Health Committee on June 10th, 2010

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Well, I think it's a multiple. We're involved, from the public health aspects.

I'll leave it to you now.

[Dr. Samuel Godefroy]

Yes.

The approval--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me, Dr. Godefroy, but time is up. You can perhaps work that into another conversation.

Dr. Carrie, your turn.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to get back to one of the issues my colleague brought up about the food additives.

Dr. Farber, I think you brought up something a little bit earlier. I want to ask you this question, because I didn't quite understand what you were saying.

We have these different food additives, but you talked a little bit about different technologies that were out there as well. I hear a lot from different Canadians. Some people like food additives and some people don't like food additives, so I recognize the challenge that you're in sometimes. For something like listeria, Dr. Butler-Jones was saying that the average Canadian wouldn't get sick from that, so does that mean we put these food additives in everything across the scope? And when some Canadians do have that worry, it's something that's a bit of a balancing act.

You mentioned these pressure techniques in lysing bacteria and through different techniques like that. Could you expand on that? I didn't quite understand. You mentioned it earlier.

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

What some companies are doing at the end of the process--for example, with meats that are sliced and in bags--is actually put the meats into an ultra-high-pressure machine that generates very high pressures, at some 87,000 pounds per square inch, for three minutes. That high pressure will actually inactivate the cells of listeria monocytogenes and other bacteria as well that may be present on the meat. For example, when you plate out bacteria from the meat, you don't see any cells actually on the agar plate.

There are companies out there that are actually using it and you've probably seen or heard some of the commercials where they're actually promoting this technology on their products.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Well, that's where I'm leading with the question of different technologies. As Madam Ballantyne was saying, there was a backlog and we're getting through that.

How is that process going as far as expediting some of these new technologies? That was one of the recommendations.

[Dr. Samuel Godefroy]

Clearly those types of applications, particularly when they require Health Canada's oversight in terms of pre-approval before they get used, have been identified and are identified very early on in the process. Actually, at the pre-submission level, in discussions with industry in applying those recommendations, we would identify the potential public health benefit from the application, and it gets triaged into a high priority for the safety and efficacy assessment.

Now, depending on the type of the application, we may or may not require a regulatory amendment. In those modern technologies that Dr. Farber was mentioning--the ultra-high-pressure processes--they actually fit the definition of “novel processes”. Actually in that case, we have a modern regulation: it's the novel foods regulations, encompassing novel processes. Those processes are immediately identified as a priority. They do not need a regulatory amendment but we need to ascertain the safety and efficacy assessment, and then they get treated as a priority. A number of those were approved previously and also most recently. We encourage submissions from industry to have those technologies first approved, and then potentially taken up by industry.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

How would you say Canada is doing in the world with the uptake of these new technologies? Are we leading in that? Is Canada one of the few countries using these new technologies?

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

In the area you mentioned of the ultra-high pressure, we're definitely in the lead. One of the companies I mentioned just spent over $2 million to install a state-of-the-art plant using ultra-high pressure.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Just out of curiosity, does it affect the taste or anything like that?

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

No, it doesn't.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

It's still pretty good.

Dr. Godefroy, you were cut off on your answer last time. I'd like to give you the opportunity to finish your thought.

[Dr. Samuel Godefroy]

It also goes back to the example that oversight for approval of those interventions is at the federal level, so in this case it's an animal health intervention. CFIA is responsible for the approval, in collaboration with Health Canada and particularly, in this case, with our veterinary drugs directorate. But then it's the uptake of that intervention by industry, and really looking at the cost benefit. What will the cost be to have this vaccine? Will it actually be a good measure to have this vaccine as a mandatory type of intervention? Those are not federal responsibilities. They are mostly business and industry decisions in the first place.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I am impressed. It seems that these new technologies are coming out, and what Dr. Farber was saying--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me, Dr. Carrie, your time is up.

Mr. Malo.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

From Dr. Butler-Jones' answer earlier, I gather that the current policy can be applied to all bacteria that can occur in the food chain or the process. Perhaps Dr. Farber can give us more details about that.

