Skeptics Live Forever

There are skeptics and deniers of strong scientific evidence located everywhere.  Supply Management ("SM") is no exception.

How long will supporters of Canada's
Supply Management stick their heads
in the sand to avoid hearing and seeing
the truth?

You don't have to be the first person to believe every rumor that comes your way.  That is the definition of being gullible and naive.

However, there comes a time when the evidence mounts and mounts to a point that continuing to deny borders on insanity.  That is what scientists call Cognitive Dissonance:

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoiding situations and information which are likely to increase it.

 How does this apply to Canada's Supply Management System?  It appears that we have not yet reached a state of Cognitive Dissonance for Supply Management in Canada.

Go back to sleep, it's not yet time to wake up!

To prepare for the awakening (or to hasten its arrival), I have presented evidence suggesting there are 2.7 deaths per year of Canadians that are caused by SM chicken contaminated by salmonella that is regularly sold at retail stores in Canada (see SFPFC's Blog Posting 2.7 Canadians Die Each Year from SM's Contaminated Chicken   and discussions about this evidence on Better Farming.

Those 2.7 deaths/yr from Canadian SM chicken was based upon both US and Canadian data.  I have openly declared from the very beginning my use of US data due to the lack of Canadian data.  Not everything is identical in both US and Canada, but they are often similar.  Until we have the necessary data for Canada, the US data can help us estimate the likely effects and risks on a qualitative or approximate basis.

In spite of this, the skeptics have totally rejected all evidence against SM's questionable methods as useless. It appears that the skeptics feel that SM Canadian chicken is perfect, the best in the world, and are unwilling to consider any suggestion to the contrary.

I agree that there is some room for doubt in these food safety risk assessments; there always will be.  However, there is a concept called "Precautionary Principle", first developed in Germany in the 1980's.

As to application of the Precautionary Principle for ensuring the health of Canadians, Health Canada says:

 "The Health Canada Decision Making Framework treats the concept of precaution as pervasive. As such it does not require extremes in the actions taken. Instead, risk management strategies reflect the context and nature of the issue, including the urgency, scope and level of action required."

Shouldn't the Precautionary Principle also be applied to SM's practices?

There is also the principle of Occam's Razor, which says the best answer is usually the simplest answer with the fewest assumptions.

In spite of these two principles, there are those who still assume and believe in geocentrism (ie. the Earth is at the centre of our solar system, not the Sun).  This argument started around 2,000 BC and continues to today, over 4,000 years and counting.

Somehow, I don't think the SM debate will end any time soon.

There are also those skeptics who believe the Earth is flat (ie. not a globe, see Flat Earth Society)

DDT was seen as a wonderful pesticide for the first 14 years (1948 - 1962), but slowly the mounting scientific evidence suggested otherwise.

Other skeptics still insisted in sworn testimony before the US Congress in 1994 that the scientific proof was far from conclusive as to whether cigarette smoking caused lung cancer or addiction.  That was 38 years after Doll & Hill's study of British physicians in 1956 first offered scientific evidence of what was suspected for 400 years before that.

To be a skeptic is every individuals choice, to believe as they will.  Soon, SM Believers may be added to the deniers of other scientific evidence listed above.  We'll have to wait to see for sure.

Do you believe it is OK for the masses being doomed to suffer as long as there is at least one person left who chooses to deny the overwhelming body of evidence against SM?

I believe there is now sufficient scientific evidence to take action to improve SM chicken so as to reduce the risk and cost of this terrible system.

Further denial of the available scientific evidence delays the solution, and increases the risk and suffering for all.

2.7 Canadians Die Each Year from SM's Contaminated Chicken

Based on scientific, objective evidence, we can reasonably conclude that approximately 2.7 Canadians are killed each year by contaminated chicken purchased in Canada.  Since the Supply Management system has about 99.96% market share, this government regulated, approved system run by the #ChickenMafia can (and should) be held fully responsible for those needless deaths.

This follows on my previous Blog posting "Deadly Canadian Chicken" which explored food-borne illness, and how poultry has been in the top 3 sources of food poisoning for decades.

