THIS IS AN OPEN LETTER!

Not so compassionate, eh!

In an article entitled ‘Viral Agent - A forgotten weapon for the post-antibiotic era’, The Walrus, July/Aug., p. 21, (2014)  Lisa Jutras, ( http://thewalrus.ca/viral-agent/ ) noted: “In Canada, an estimated twenty-two patients die every day from hospital-acquired infections, while many more are left with chronic illnesses that destroy their quality of life”. Jutra’s article concludes with the discouraging quote: “For now, sick Canadians must rely on expensive international travel to find relief. It is an irony to which wary socialist Félix d’Herelle would have been exquisitely attuned”.  The article goes on to detail that we have known how to treat some, perhaps even most, antibiotic-resistant superbug infections since before antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections and also describes that it was the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix d’Herelle, working at the Pasteur Institute,  in 1917 who coined the name bacteriophage and experimented with the possibility of phage therapy – he subsequently worked all over the world, including Russia, Tbilisi, Georgia, where his efforts survive to this day in the form of the Phage Therapy Center (http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ) that treats patients from all over the world (For his work, d’Herelle was made a laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame - http://cdnmedhall.org/dr-f%C3%A9lix-d%E2%80%99h%C3%A9relle ). If you or a member of your family became a victim of such an antibiotic-resistant superbug infection, would you know what to do to try and promote a cure or prolong life after all antibiotic treatments have failed? I am reasonably sure that Queen Elizabeth would know what to do – she might request that doctors use phages to treat the infection as you might also conclude if you look at the picture of a friend (by Internet) who is telling the Queen about phage therapy (  http://www.relax-well.co.uk/ ). You can also note from this webpage that there will be a workshop in Poland on phage therapy later this month at the location where sick Canadians could travel to for treatments for superbug infections – specifically it is the  Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, ( http://www.iitd.pan.wroc.pl/en/Phages ). (It would be nice if a Canadian journalist attended and reported from that workshop!) Considering our close relationship with Poland, I believe we should approach them for assistance to establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental and Compassionate Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to Canadian patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics. This would be a rather timely action considering the very recent publication of an article in Future Microbiology, vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 685-688, ( http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fmb.15.28 )  entitled Re-establishing a place for phage therapy in Western medicine.

Meanwhile Canadians will continue to suffer from superbug infections at the rate noted above while many Canadians know that the superbug issue is to some extend a myth (using the same treatment method and expecting different outcomes) or to put it another way: It is not easy being a superbug in a country where all medical professionals know how to use phage therapy when needed. While phage therapy is not currently "approved" in Canada, that does not mean it cannot be used since there are both national (special access program) and international regulatory provisions for legal use - example:

 

Declaration of Helsinki, http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm:

“In the treatment of a patient, where proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods do not exist or have been ineffective, the physician, with informed consent from the patient, must be free to use unproven or new prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic measures, if in the physician's judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. Where possible, these measures should be made the object of research, designed to evaluate their safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information should be recorded and, where appropriate, published. The other relevant guidelines of this Declaration should be followed.”

Several European countries, including Poland, Germany and France, appear to be availing themselves of the compassionate use provisions to cure superbug infections when antibiotics fail as can be seen from various articles and videos on the Internet. Or as Horen Wetmore notes in an article entitled: ‘A Cure Exists For Antibiotic-Resistant Infections. So Why Are Thousands Of Americans Still Dying’, Prevention, Jan.1, 2015, ( http://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/cure-antibiotic-resistance ) on a patient who travelled to the Phage Therapy Center for treatment.

Considering that antibiotic-resistance has been identified as a threat to modern medicine as many of our new sophisticated medical procedures cannot be accomplished without prophylactic or curative applications of antibiotics, will you ask your candidates ‘what their party will do about the antibiotic-resistance crisis’ if they form the next government or will you be a passive bystander hoping that you or your family members will never need such treatments – remember antibiotic-resistant pathogens do not discriminate!

LYTIC PHAGES LOVE BACTERIA, INCLUDING SUPERBUGS, TO DEATH!

How long have we known that phage therapy will cure superbug infections?

PM’s visit to Poland, lost opportunity for Canadians suffering and dying from superbug infections?

