‘It filled me with fear': New Brunswicker warns others about tick bites
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
18 minutes ago
- National Post
Why food recalls have increased so drastically in the last decade in Canada
Last year, it was plant-based refrigerated beverages. This summer, it's Dubai chocolate, which went from viral fame to plain old virulent, with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) recalling several brands due to Salmonella contamination. Article content It's not your imagination — there are more food recalls today than a decade ago, though the number has stayed relatively stable over the past five years. Experts say the reason why comes down to a couple of key factors: improved detection methods and regulations that modernized Canada's food safety system. Article content When Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL), posted a graph of the number of food recalls in Canada since 2011 on social media last week, some of his followers expressed surprise and concern. The graph showed a dramatic jump from 45 recalls in 2018 to 259 in 2019, remaining well above 100 ever since (with two years surpassing 250). Article content Number of food recalls in Canada, since 2011 (Class, 1, 2 and 3). — The Food Professor (@FoodProfessor) August 15, 2025 Article content Our food safety culture is 'very strong,' says Charlebois, pointing to Canadians' reluctance to eat perfectly edible products past their best-before dates. Food recalls don't necessarily mean that our food system is unsafe — he sees them as a sign that it's maturing in a positive way. Article content 'People tend to become quite nervous as soon as they see a metric that would suggest, perhaps, that things aren't going in the right direction, but they are in terms of food recalls.' Article content Some recalls, such as the recent outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to various brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, such as Dubai chocolate, cause illnesses and hospitalizations, but many others are preventative. Though recalls due to microbiological hazards were the most prevalent from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2025, they can also result from allergens, extraneous material, chemicals and other reasons. Article content 'Even in a modern, effective food safety system such as Canada's, risks cannot be completely eliminated. When unsafe food enters the marketplace, the CFIA works with the company to ensure that the public is informed and that the recall was effective at removing products from the market,' the CFIA said in an email to National Post. Article content 'Consumers can help protect themselves and their families by following safe food handling practices at home and staying informed about food recalls by signing up for food recall notifications.' Article content Article content Keith Warriner, a professor at the University of Guelph's Department of Food Science, highlights that the means of detecting outbreaks are much better than they were 10 years ago, 'if not five years ago.' Sophisticated surveillance systems and advanced techniques, such as whole genome sequencing, have made it easier to identify risks. Article content Companies are also doing more testing, which increases the likelihood of finding something warranting a recall, says Warriner. 'Even though no outbreaks are involved, they'll do it as a precaution. And you'll see microgreen producers, for example, they've had quite a few recalls of Listeria. Even though there's been no real outbreaks of Listeria with microgreens, they preempt it because they do a lot of testing.'
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
'Leave them alone': Expert shares how to stay safe after rabid bats found in Brantford, Centre Wellington
A rabid bat found at a Brantford daycare last week has renewed concerns about bat-related rabies exposure in southern Ontario. One child and one staff member came into contact with the infected bat, prompting a public health investigation and a temporary closure of the daycare. It reopened this week. In Centre Wellington, a person began precautionary treatment for potential exposure last week after a rabid bat was found there. Public health officials for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph said bat-related incidents are on the rise this year. The number of investigations public health conducted last year related to bats was 47. So far for this year, that number is up to 61 bat-related investigations. While cases of human rabies are rare, experts warn that bats are a common carrier of the virus and that even small bites or scratches can pose a serious risk if not treated. To better understand how people can protect themselves and prevent bats from entering their homes, CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's Joe Pavia spoke to Brock Fenton, a biology professor emeritus at Western University. