Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of this important subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify before you today.
In addition to being a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under the Bill Clinton initial administration, I served for seven years as an elected member of Congress from the State of Mississippi. In that regard, I know how difficult it is to manage schedules, and I really appreciate your making the time available for us to discuss this particular issue.
Appearing with me today is Mr. Bill Bodenhamer, who is the president of a small biotech company that we are here to discuss. We have a product that we think is incredibly valuable in the area of prevention and notice. Also appearing with me is Mr. Petroff, who is the vice-president of our company and our chief scientist. If there are questions that are more technical in nature, perhaps I can refer to them as well.
I'm not appearing as a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture but as the chairman of the board of directors of a small Canadian biotech company called Toxin Alert, which is headquartered in Mississauga. This company has a technology to detect food-borne toxins. If fully deployed, it could provide valuable signals to the consuming public that the food they're about to consume has become compromised to the point that it is perhaps unsafe to eat.
The company is about ten years old. We were born in a bioreactor at the University of Guelph and have received plaudits from time to time from Canadian state agencies and entrepreneurial and science magazines as one of the “innovative” new companies to watch in the field of Canadian biotechnology.
We are certain that the diagnostic antibodies produced by our company will have the capability of detecting dangerous food-borne pathogens, and are engineered to emit a visible signal to the consuming public of the presence of pathogenic materials.
Once it's in the commercialization stage--we are not there at this point--we believe that our technology will hold tremendous promise in providing consumers the valuable option of having real-time information about the status of their foodstuffs. That will most definitely be helpful in ameliorating the serious food safety concerns that have given rise to this important hearing this evening.
The public official in me is still there, and I believe that the government has an obligation and a compelling role to play in warning the public against known health hazards and then, if possible, helping to advance, vet, and offer solutions. If any entity is able to viably provide real-time diagnostic tools into the hands of the public, then government should advance rather than impede the process, in conjunction with private enterprise whenever possible.
I felt the same way in February 1993 after I had been appointed by President Clinton. I had only been there about three weeks when we heard about an episode of hemolytic uremic poisoning from E. coli pathogen 0157:H7. It had been in tainted hamburger meat that children ate from a fast-food franchise restaurant in Washington State. Their parents had bought the hamburgers, and unfortunately several children ingested them and met their demise. I had never before heard of this pernicious strain of the E. coli pathogen. A month later in New York City I grieved with the parents of a three-year-old girl who had innocently asked her mother to cook her favourite dish for her birthday, spaghetti and meatballs. The meatballs were undercooked and the little girl died a painful death as a result of E. coli poisoning.
As a result of those episodes, which are still striking to me, I bring sympathies and condolences to the families here in Canada who were so tragically affected by the recent listeria outbreak. I have a bit of knowledge and understanding regarding the situation you are faced with, in trying to seize upon effective remedies, products, processes, and strategies to detect, control, and perhaps to even eliminate listeriosis and other pathogenic culprits.
I do understand that effective solutions are difficult to find, but I also believe, as I'm sure you do, that all public officials have a sacred trust to fulfill and must push forward undeterred, even if others push back when the public interest is in jeopardy.
After my abrupt introduction to the E. coli pathogen in 1993, I tried to find out everything I could about the food-borne pathogens in the U.S. I'm here to admit that in the U.S., 76 million people are still caused to be sickened every year; 325,000 are still hospitalized; and over 5,000 still unfortunately die on an annual basis.
Thankfully we have seen some comprehensive reforms in the U.S. over a brief period, from what I call the “dime standard”--and this was ridiculous to me--where an inspector, if you will, in one of our federal slaughterhouses could allow pathogenic contamination to be trimmed away only if an observable feces chip on a carcass was larger than a dime, to the more aggressive practice of trimming, applying microbial washes, and the introduction of HACCP practices in cooperation with regulated companies, to pathogenic-specific vaccines, and greater food safety standards. But we have much more that we ought to be able to do.