The calculation of 2.7 Canadian deaths per year from SM poultry is based on the following data from objective scientific sources:

1. The deaths from foodborne illness are not always the direct cause of death.  Sometimes people die from the complications caused or contributed to by the food poisoning.  For example, one 26 year old man died of a heart attack that resulted from a severe bout of Salmonella Heidelberg food poisoning (Ref. 1).  However, there is no mistaking the signs that this was food poisoning that started the problems.
    
2. There are 35.54 million Canadians as of 2014 (Ref. 2)
3. There is no readily available statistics on salmonella foodborne illnesses in Canada, but we can use US data as a proxy until Canada can produce our own data.  The US data says there are 0.9 cases per year of salmonella per 100,000 population, of which 71% are hospitalized and 5% died. (Ref. 3)
    
4. US Centre of Disease Control has tracked cases of foodborne illness from 1998 to 2008, and found that between 10.1% to 29.2% of all cases of Salmonella poisoning were caused by contaminated poultry (Ref. 4)
5. The geometric mean of the range 10.1 to 29.2 is 17.17%
6. The calculation is as follows:   (35.54 Million)/(100,000)*(0.05)*(0.1717)=3.05 Canadians killed each year from poultry contaminated by Salmonella.
7. Canadians consume 4.2 kg/yr/person of turkey, and 31.2 kg/yr/person of chicken.  Therefore chicken represents 88.14% of the poultry marketshare on a weighted average.  Therefore Canadian chicken is responsible for 2.7 deaths each year from Salmonella poisoning and/or the resulting complications.
8. Since the SM #ChickenMafia has over 99% marketshare, and their chicken is 10 times more contaminated than the chicken raised by Small Flockers and processed on the farm for personal consumption (see Blog posting Hope for the Mega Meat Manufacturers? where I compare the chicken factory 3,600 CFU vs. the Small Flocker on-farm result of 133 CFU) , it seems reasonable to attribute at least 99% of these deaths to the #ChickenMafia.  On a weighted average CFU count, #ChickenMafia puts out 99.99852% of the total contamination into the marketplace, just 0.001478% by Small Flockers.
9. Therefore Canada's #ChickenMafia (Chicken Farmers of Canada, Chicken Farmers of Ontario, and all the other provincial boards) are fully responsible for 2.7 deaths per year from chicken contaminated with Salmonella.
10. Note that chicken is contaminated by many more pathogens than just Salmonella, so the real problem is much worse than what has been calculated here.

So what is the government going to do about an approved, highly regulated system that kills 2.7 Canadians each year?

I previously raised the issue of contaminated food, contrary to Canada's Food & Drug Act, but the Federal bureaucrats ignored the issue (see Blog posting "If It's Contaminated, Is It Food?").

Does it make it any easier or better now that we have reasonably estimated that 2.7 Canadians per year lose their life while both the Federal and Provincial bureaucrats fiddle?

If it was one of your family members killed by contaminated chicken knowingly sold in Canada, would that be OK with you?

Deadly Canadian Chicken

Is Canadian chicken safe?  Seems like a simple question, but there is a huge debate about the correct answer to that simple question.

Better Farming posted a story in June 2014 on the increasing market share of chicken, consumer's desire to buy Canadian chicken, and the affordable chicken prices.  I found that posting recently, and added some comments about "affordable chicken" being #ChickenMafia propaganda.  An anonymous poster questioned my concerns about retail chicken prices, as they felt that CFO doesn't control retail prices.  I responded and again with some facts, trying to show that CFO had absolute power to ensure affordable chicken if they chose to exercise that power. Stephen Thompson jumped into the conversation in support of my position that Supply Management ("SM") regularly takes advantage of the Canadian consumer. I decided to add some objective evidence previously researched for this Blog on the unaffordability of chicken in Canada when compared to LICO (Low Income Cut-off poverty level) and Ontario's Minimum Wage. An anonymous poster complained about the use of minimum wage.  I responded with justification of the use of Minimum Wage as a benchmark, and reminded people that the unaffordable and poor quality chicken in Canada was causing or contributing to Canadians are dying every day.  Of course, those statements were jumped and resisted here and here, supported here.  Responding to the Cost of Production ("COP") issue, I shared the secrecy that CFO uses for setting the farm gate price for chicken.  Raube Beuerman reminds the previous poster that the issue was chicken feed costs, not all costs nor all animals.  Then, the worm on the hook is dropped into the stream of questions, asking for me to justify my statement that poor quality, high priced chicken was causing and/or contributing to deaths in Canada.

