Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Is Latest Meat Plant (Almost) Disaster Another Condemnation Of Mr. Harper's Ideology of 'Self-Regulation'?

ThankTheGoddessForThe
WhistleblowersVille


I've written a lot about how it is my opinion that the cutting of public meat plant inspectors to the bone so that the private profit-driven plants can 'self-regulate' contributed significantly to Listeria outbreaks on Mr. Harper's watch.

At least one of which killed people.

Well....

The latest 'contamination-in-a-private-plant' story would appear to reinforce that opinion (times about a million).

Natalie Clancy of the MoCo has the story of the Pitt Meadows plant that allegedly tried to keep a positive E.Coli O157  test a secret.

Here is her lede:

Pitt Meadows Meats is expected to plead guilty on Monday to at least one count of selling E. coli-tainted meat in 2010, CBC News has learned.

One of British Columbia's largest meat processing plants, which now calls itself Meadow Valley Meats, was charged with 11 counts under the Food and Drugs Act for selling meat unfit for human consumption after a former employee contacted the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The coverup came to light when Daniel Land, who oversaw the plant's quality assurance, later contacted CBC News, saying officials at Pitt Meadows Meats told him to keep quiet about the positive test result obtained on Sept. 9. 2010.

Land said a manager failed to report lab results that showed a sample of its product was contaminated with the deadly E. coli O157 strain.

Regulations require federally licensed plants to report such findings.

"They told me that this would be looked after — they would pull it off the shelf," Land said from his home in Edmonton. "Shame on them. There was tainted meat in the marketplace and they did nothing."...



So.

Re-capping....

A private plant does it's own test.

As a result, the private plant finds evidence of contamination from a strain of bacteria that can make people very, very sick.

And what does the private plant do?

It tries to hide the result.

And just where are the public inspectors in all of this again?


______
And what happened to Mr. Land the whistleblower?...Well, as you might expect, the company fired him...The man is a hero.


.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey lets have the mining industry self regulate.
oh yea and oil industry also.
only 5 months left til voting day.

RossK said...

Anon-Above--

It would appear that the oil industry is actually trying to take it one step further given that they are now contracting to clean-up their own messes.

It's a growth industry!

.

Anonymous said...

Is kinder morgan, by proxy of another company 50 percent share cleaning up?
sell the oil ,clean up the oil.?
Vertical intergration.?

coast guard search and rescue only?

North Van's Grumps said...

The CBC went a bit further to the story to by mentioning the business partnership to Chilliwack Cattle Company. What the CBC and other media should have included is that MLA/Minister/Chair of BCFIRB John Les, is related to them as well: Father-in-Law.

"...the directors of the numbered company doing business as Pitt Meadows Meats, Ken and Jeff Kooyman, also own Chilliwack Cattle Sales, a dairy plant that was targeted in a hidden camera investigation by Mercy for Animals Canada, a non-profit group."

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/pitt-meadows-meats-expected-to-plead-guilty-in-e-coli-case-1.3029191

NVG BBC: http://blogborgcollective.blogspot.ca/2014/07/bcfirb-duties-bc-milk-marketing-board.html