In an article by Lisa Jutras, (2014) Viral Agent - A forgotten weapon for the post-antibiotic era, The Walrus, July/Aug., p. 21 - http://thewalrus.ca/viral-agent/ it is noted: “In Canada, an estimated twenty-two patients die every day from hospital-acquired infections, while many more are left with chronic illnesses that destroy their quality of life”. The article goes on to detail that we have known how to treat some, perhaps even most, antibiotic-resistant superbug infections since before antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections and also describes that it was the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix d’Herelle, working at the Pasteur Institute, in 1917 who coined the name bacteriophage and experimented with the possibility of phage therapy – he subsequently worked all over world, including Russia, Tbilisi, Georgia, where his efforts survive to this day in the form of a Phage Therapy Center (http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ) that treats patients from all over the world (For his work, d’Herelle was made a laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame - http://cdnmedhall.org/dr-f%C3%A9lix-d%E2%80%99h%C3%A9relle ). Jutra’s article concludes with the discouraging note: “For now, sick Canadians must rely on expensive international travel to find relief. It is an irony to which wary socialist Félix d’Herelle would have been exquisitely attuned”. One of these destinations where sick Canadians could travel to for treatments for superbug infections is in Poland – specifically it is the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, http://www.iitd.pan.wroc.pl/en/Phages . Considering our close relationship with Poland, I believe the PM could have achieved a cooperation agreement with Poland to provide assistance to Canada to establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental and Compassionate Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to Canadian patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics. This would have been a rather timely action considering the very recent publication of an article in Future Microbiology, vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 685-688, http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fmb.15.28 entitled Re-establishing a place for phage therapy in Western medicine. While phage therapy is not currently "approved" in Canada, that does not mean it can not be used since there are both national (special access program) and international regulatory provisions for legal use - example: Declaration of Helsinki, http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm: In the treatment of a patient, where proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods do not exist or have been ineffective, the physician, with informed consent from the patient, must be free to use unproven or new prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic measures, if in the physician's judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. Where possible, these measures should be made the object of research, designed to evaluate their safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information should be recorded and, where appropriate, published. The other relevant guidelines of this Declaration should be followed. Lytic phages love bacteria, including superbugs, to death!

To phage or not to phage!

LET’S GET REAL - NO MORE BULLSHIT, PLEASE, WE ARE ALL CANADIANS, EH! AND WE ARE ALL ON THIS POLLUTED, EARTHQUAKE-PRONE, GLOBE TOGETHER. SO BE NICE TO EACHOTHER AND EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY FOR TOMORROW WE MAY DIE OF FOODBORNE DISEASE OR SOME OTHER RISK! ANOTHER DEADLY RISK IS AN INFECTION WITH A MULTIDRUG-, ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT SUPERBUG AND SOME HAVE SUGGESTED THIS RISK IS SIMILAR TO TERRORISM AND GLOBAL WARNING! To Whom it May Concern: Re: Monitoring and optimizing antibiotics, The Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2013, A10. THE PROBLEM OF SUPERBUGS AND ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE HAS BEEN ADEQUATELY DESCRIBED – WHAT WE NEED NOW ARE SOME SOLUTIONS. ONE SOLUTION IS USE PHAGE THERAPY WHEN ANTIBIOTICS FAIL. THIS COULD CURE PATIENTS, REDUCE COST AND FREE HOSPITAL BEDS! When it comes to antibiotic-resistant superbugs I think it is fair to note that we are dealing with a case of collective wilful blindness since a cure for many such infections has existed longer than antibiotics have been used. In the book ‘Beyond Bullsh*t: Straight-Talk at Work’ (available at Ottawa public libraries) author and professor of management at the University of California, Samuel A. Culbert, introduces the concept of mokita meaning “the truth everyone knows but no one speaks". The mokita or paradox of the antibiotic-resistant superbug problem is that we have known how to treat some, perhaps even most, antibiotic-resistant superbug infections since before antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections. A recent BBC interview on phage therapy, as this medical treatment is known as, can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p015cdyn/Health_Check_Bacteriophages/ - . For Canadians it should be of interest that it was the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix d’Herelle, working at the Pasteur Institute, in 1917 who coined the name bacteriophage and experimented with the possibility of phage therapy – he subsequently worked all over world, including Russia, Tbilisi, Georgia, where his efforts survive to this day in the form of a Phage Therapy Center (http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ) that treats patients from all over the world. D’Herelle was elected as a laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2007 (http://www.cdnmedhall.org/dr-f%C3%A9lix-d%E2%80%99h%C3%A9relle ) and it would seem like the height of hypocrisy that we reject one of his most important discoveries by not using phage therapy when antibiotics fail. The Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? attest to d’Herelle’s work and both references are available at Ottawa libraries. Another video on phage therapy from Australia can be found at ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG6dnOligeM ) . The tragedy is that we are too venal to deploy these weapons of mass-destruction for bacteria in our efforts to win some battles in the fight with pathogenic bacteria even as many Canadian patients suffer and die of antibiotic-resistant infections. I recently read a suggestion that the superbug problem is threatening the practice of medicine as we know it and that it should be considered as a threat for human civilization similar to terrorism and global warming and I would therefore suggest that Canada should establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics. It seems to me that the old American Embassy Building would be an excellent place for such a center as members of parliament would be able to monitor the work, remembering that superbugs do not discriminate! I have been active in this field for more than 10 years and it is now clear that other countries, such as the USA and the UK, are making progress much faster than Canada.