In the U.S. today we still have sort of a patchwork system of food inspection, with 12 different federal agencies all having some role and responsibility in the food inspection system, and where pizza is inspected by two different agencies, depending on whether it's cheese pizza or pepperoni pizza.
I am impressed with statements made by President Obama's current secretary, Mr. Vilsack, regarding his intent to move toward promotion of a modern unified food safety agency. However, much still remains to be done, from Upton Sinclair's work, The Jungle, to a more efficient standard of food safety. Still much more work has to be done to offer even greater protections and reforms to an expectant and deserving public. More needs to be done in both countries to help restore the public's confidence in the food supply.
Despite anticipated push-back from entities feeling threatened, greater reform in the area of rapid traceability, comprehensive inspections, and mandatory recalls should be aggressively pursued.
Mr. Chairman, from the standpoint of Toxin Alert, the small company headquartered here in Canada, we're here to humbly ask the question: If there exists a promise of another layer of protection, another weapon in our science-based arsenal, another tool in our box, then why should we continue to lay them aside and not pursue the application?
What we humbly offer is the possibility of another option, a detection device called Toxin Guard, which could provide even more confidence to the consuming public that their food is safe to eat, engineered to produce a visual signal that whatever is contained within that plastic wrap is generally okay to bite into. If the burden across the industry has shifted more to the consumer--to wash their hands more diligently, to cook their foods more thoroughly, to store with greater care, and to more diligently observe what can be seen within and among their foodstuffs--then why don’t we arm them with greater knowledge of unseen dangers if such can be made available without great harm and expense?
What we offer, Mr. Chairman, is the possibility and promise of science. The Toxin Guard technology could also greatly assist food inspectors, whether they are federal, provincial, or municipal, in carrying out their duties and ensuring a very high level of surveillance over packaged foods even after they have left food processing plants--in transit or on retail shelves. The consumer would be in a position to detect harmful pathogens right up until the point the package is opened prior to consumption.
So we are here to ask you to take a good look at the promise of Toxin Alert and its Toxin Guard technology. Simply put, when deployed on packaged foods and in the presence of harmful pathogens, be it salmonella, listeria, E. coli, or Pseudomonas--whatever antibody it has been engineered to detect--a visual marker alerting the consumer of the possibility of ingesting harmful bacteria would result.
I would hasten to say that I'm very proud of the technology. It's been proven by laboratories in the U.S. and also in Canada. But I would hasten to add that it's not that simple. Our product is still in the developmental stage and is not yet ready for commercial use. Although we have utilized commercial presses to imprint our antibody delivery device onto plastic material, greatly reducing the incremental cost in the process, we're still at least two years away from full commercial application in large markets.
In these days of economic downturn, we find that our research program could truthfully use a bit of a financial boost.
As I conclude, Mr. Chairman, I will tell you and the members of the committee that there has been high interest in this product in the United States. Right now our company has a contract with the U.S. Department of the Army in the Picatinny Arsenal in the state of New Jersey and Natick Labs in Massachusetts. The toxin technology is currently being tested as a way to confidently deliver food rations to troops in the field and to be able to detect the presence of spoilage and contamination. We look forward to the completion of the joint project with the U.S. army and the prospects of civilian application and private commercialization projects that could soon ensue.
Lastly, I have a word about HACCP. I'm not here to condemn HACCP or any company, but I have to say that HACCP is also currently employed in the United States, and it is, as we know, a process monitoring system, but it is only as good as the company that is monitoring it, the staff that has been deployed toward it, and the overall seriousness with effect to monitoring it. Both must be supported by a management structure that is strong enough and effective enough to ensure that the plan is followed in all respects and that nothing can fall through the gaps. This is critically important in enterprises that could possibly involve life and death, like food.
As I finish, Mr. Chairman, I will say that in the U.S. I've had chances to talk to slaughterhouse and abbatoir workers, and the acronym they use for HACCP is “Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray”. That's what they say.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.