Let me come back to the question I asked earlier. How can the current process lead to trans fat being eliminated from food?

You also mentioned allowing sodium acetate and sodium diacetate, especially in cooked and cured meats. Those items are already very high in sodium. I just wonder whether that addition is also going to raise the sodium content.

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

Thank you very much.

I'll address your question related to listeria policy. It's a very good question.

As I was mentioning before, listeria is a very unique organism. With respect to the policy we have in place, there are some things that would encompass the reduction of all bacteria--for example, the use of good manufacturing practices, especially the sanitation. Increased emphasis on sanitation would definitely reduce all bacteria, not specifically listeria. As well, the use of the hazard analysis critical control point approach would also be generalized for all bacteria in a plant.

One thing you need to realize in terms of this organism is that because it is so very widespread we can use environmental testing to track different species of listeria in a plant. If we had something like salmonella, where it's not as widespread, we'd have to use totally different techniques.

Another thing that's very specific is the type of foods. As we mentioned, it's those foods that have a long shelf life, that are refrigerated and can support the growth, that are an issue. That would be very specific for listeria. Spices, for example, would not even be an issue for listeria, so that's not included in the policy. But it would be an issue for an organism like salmonella, which we know has caused problems in spices.

What this really relates to is the infectious dose for humans. For listeria, we know you need quite a high number of cells in order to cause infection; whereas for an organism like salmonella or E. coli 0157, sometimes as little as one cell that's present in the food can cause disease.

Some of the other specific things we have in the policy are criteria for looking at the absence and presence of listeria. This would be very specific for listeria because it relates to the infectious dose I mentioned. To give you one example, for standards for salmonella in a ready-to-eat product like meat, we would never have different tolerance levels like we have for listeria, where we allow 100 cells per gram of food in certain foods. We would never do that with salmonella or E. coli 0157 because in contrast to listeria we know that very low levels of those organisms can actually cause disease.

The other specific things we mentioned--for example, the addition of inhibitors like sodium diacetate--would be very specific for the inhibition of listeria and they would not necessarily inhibit a lot of the other pathogens we talked about. To get even more specific on the distinction between viruses and parasites, they cannot even grow in a food--they just don't grow.

There are very specific things in the policy specific to listeria, but some of the general concepts in it could actually reduce the total counts you would find in a food.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

That policy applies to listeria. There are other policies for other organisms.

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

Yes. For example, we have a policy coming out soon on E. coli 0157 in ground beef because we know it's an issue, and listeria would never be an issue in ground beef.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you.

It's Ms. McLeod's turn.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Anyway, Dr. Godefroy is going to come and see us again to discuss food safety. That is for sure. So I will get the answers to my questions.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There were 57 recommendations, but the Public Health Agency of Canada is focused on 17? Is that right?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

That sounds like a good number.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

We know we have 538 new inspectors. We know there was $75 million provided. That is transitional support to change things, to create the new structures and processes.

Can you talk about how the $75 million is being utilized and how much went to the Public Health Agency? How is that all fitting together?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

I can talk to that. I will start, and then I'll pass it over.

The $17 million that came to the agency is a mix around improving our lab diagnostic and networking tools in terms of the work with provincial labs, etc. That actually covers a number of the recommendations and the modernization of the FIORP, which we now have in place and will be continuing to test. To actually create a food-borne illness emergency plan and command structure, again, that's something that is well along the way and we are pilot testing.

We're actually looking at a surge capacity model so that we can draw on retired public health people and others who have expertise that we can quickly call on to assist in any sort of public health event. There is also a risk communications plan much as we have for H1. Again, having one specifically for food-borne outbreaks, we can tailor it to both the risk groups but also the general messaging. Plus, as you saw in H1, in spite of André's article we did use Twitter. We did use all the media and all the mechanisms possible to engage with the public in both dialogue and to provide information, as well as Panorama, which Dr. Bennett had raised before as part of that work.