GOVERNMENTAL SECRECY: Corruption's Ally, Earl Warren

A paper for current times: Earl Warren, 1974, A.B.A.J.(60)550-552) ( http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/abaj60&div=100&id=&page= ) Abstract: "When secrecy surrounds government and the activities of public servants, corruption has a breeding place. Secrecy prevents the citizenry from inspecting its government through the media. The minimum amount of secrecy needed for the proper operation of government should be fixed by law, and no secrecy beyond that point should be countenanced" Earl Warren

Superbugs and phage therapy

THE PROBLEM OF SUPERBUGS AND ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANCE HAS BEEN ADEQUATELY DESCRIBED – WHAT WE NEED NOW ARE SOME SOLUTIONS. ONE SOLUTION IS USE PHAGE THERAPY WHEN ANTIBIOTICS FAIL. THIS COULD CURE PATIENTS, REDUCE COST AND FREE HOSPITAL BEDS! When it comes to antibiotic-resistant superbugs I think it is fair to note that we are dealing with a case of collective willful blindness since a cure for many such infections has existed longer than antibiotics have been used. In the book ‘Beyond Bullsh*t: Straight-Talk at Work’ (available at Ottawa public libraries) author and professor of management at the University of California, Samuel A. Culbert, introduces the concept of mokita meaning “the truth everyone knows but no one speaks. The mokita or paradox of the antibiotic-resistant superbug problem is that we have known how to treat some, perhaps even most, antibiotic-resistant superbug infections since before antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections. A recent BBC interview on phage therapy, as this medical treatment is known as, can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p015cdyn/Health_Check_Bacteriophages/ - . For Canadians it should be of interest that it was the French-Canadian microbiologist, Felix D’Herelle, working at the Pasteur Institute, in 1917 who coined the name bacteriophage and experimented with the possibility of phage therapy – he subsequently worked all over world, including Russia, Tbilisi, Georgia, where his efforts survive to this day in the form of a Phage Therapy Center (http://www.phagetherapycenter.com ) that treats patients from all over the world. The Canadian film: Killer Cure: The Amazing Adventures of Bacteriophage and the book by Thomas Haeusler entitled, Viruses vs. Superbugs, a Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? attest to d’Herelle’s work and both references are available at Ottawa libraries. Another video on phage therapy from Australia can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG6dnOligeM . The tragedy is that we are too venal to deploy these weapons of mass-destruction for bacteria in our efforts to win some battles in the fight with pathogenic bacteria even as many Canadian patients suffer and die of antibiotic-resistant infections. I recently read a suggestion that the superbug problem is threatening the practice of medicine as we know it and that it should be considered as a threat for human civilization similar to terrorism and global warming and I would therefore suggest that Canada should establish 'The Superbug Victim Felix d'Herelle Memorial Center for Experimental Phage Therapy' to provide phage therapy to patients when antibiotics fail or when patients are allergic to antibiotics. It seems to me that the old American Embassy Building would be an excellent place for such a center as members of parliament would be able to monitor the work, remembering that superbugs do not discriminate! I have been active in this field for more than 10 years and it is now clear that other countries, such as the USA, are making progress much faster than Canada.

Comment received on How Safe is Safe....

