Chairman Miller, committee members, and guests, thank you for allowing me this chance to discuss with you what we see as a great opportunity to make Canada a leader in public health and in on-farm food safety, and in doing so, to meet the demands of consumers for safe food.
My name is Rick Culbert, and I am the president of Bioniche Food Safety, a division of Bioniche Life Sciences. Bioniche is a small to medium-sized Canadian company based in Belleville, Ontario. We employ 225 people and are actively growing. Our food safety division was specifically created in recognition of the growing importance consumers place on food safety. In many ways, this food safety division is the interface between the other two divisions of Bioniche, those being our human health and animal health divisions.
As a research-based, technology-driven Canadian biopharmaceutical company, we are committed to discovering, developing, manufacturing, and marketing innovative products for human and animal health worldwide. To that end, in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, the Alberta Research Council, and the University of Saskatchewan, Bioniche has developed a globally recognized and fully licensed product to enhance food safety for consumers.
A generation ago we had not heard of E. coli 0157, but this deadly strain of bacteria is a food- and water-borne illness that poses serious health risks for Canadians. It infects an estimated 26,000 Canadians every year, is linked to a higher rate of chronic illnesses, and is potentially fatal. This strain of E. coli is infamously linked with the tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario, where seven people lost their lives and thousands more fell ill after the town's drinking water became contaminated.
In the United States E. coli 0157 contaminated spinach; the cost was an estimated $2 billion. What most consumers don't know is that there, as with Walkerton, the source of the outbreak was linked to cattle. Most consumers also don't know that globally, wherever there are cattle, there is associated human illness due to E. coli 0157.
Researchers have repeatedly identified domestic cattle as the primary reservoir or source of E. coli 0157. Cattle are able to harbour this particular strain of bacteria in their intestines with no ill consequences to them; however, when it's passed into the environment and either enters groundwater or comes into contact with food, it can kill people, and it has.
Although the illness was originally called “hamburger disease”, more consumers now become ill from fresh produce contaminated by E. coli 0157 than from ground beef. Walkerton was 12 years ago, yet human illness and food recalls due to this pathogen have occurred as recently as two weeks ago here in Canada. Despite the existing inspection system and controls currently in place, E. coli 0157 illness and related food recalls continue to hit the media.
In terms of how this links into meeting consumers' demands, Canadian consumers want and deserve to have confidence that the food they are feeding their families is safe. They deserve to have confidence that everything practical and reasonable is being done to ensure the safety of their food.
The good news is that we can do more to meet this consumer demand. We are now able to better ensure the safety of our food, thanks to the groundbreaking and innovative development I mentioned earlier.
A brilliant microbiologist by the name of Dr. Brett Finlay, who has been inducted into the Order of Canada, discovered a method by which an effective vaccine could be made to reduce shedding of E. coli 0157 by cattle. It's the world's first vaccine for this purpose. It's purely Canadian. It was developed with the aid and support of Canadian government research grants and loans, and it's a giant leap for this pressing public health issue.
At Bioniche we often characterize this as the first public health vaccine that's not administered to the public. As cattle develop no disease symptoms from this strain of E. coli, it's really not an animal health vaccine. This vaccine is not for the benefit of the cattle. However, by reducing the amount of E. coli 0157 that is shed by cattle into the environment, and thereby reducing the risk of E. coli 0157 contamination of groundwater, beef products, or produce, the vaccine is for the benefit of people.
The challenge we face is ensuring widespread use of the vaccine to better protect the health of the public, to expand markets for Canadian cattle farmers, and to strengthen consumer confidence in Canadian food safety. We are proposing the federal government fund a national voluntary vaccination program that allows farmers to access the vaccine at no charge through their veterinarians, and to have it administered as they routinely inoculate their animals against common cattle diseases.
Again, this isn't a vaccine to protect cattle. It's a vaccine to protect public health.
That reality makes it very difficult for beef and dairy farmers to justify the added cost of the vaccine. There's no system in place for retailers of ground beef to compensate cattlemen, as the supply chain for beef is very diverse and it's not integrated. There is similarly no system in place for the fresh produce industry to compensate cattlemen for this risk reduction step.
We understand that times of austerity are not the best times to ask government to consider a new spending program. However, we are in a unique position here in Canada, and the math makes sense. Canada is poised to take advantage of increasing world demand for food, and it will serve us well to adopt innovative on-farm food safety technologies to meet consumer demands.
The cost of the vaccine is $3 per dose. While it is unlikely that every farmer in Canada would participate in a voluntary program, the estimated annual cost to vaccinate all the cattle in Canada would be $50 million. For that investment, we would get stronger consumer confidence in Canadian food safety and a significant drop in the estimated $221 million primary and secondary annual health care costs associated with E. coli 0157; we'd get recognition of a Canadian innovation and the creation of high-tech Canadian jobs to manufacture the vaccine for a global market; we'd get a strong Canadian reputation as a leader in innovative public health interventions; and we'd also get the reputation of a global leader in on-farm food safety and in meeting consumer demands for safer food products.
E. coli 0157 is a persistent public health issue. We are presenting you with an opportunity to not only provide an economic boost through enhanced consumer confidence, but to also reduce illness, ease a growing burden on our health care system, and ultimately save lives.
Consumers are justifiably demanding safe and reliable food sources. They expect that all appropriate, necessary, and reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that Canadian food is safe for consumption. We are asking this committee to recommend the creation of a national voluntary E. coli 0157 vaccination program as a demonstration of Canada's ability to meet consumer demand for food safety, both locally and globally.
Thank you.