Over here in Texas there was a elderly man who sadly died a couple of months ago from eating salmonella-tainted vegetables at a resturant.

Salmonella sucks. It sucks hard. I got an awful bout of it off tainted barbecue sauce when I was like 6. That was unpleasant.
If you're not a tough bastard or are very unlucky you can easily croak off from tainted vegetable/vegetable product.

Cassius said:

Really? Over here in Texas there was a elderly man who sadly died a couple of months ago from eating salmonella-tainted vegetables at a resturant.

Click to expand...

And since I generally don't watch Texas based news channels, I really don't hear about things like that. Hence my statement.

My point was, that from time to time we hear about meat recalls, salmonella poisoning from raw meat, but you don't hear about massive.... let's say strawberry recalls because people are dropping dead from eating them.

Arsenal said:

And since I generally don't watch Texas based news channels, I really don't hear about things like that. Hence my statement.

My point was, that from time to time we hear about meat recalls, salmonella poisoning from raw meat, but you don't hear about massive.... let's say strawberry recalls because people are dropping dead from eating them.

Click to expand...

I suppose that the voluminous impartial references that you consult about all matters somehow failed to note the tomato/jalapeno outbreak this past summer, or the massive spinach outbreak last year.

Keep talking; you're providing some small amount of comic relief here tonight.

Arsenal said:

And since I generally don't watch Texas based news channels, I really don't hear about things like that. Hence my statement.

Click to expand...

I'm glad I could educate you.

Arsenal said:

And since I generally don't watch Texas based news channels, I really don't hear about things like that. Hence my statement.

My point was, that from time to time we hear about meat recalls, salmonella poisoning from raw meat, but you don't hear about massive.... let's say strawberry recalls because people are dropping dead from eating them.

Click to expand...

Apparently you do not watch United States based news channels as there were a few instances a few months ago where people died and it was on every major news channel that I know of across the nation.

Dow Jones said:

Salmonella sucks. It sucks hard. I got an awful bout of it off tainted barbecue sauce when I was like 6. That was unpleasant.
If you're not a tough bastard or are very unlucky you can easily croak off from tainted vegetable/vegetable product.

Click to expand...

I heard it affects the elderly and children (people with bad immune systems in general) the worst.

Buzzetta said:

Apparently you do not watch United States based news channels as there were a few instances a few months ago where people died and it was on every major news channel that I know of across the nation.

Click to expand...

We couldn't eat pico de gallo for quite some time.

Not Right in the Head said:

I suppose that the voluminous impartial references that you consult about all matters somehow failed to note the tomato/jalapeno outbreak this past summer, or the massive spinach outbreak last year.

Keep talking; you're providing some small amount of comic relief here tonight.

Click to expand...

If you are referring to the previous topics, where I cited statistics from the US Government, then I can say I don't have any statistics about the number of food poisoning outbreaks, broken down by country, no. I don't tend to follow news of this nature, hence why I said I had not heard of it before. That, and from what I have been told here, it was on American news stations, which I rarely watch, not being American and all.

I fail to see how this makes it amusing for you, but I suppose that speaks volumes about the mentality of the people I am attempting to talk to.

You may want to start following news of that nature. I wouldn't wish tainted vegetable salmonella upon anyone.
EDIT: Other than Scott Stapp.

Arsenal said:

If you are referring to the previous topics, where I cited statistics from the US Government, then I can say I don't have any statistics about the number of food poisoning outbreaks, broken down by country, no. I don't tend to follow news of this nature, hence why I said I had not heard of it before. That, and from what I have been told here, it was on American news stations, which I rarely watch, not being American and all.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. But if you don't follow news of this nature, and haven't looked up any statistics about food poisoning outbreaks, then of course it's easy to say that you haven't heard of any vegetable-borne ones--but just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's not true. I tend to follow the general rule of thumb that if I know absolutely nothing about a subject, I don't express my opinions regarding it.

Arsenal said:

I fail to see how this makes it amusing for you, but I suppose that speaks volumes about the mentality of the people I am attempting to talk to.

Click to expand...

Does it? I would have thought my username was sufficient in that regard.