First, if the seamless system is working and we have open disclosure, and everybody is at the table--the way I imagine the model I'm proposing--with a sense of confidence and sharing, it would have allowed us to respond by declaring the outbreak a number of days earlier. Part of that aspect is like the issue the previous member asked about--the discussion around the laboratory testing and the poor quality of the samples. We'd say, “There's enough for us to take action right now, so can we do it?” There are questions about what was happening at the plant that I wasn't aware of that would have given me concerns about confidence or concerns about doubt that we should move more expeditiously to handle that.
I wasn't sure why those one-kilogram packages happened to be from one line and were the only ones that were contaminated in the process system. I was not versed on totally understanding how this was happening, but those ones weren't exposed. Were they the only ones producing that or not producing that? Why was it done in that packaging and they only went to these institutions and not to public ones? It's that kind of thing used to assess who in the public are at risk. Either it's known clearly or it's found out very early, and even one federal agency says:
We don't know, and we're not very confident that we can get that information. We can't confidently tell you that it isn't. Therefore while we can't say what it is, we think that as a public health official you should react now on a precautionary basis and take the steps to do so. So while there aren't enough grounds to say we can land on something solidly, I can't tell you enough from our mandate and perspective that would persuade you that it's contained only here, therefore you should probably take action further.
It's not only the amount of the information; it's the opinion and evaluation of the quality of that information from those people as they're going through the process that will help to expedite the decision-making aspect in there.
It's the same with the sampling packages being opened or not. With some of our public health officials, if the PFGE type is the same, what if some inspector happened to brush it with his finger and contaminate it with the same one? That was highly unlikely. Why could we not move expeditiously? That frank discussion should happen in a command-type thing with people at the table where they're held to be there, who share what they know, with a common respect for each other's mandate and what you have to do in your job. But the final task is the public's protection, and let's get on and do the job.
On the question of how far back, if you go back to the 21st, we talked with Toronto Public Health about their two cases. They said they had investigated them. We can't respond to an outbreak before we know it has occurred. It would be nice if we had certain powers that we don't have. We're only public health officials. We'd like to dream of that and be preventative rather than reactive, and that's the idea.
On the number of deaths, it's tough to say how that would have been affected, because the incubation period is so long. When the person actually ingested the product is tough to say.