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Joe Pavia: Should humans be afraid of bats? Brock Fenton: I would say instead of saying 'Don't be afraid of them' [just] leave them alone, don't handle them. So if you're somewhere out and a bat comes over, don't handle it. And if it's in your grandmother's bedroom, put on your ski glove before you grab it, something that the bat can't bite through. Rabies is spread by biting. Rabid animals, including bats, have the rabies virus in their bloodstream. If their blood gets into your bloodstream, that's bad news. Joe Pavia: How does a bat become rabid? Brock Fenton: We don't know for sure. I think that bats certainly spread it among themselves and that's probably where it comes from. Brantford, Ont., daycare closes temporarily after child finds rabid bat, hands it to worker Public health clears Brantford, Ont., daycare to reopen after investigation following rabid bat discovery Joe Pavia: How can people prevent bats from entering their home? Brock Fenton: If it's the occasional stray bat, there's probably not very much you can do about it. It's like trying to keep squirrels out of your garden, right? But if you've got bats living in your attic, you should take steps to get rid of them. That means getting in touch with somebody who does animal control. What they do is they block up the openings the bats would use. So if you've got a bedroom or bathroom and you have a fan, but there's no screen on it, that immediately allows the bat to get in because bats don't have the equipment to make openings. They have to use existing openings. Brock Fenton: Its pretty hard to tell what bats like as a place to live. I've put up lots of bat boxes but I've never had any move into them. I suspect they're much choosier about their real estate. Joe Pavia: Why are bats so important to the ecosystem? Brock Fenton: They occur pretty much everywhere in the world. They consume a lot of insects because most of them are insect eaters. All of the Canadian species are insect eaters. In the tropics, bats also pollinate plants, so they're also important in agriculture. My great love of bats just has to do with the fact that they're so lovely as a teaching animal. There's so much about them we don't know and people are usually intrigued by things they don't know. So that can keep you going for your whole career, and you're still learning new things about bats. There's all these things about bats that make them interesting and intriguing. Rabies is a sort of an unpleasant side effect.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Police ask court to find Winnipeg care home in contempt over failure to provide info on woman's fall, death
Police are asking a court to find a Winnipeg personal care home in contempt, because the home refused to hand over information from a critical incident report conducted after a 90-year-old woman died there following a fall out of bed last October. The Winnipeg Police Service filed a notice of application earlier this month in Manitoba's Court of King's Bench, asking the court to find Concordia Place guilty of common law contempt for failing to comply with a production order. The dispute began after the Winnipeg Police Service got the production order in February, asking Concordia Place to disclose a list of information, including reports related to the woman and communications, including emails, during the home's investigation into her injury and death. The care home — which is operated by Concordia Hospital under an agreement with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority — responded the following month, providing some of the information police asked for. However, it said in a letter later submitted as a court exhibit that provincial legislation prevented it from sharing other documents investigators requested, including reports prepared for the critical incident committee, as well as communication during the care home's investigation into the woman's injury and death. Manitoba Health investigates all critical incidents, which it defines as "an unintended event that occurs when health services are provided to an individual and results in a consequence to him or her that is serious and undesired." Police asked the court in the contempt application to impose a penalty on the care home "which the court deems fit," including an order forcing it to comply with the production order. The update comes after Concordia Place filed a notice of application last month asking the court to quash the production order, arguing in part that the judge who granted it failed to impose adequate conditions to minimize the risk of disclosing the privileged information, and that the order was overly broad. It pointed to sections of the Manitoba Evidence Act and the Health System Governance and Accountability Act as reasons it was barred from disclosing the information. "Because of these statutory provisions against disclosure, Concordia Place staff are assured confidentiality in the critical incident process," the notice of application said. "They are told that this process is strictly confidential and based on provincial laws, critical incident documents are not compellable in court. This is designed to create a culture of safety, and to encourage reporting and participation in the investigation and review of critical incidents." The critical incident in question was reported at the care home on Oct. 9, 2024, when a woman with dementia fell out of bed and was lifted back in by a health-care aide, the care home's July filing said. The woman was said to have been experiencing an overall general decline in health in the year preceding the fall. The morning after the incident, skin changes and swelling were observed on the woman, and an X-ray confirmed she had a fractured leg, but due to her age and other existing medical conditions, she was not considered for surgery to repair the fracture, the court filing said. The application said the woman died a week after the fall, but there is no evidence the fall caused her death. The matter appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom last week and was adjourned without setting a next date.