Dear Mr. Riedel: I am writing in response to your correspondence in which you have expressed your concern with the use of the term “safe” when describing the Canadian food supply. I appreciate the opportunity to respond. Please be assured that the Government of Canada considers issues of food safety to be of the utmost importance. Food safety is the top priority of the CFIA. Sound science, an effective regulatory base, the delivery of effective inspection programs and the fostering of strong partnerships are key to the Agency’s work in safeguarding Canada’s food, animals and plants. In fact, the CFIA conducts surveillance activities to monitor the level of microbial contamination in the food supply and has demonstrated that our food safety systems are safe. Namely, we have observed high levels of compliance through our National Microbiological Monitoring Program. Of particulate note, universally it is recognized that the so called “zero risk” cannot be achieved and therefore doesn’t exist in any areas of human activities, including food that is produced and offered for consumption. Therefore, risk is better described in relative or comparative terms. As for food sources of plant and animal origin, all food products contain micro-organisms that are associated with plants or animals in their natural habitats. The majority of these micro-organisms that are normally found in food are innocuous and would not cause food-borne illness in the vast majority of the population. However, some food-borne organisms are human pathogens that are able to cause food borne illness when contaminated food is ingested. These hazards on occasion are responsible for the outbreaks and sporadic cases of food-borne illness in humans in Canada and world-wide. It is important to note, that the estimate of 11 million episodes of food-borne illness annually in Canada, which you referred to in your letter, is now under revision by the Public Health Agency of Canada in collaboration with it partners. It is expected that based on new data and improved methodology, this estimate will likely be reduced. Comparably, the US-Center for Disease Control uses a similar approach and has updated their estimates of 76 million to 48 million annually of food-borne episodes in the USA. It is important to remember that these numbers are only estimates. Furthermore, I would like to bring to your attention an independent study titled “World Ranking Food Safety Performance” that was conducted by Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan in 2008 and 2010. The goal of the study was to assess the food safety system and processes in Canada and 16 other countries. Some major factors that were measured for this purpose included: policies and outcomes of how well countries connect with their consumers, surveillance efforts, hygiene practices, information accessibility, a country capacity to contain all relevant risks related to food safety, effectiveness of domestic regulations and governance related to food safety. Based on all categories considered under the study on Food Safety, Canada obtained a superior grade, which is the highest grade available in both years 2008 and 2010. This distinction Canada shares only with five other countries namely: Denmark, Australia, Britain, the USA and Japan. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been working diligently with other federal departments, industry and consumers in order to achieve this level of food safety in Canada and is committed to modernizing and further strengthening our food safety system. I trust this information will be of assistance to you. Thank you for writing. Sincerely, Neil Bouwer Vice President/Vice-président Policy and Programs Branch/Direction générale des politiques et programmes Canadian Food Inspection Agency/Agence canadienne d'inspection des aliments 1400 Merival e Road, Tower 2, Floor 3, Room 136 Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0Y9 Phone: (613) 773-5734 Fax: (613) 773-5791 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada www.inspection.gc.ca

On Truthiness and Safe – how safe is safe?

On Truthiness and Safe – how safe is safe if safe isn't really safe? (Draft document undergoing revision)
http://www.truthontruthiness.blogspot.com/

If someone told you that the food supply is safe; but that there are up to 13 million cases of foodborne disease and 500 deaths annually, you would be right to question the individual's integrity. Yet the food (un)safety community has been communicating in that manner for years. While the duplicitous use of safe may not occur as blatantly as in my sentence above it is nonetheless easy to find examples as I will show below.

Having experienced negative impact on personal wellness as a direct result of the duplicitous use of the word safe, I have long wondered just what speakers mean or just how safe is safe. As is often my custom when I start a new article, I googled: How safe is Safe? The search yielded one useful article entitled; Food: How Safe is Safe? (Schafer, 1998). The conclusions of this reference are not very helpful and read in part: “Deciding whether food is safe or hazardous is difficult. ... Food can never be proven entirely safe.... Maintaining a safe food supply is a goal of the majority of food producers, ...” After reading this I decided that I would entitle my paper: On Truthiness and Safe – how safe is safe if safe isn't really safe?

What are they thinking?

Paraphrasing one of the expressions a former colleague of mine used frequently when I was still working in the food (un)safety field: ‘What is the last thing that goes through the mind of a fly hitting the windshield of a speeding car’ might lead to the following question: What goes through the mind of an official public health spokesthingy, scientist or health department politician just before they proclaim that the food supply is safe when they know that at least some members of their audience know that they know that that just is not so.