With all these postings, it's a wonder any farming is getting done in Canada.

Having had the door opened, I shared the source of the disease and death from Canadian chicken.  I told them about the 4 million cases of foodborne illness in Canada, the chronic contamination of chicken with deadly pathogens, the chemical soup that is fed to the chickens so as to reduce the risk and costs of the #ChickenMafia, and the Frankenstein meat that results, with high Omega-6:Omega-3 ratios worse than slow grow and pastured poultry.

Stephen Thompson replied  that there was only weak, circumstantial, or no proven relation between Canadian chicken and disease or death.

In response to Stephen's doubt about cause-effect for deaths from Canadian chicken, I supplied the following (the central theme of this Blog posting):

The cause-effect data for Canada is not readily available at this time. CFIA has started  a Pathogen Reduction Initiative (PRI) for chicken, and is studying the baseline contamination level.

This Canadian program started in 2012, and follows the same format as what the USDA completed in 2008.  The USDA study showed a major problem for raw chicken, mainly from salmonella and campylobacter.  Unfortunately, Canada is 4 yrs behind times.

CDC estimates that 22% of all foodborne illness and 29% of foodborne deaths come from contaminated meats.

Chicken is chronically contaminated, while pork and beef are usually periodically contaminated.

CDC estimates that poultry caused somewhere between 5% to 20.6% of all foodborne illnesses in the USA between 1998 to 2008 (see Table 3 ).  That analysis is based on 4,589 illnesses during that period.

Poultry is blamed for 9.8% of all foodborne outbreaks and illnesses, 11.5% of all foodborne illnesses that required hospitalizations, and 19.1% of all foodborne diseases that resulted in death.

Until Canada catches up on solving the lousy Canadian chicken issue, I suggest that these US percentages are applicable for Canada, until proven otherwise.  Do you agree?  If not, why not?

Do you still insist that my previous posting was "overly dramatic"?

Is my previous posting so easily dismissed as exaggeration and hyperbole?

If you base your opinion on other data that conflicts with this data, please provide the links and explain further so we can all better understand the source and justification for your jaded doubts.

Have I convinced you that we have a problem with poor quality chicken in Canada?

Sick Chickens Go To Market

When a flock gets sick, the fastest and lowest risk solution is to send those birds to slaughter, passing the problem off onto unsuspecting consumers.  Is this standard procedure for the Chicken Mafia, or just the actions of a rogue chicken farmer?

The reading of government records can yield interesting questions and glimpses behind the curtain.  Sometimes CFIA takes actions, and lays charges against a member of the Chicken Mafia.  The member of Chicken Mafia wants to escape censorship and the resulting fine (2 tickets @ $6,000 per ticket= $12,000 total fine), so they often plead and whine, promising anything that will get them off the hook.  In spite of this, sometimes CFIA sticks to their principles, and won't let the issue die.  The Chicken Mafia member then often chooses to appeal the CFIA charges to the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal ("CART").  That is where the public gets to see behind the Chicken Mafia curtain of secrecy.

In one case, of which I know nothing except what I read of  the CART decision, a farmer (Peter and Lisa Rombouts, whose farm is located at Bosanquet, ON) was having 80 chickens die per day from some unknown cause.  After suffering these huge losses for a week, the farmer decided to ship his problems off to the abattoir, crystalizing his profits to cash before the whole flock ended up dead.

The farmer called a company (Greidanus Poultry Service Ltd. ) that is in the business of catching birds, loading the chickens into cages, putting them on a truck, and shipping them to the chosen abattoir.

After the first of two trucks were shipped, the farmer disclosed to the trucker that he had had a huge death rate in his flock the week before.  The trucker then examined the farmer's records, and confirmed that this was substantiated.  There is a responsibility that a sick or fragile bird  should not be loaded.

