The Food Security & Safety Puzzle

One of the current era’s most pressing political, economic and public health issues is food security and safety. Recent outbreaks of food-borne illness in Canada have brought this home in a powerful and highly resonant way, yet there is much more to the issue than the increased potential for infection and disease. Costs are also [...]

Crisis & Empathy Goffman Style

I’ve been thinking a lot about Maple Leaf Foods and its crisis communication response following the listeria outbreak. I’ve posted about the political dimensions of this event already, but even while working through these reactions I was having a hard time reconciling: (a) my admiration for how the company handled the crisis (admiration in terms [...]

Politicizing the public service a danger to public health

Two news items today worth noting. The first story, from the front page of the Ottawa Citizen, reports that the Tories have clamped down on public servants during the election, “muzzling” them from speaking at conferences, to scientific meetings, or in other public engagements. The story quotes Myriam Massabki, a spokesperson with the Privy Council [...]

Low Hazard/High Outrage?

A public health crisis or a crisis in communication? The listeriosis outbreak in Canada lends credence to Peter Sandman’s formula that risk f = hazard + outrage. Expectations of a growing death toll were confirmed today with news of an infant death in Manitoba. Yet just yesterday morning the issue seemed to be dipping below the [...]