| The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, September 27, 2008, By Dan Gardner. ©The Ottawa Citizen. |
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Panic and perception. Is the food I give my children safe? It's hard to imagine a more important question. It's also hard to imagine that we would have asked it before listeria in tainted meat products killed 18 Canadians. That's one positive result of the tragedy. Some food safety experts are critical of Canada's regulatory system but until the crisis the whole subject was hopelessly obscure. Now rigorous investigations have begun and we are paying attention. That's all to the good. But if I've learned anything from a decade in journalism, it is that appearances can be deceiving and it is a terrible mistake to draw conclusions about complex issues based on the daily rush of events and news stories. Sometimes the front page gets it bang on. But sometimes a conclusion that seems obviously true is ultimately revealed to be little more than a mirage. It is possible -- only possible -- that the listeriosis crisis is, in some degree, just such a mirage. To understand how that can be, recall a similar panic from more than a decade ago. In 1995, a transport lost a wheel on a highway in Ontario. The wheel crashed into a car, killing two people. It was a tragic but rare incident. It was not widely reported. Also in 1995, the Conservative government of Mike Harris was elected. The Tory program of deregulation and cost-cutting was fiercely opposed. One objection: It would jeopardize public safety. In 1996, two more people were killed by errant truck tires. Critics hammered the government. Budget cuts had resulted in fewer safety inspections, they claimed. This time, the incident was widely reported. It was followed by a barrage of reports of near misses and soon, everyone sensed something was very wrong with truck safety. The issue grew and grew. Reports of loose truck tires appeared almost daily. No one was killed in these incidents. Sometimes there wasn't even a "near miss." But there were so many reports it was hard not to conclude that truck tires were coming loose all the time, everywhere, and that anyone on the roads was in danger. Critics denounced the government and the Tories responded with tough legislation and a series of highly publicized highway inspections. Truck safety suddenly vanished from the political agenda. Reports of flying truck tires stopped. The panic subsided and was soon forgotten. So what had actually happened? Judging by the rush of events and media reports, it seemed clear that there had been a breakdown in truck safety. People died. New regulations were put in place and strictly enforced. Safety was restored. But that's not remotely true. In 1995, the Ontario ministry of transportation recorded 18 incidents and two deaths.
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In 1996, there were 45 incidents and two deaths. In 1997, the ministry recorded 215 incidents and no deaths. That may look like objective evidence that truck safety had deteriorated, but it's not. In 1995, "wheels-off" incidents were not a major issue and the ministry didn't have a good system for tracking and recording incidents. In 1996, it created a new system and, with everyone in the province on alert, the ministry heard about incidents that would have been ignored in the past. The more you look, the more you find. Hence the spike. In 1998 -- the year after the panic peaked -- there were 99 incidents. In 1999, 79 incidents; in 2000, 87 incidents. No one died in these years. In 2000, there were 65 incidents and two people were killed. In 2002, there were 66 incidents and no deaths. In 2003, there were 75 incidents and one death. So trucks lost wheels before the panic and they continued to lose wheels after. And the risk didn't really change either: The likelihood of being injured or killed by a flying truck tire has always been very, very small. So the perception of the risk -- which rapidly went from zero to red alert and back to zero -- had no connection to the actual risk. It was linked instead to the prominence of flying truck tires as a political issue and to drastic changes in how the media reported on loose truck tires. During the panic, any incident could make the news, no matter how trivial. Before and after the panic, any incident would likely be ignored, even if someone was killed. So what can this tell us about the listeria crisis? Obviously, the one outbreak of listeria at Maple Leaf Foods was a terrible tragedy. The question is whether that incident is symptomatic of a larger, growing threat. On Monday, the Globe and Mail revealed the best evidence so far that there's something bigger to worry about. "There has been a stunning increase in the number of products pulled from the country's grocery stores and fast-food restaurants" due to listeria contamination, the Globe reported. Between 2003 and 2007, listeria was involved in only 19 product recalls. So far this year, it was cited in 446 recalls. That number is obviously inflated because it includes 323 products that came out of the one Maple Leaf production line that is at the centre of the tragedy. But still, that leaves another 123 product recalls. That really is a massive jump from previous years. It sounds very bad.
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But read the story carefully. "The listeria recalls go well beyond products made by Maple Leaf," the Globe reported. "Another eight food producers have sounded the alarm since August 17, the day Maple Leaf issued its first recall. These companies have recalled a total of 118 products that may be contaminated." So 118 out of the 123 product recalls were issued after the crisis broke. That strongly suggests the numbers don't expose a real surge in listeria contamination. They show producers and officials got strict about inspections and recalls after the crisis broke. It's the old rule again: The more you look, the more you find. Another clue lies in the number of listeriosis deaths in past years. According to Statistics Canada, there were five in 2000. In 2001, four. In 2002, seven. In 2003, three. In 2004, one. (Data for subsequent years were unavailable.) Again, the outbreak at Maple Leaf was horrible. But is there a wider problem? The fatality data don't suggest so. The Globe also noted the Canadian regulatory standard is weaker than that of the United States, which allows no listeria content at all in ready-to-eat foods. But the Globe did not report that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 2,500 Americans become seriously ill with listeriosis each year and 500 die. Thus the listeriosis fatality rate is far smaller in Canada than the U.S. That, too, does not suggest a crisis. And the media? As in the flying truck tire panic, the political angle and the established belief that there is a wider threat has spurred more reporting. Would listeria in cheese that sickened 28 people in Quebec have been a major story a few months ago? Of course not. But now the narrative is in place and the hunt for more incidents is on. I'm not suggesting there's nothing to worry about. I simply don't know what the truth is. But I do know that the rush of events and news stories can be deeply misleading. And that the wise man is he who reserves judgment. You can contact Dan Gardner at the Ottawa Citizen. |
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Copyright © 2005 Dan Gardner |