Because this critical info was withheld by the farmer, and/or due diligence by the trucker was delayed or done out of sequence, it is questionable if the birds were properly assessed prior to shipping.

From CRAC's decision, we learn:

"Buttar [an employee of the trucker] told the Tribunal that on that night he did discuss flock health issues with the producer and the producer informed him that there had been a big death loss the week before the loading, up to 80 bird deaths per day during that period, which was verified when Buttar reviewed the producer’s log on the day of the loading."

In cross-examination, Buttar told the Tribunal that the increased mortality at the Rombouts’ farm in the days before the loading was not brought to his attention until the end of the loading process. While this increase was a concern, one of the loaded trucks had already left when this fact was brought to his attention and at any rate he told the Tribunal the decision to send or not to send the truck would be the producer’s or the processor’s. However, Buttar said that as foreman he has an obligation to only load birds that are fit for transport.

Buttar said that the crates into which these large chickens were being loaded that night would hold about nine 4-kg birds, and so, with loading instructions to load only six to seven birds per crate, there would have been room for up to two more birds in each crate.

When asked under cross-examination, Greidanus [the owner/manager of the trucking company] agreed that about 9,600 chickens were loaded by his crew in around two hours and that it was possible for a loader to load a chicken into the crate on its back, particularly with the heavier chickens. Greidanus added that he would not leave a chicken on its back in a crate but that “everyone is human and it is possible to miss [righting] a chicken [back onto its feet]”.

total length of time from beginning of loading to beginning of processing: 15 hours 45 minutes for first trailer and 18 hours 35 minutes for second trailer

Buttar also stated, however, that at the end of the loading he chatted with the producer and noted that there were at least 60 dead birds and 10 smaller, injured or frail live birds in the producer’s barn which were not loaded for transport by his crew.

The evidence is equally clear that on January 20, 2011, when the birds were unloaded for processing, 334 of the 9,599 birds were dead and of these 156 were found dead on their backs.

"Greidanus told the Tribunal that his company had experienced a lot of problems shipping birds to Quebec because of the increased transport distance and the heavy size of birds that are shipped. The birds now grow so rapidly that they are stressed and it takes so little to make them die, he stated. Greidanus testified that he has seen birds dying in a crate and has seen a bird flip over and die in its crate."

Do other possibilities exist for where and how the injury and death of the chickens took place? Yes, the chickens might have been in a fragile state before loading, as indicated by the producer log sheets, showing a higher than normal mortality rate in the days and weeks before the shipment. The chickens might have experienced increased stress due to their heavy weight, the long distance and the long period of time between the farm of origin and the abattoir, which could have resulted in increased mortality while en route.

Greidanus has his theory that the chickens were large stressed birds that travelled a very long distance and died of a heart attack en route, which may or may not be consistent with the rare phenomenon mentioned by Lefebvre [chicken Vet] and Fortin [Chicken Vet], which has been observed in chickens called “flip-over disease”.

From all of this, we learn about the razor edge that has been created by the Chicken Mafia's search for maximum profit.

Birds grow so quickly, they face the daily risk of dying from too rapid of a growth.  About 560 birds died the week before shipment (ie. 80/day * 7 days= 560).  Another 334 were DOA (Dead On Arrival) at the abattoir, and 70 birds were left behind as too sick or too frail to ship, and 9,265 made it to the abattoir alive to reach their ultimate purpose of going to slaughter.

It is unknown how many were approved or condemned at the slaughter stage, but I previously showed that it's typically 1.26% (see Condemned Chicken Blog posting of 2013/03/14), where I show that Ontario has a condemnation rate that is "23.3% worse than Atlantic Canada, and 21.7% worse than BC".  If that holds true in this case, 117 birds were condemned during the slaughter process as unfit for human consumption.  Therefore we have a total death or ill toll of 1,081 birds with 9,148 becoming chickens sold, so a loss rate of 10.57%.  In addition, we would have the losses in the early life stage (ie. day old chicks to 5 weeks of age, which can be equally horrific under the Chicken Mafia's system of pseudo agriculture animal husbandry.

When will be learn that the current system designed and practiced by the Chicken Mafia  has become more and more broken as we go down the wrong road.

This is not right, nor sustainable.