Comment 2241

By rusty (registered) - website | Posted November 21, 2006 at 16:02:38

Hi Rick,

I'm confused as to why so many posts are worrying so much about the food company. RTH is not out to 'get' anyone here. The reason we are advocating timely communication is because it is a matter of public safety - and that is paramount.

By delaying the reporting of a problem before the full extent of it is known Public Health could be allowing the problem to get worse. Remember SARS? Just because this event ended up being 'small' and contained (no consolation to the 90 or so poor sods who got sick...:) ) does not mean that an appropriate level of public communication of the incident should not have been undertaken.

The public needs to know - that's why we have a Public Health Dept!

I do have sympathy for the company involved. However - food is their business and as a result they understand full well that public safety must come first, even if it means a potential damage to their business. With this in mind it is clearly imperitive for Public Health to communicate the alert in a sensitive and factual/non-alarmist manner, appropriate to the information at hand - but the important thing is that it must be communicated soon and effectively.

Another reason for RTH's sensitivity to this (and what should be all of our's sensitivity to this) is the recent lack of communication over the Legionnaire's outbreak. The public has a right to know - a need to know - if there is a potential public health issue in our midst, and if our Public Health Dept is not doing a good enough job looking out for us and giving us the info we need then they need to be held to account.

Ben

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