Here are some examples:

There’s a good reason why the foods we eat in Canada are safe (Government of Canada, 2000);
For us, food is abundant, healthy, and, and above all, safe (Ottawa Citizen, 2011);
... you don’t think about the regulations that make your food safe.. ((Metro, 2011);
Hon. Gerry Ritz (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Speaker, I can assure the House and all Canadians that our chicken is safe. CFIA regularly tests meat and poultry entering the food supply for antibiotics. The compliance rate for chicken is 100%. The last time I checked, that is pretty good (Ballantyne, 2011)(As I understand it the issue was superbugs in chicken, not antibiotic residues - superbugs can survive on chicken even after antibiotics have gone to acceptable levels after withdrawal);
"Chief White said Ottawa is absolutely a safe city"(The Ottawa Citizen, 2011).
My favourite example is as follows: "When scientists or regulators say that food is safe, many people assume the risk of there being a problem is therefore zero, when in fact in scientific terms zero is not achievable (Wildeman, 2006)."

Surely the issue is the abuse of the term 'safe' by scientists and regulators rather than misunderstanding by people. Bullshit remains bullshit even if produced by scientists and regulators(For references on the academic literature on bullshit see APPENDIX)! In this connection I like the comment made by the Project Manager at the Centre for Workplace Ethics at Health Canada (Lecours, Pierre, 2006) entitled - Communications and ethics: How to scheme virtuously: "Otherwise they will be reduced to a role of 'loud speaker' and may create more damage than good while drifting through ethical dilemmas with 'petit eichmannism' as the sole defense."

But how can we know what they know or should know? One way is to search the literature to see what their organizations have published in organizational or even peer-reviewed papers. As an example, if one googles the search string 'foodborne disease in Canada', the following web page from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will likely pop up at the top:

“Common Causes of Foodborne Illness

Campylobacter jejuni
Clostridium botulinum
Clostridium perfringens
Cyclospora cayetanensis
E. coli 0157:H7 (Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome)
Listeria monocytogenes
Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning
Red Tide, PSP and Safe Shellfish Harvesting
Salmonella
Shigella
Symptoms can start soon after eating contaminated food, but they can hit up to a month or more later. For some people, especially young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, foodborne illness can be very dangerous.
Public health experts estimate that there are 11 to 13 million cases of foodborne illness in Canada every year.”

Clearly, this quotation indicates that any description of the food supply as ‘safe’ is borne from passion for truthiness, defined as ‘truth’ that a person claims to know intuitively from the gut without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts – wishing things to be the way one wants them to be. The above quotation presents a copious cornucopia of choices for suffering foodborne disease.

What is their definition for ‘safe’?
According to my dictionary safe means out of danger, not presenting or involving any danger or risk. Other dictionaries note attributes of safe as: secure from liability to harm, injury, danger or risk as in a safe place; free from hurt, injury, danger or risk as in to arrive safe and sound. None of the definitions appear to make provision for the occurrence of collateral damage under the umbrella of safe.

One has to wonder, what good is safe food if it makes consumers sick and even kills some of them when the current official number of foodborne cases annually is set at 11 to 13 million with and estimated 500 deaths annually in Canada.

If that is success what would failure look like?

We can’t even claim that the risk of foodborne disease has gone down during the past 40 years as the official number of foodborne cases in Canada was estimated to be 400,000 in 1974 when the population was about 23 million. Currently the population is just below 35 million and foodborne cases are estimated as high as 13 million and up to 500 deaths annually. Clearly foodborne cases have increased much more rapidly then population.

The bottom line is that the food supply has not been safe in the past, is not safe now and most likely won't be safe in the future - there is no room for collateral damage or road kill because safe, like sterilty, pregnancy and virginity are absolutes and cannot or should not be qualified. To mislead people into believing that a situation (like the food supply) is safe when it is not true prevents people making informed decisions.

Recalls are not proof that the food (un)safety system is working to provide a safe
food supply. They are rather clear evidence that the system is operating in failure mode on a continuous basis. Perhaps we are focusing too much on science and politics when it comes to food(un)safety and we should rather be discussing the legal, ethical, moral and economic appropriatness of describing the food supply as safe?

Above all this document is a plea to every public spokesthingy not to be a shit (Gilgun, 2008) and tell their fellow citizens that something is 'safe' when they know that is simply not true, no matter how small the risk.

REFERENCES:
Schafer, William. 1998 - Reviewed 2008. Food: How Safe is Safe? University of Minnesota - http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/DJ5524.html (accessed Feb. 19, 2011)

Government of Canada. 2000. Food Safety and You. Her Majesty In Right Of Canada, Cat. No. A62-52/2000, ISBN 0-662-64805-6.

Ottawa Citizen, 2011, National Capital Region’s Top Employers, Agency employees know they make a difference, page 6.

Metro, 2011, Public Health celebrates the century mark, Metro, Jan. 6, 2011, page 05.

Ballantyne, Robert. 2011. Reaction to “Superbugs in the Supermarket.” http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/blog/2011/02/reaction-to-superbugs-in-the-supermarket.html (accessed Feb. 19, 2011).

Wildeman, Alan, 2006 - Mad Cow Disease in Canada: Where do we go from here, Optimum online, vol. 36(2), June 2006 - note list of participants and para. 5, page 5.

Lecours, Pierre; Gilles Paquet, 2006 - Communications and ethics: How to scheme virtuously, Optimum online, vol. 36, issue 2, June 2006.

The Ottawa Citizen - A frugal police service, March 12, 2011, B6.

Gilgun, Jane, 2008 - On Being a Shit; Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life, www.lulu.com


This information is being produced as a public good. It is the opinion of the author based on extensive experience and study of published literature and is considered a valid interpretation of that literature; however, readers are encouraged to study the references and additional literature to form their own opinion. This information may be referenced, used or quoted with or without giving credit to the author. It may be distributed, copied or stored by any means. Readers and users are responsible for any outcomes from any use of this information.

APPENDIX:

Truthiness, Scientification and Bullshit in Communication - From Public Health to Politics.
Presented by G.W. (Bill) Riedel, Ottawa – Tel/Fax: 613-828-5756
Writers need to "develop a built-in bullshit detector." (Hemingway) and so do readers!
Canadian academic and author Laura Penny opens her book – ‘Your Call is Important to Us, the Truth about BULLSHIT’ (There are at least 10 books in Ottawa public libraries with the word bullshit in the title, most of them written by academics) by quoting Lilly Tomlin: “No matter how cynical you become, it is never enough to keep up.” She then delivers her own judgement by starting the book with the observation: “We live in an era of unprecedented bullshit production” thereby joining other authors who have made similar claims. For example:
Neil Postman - 1969 - “every day in almost every way people are exposed to more bullshit than it is healthy for them to endure….” He further notes that “the best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullshit.”
Harry Frankfurt - 2005 - begins his book ‘On Bullshit’ with “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.”
In spite of this there are few attempts to examine the human propensity to bullshit, especially as it exists in public health and politics. This presentation will survey much of the academic literature on the subject.
Perhaps the most important question to be examined will deal with potential legal consequences for bullshitters - Andrew Aberdein deals with the question in, Raising the tone: Definition, Bullshit, and the Definition of Bullshit, Chapter 10, page 152 of Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch, 2006, Bullshit and Philosophy – guaranteed to get perfect results every time, Open Court, Chicago. Aberdein observes: “In British and American common law, a civil claim for negligence arises when the defendant has a duty of care to the plaintiff which he neglects to exercise, thereby harming the plaintiff. Here the deceptive bullshitter has a duty to tell the truth; neglecting this duty harms his audience if they come to believe his false statements…. The associated culpability can range from inadvertence to wilful blindness”.
If you are not concerned about culpability perhaps finding out what BBB, ABB and BBSN stand for might be sufficiently of interest to attend this presentation. The end of leadership in the age of mba?
Increase the efficiency of your organization by declaring:
THIS IS A BULLSHIT-FREE ZONE BECAUSE IT IS NOT NICE TO BULLSHIT YOUR FELLOW CITIZENS!
Berkun, Scott - #53 - How to detect bullshit - http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/53-how-to-detect-bullshit/, August 9, 2006(accessed Nov. 23, 2010). (The first rule is to expect bullshit).
“Postman's core message, which I would summarize as, Citizens living in a democracy, if they hope to keep that democracy, need to learn how to tell the difference between facts and bullshit." (www.democraticunderground.com)

"
“Don’t be a shit (as defined by Jane Gilgun, 2008 - On Being a Shit; Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life, www.lulu.com) and tell your fellow citizens that the food supply is safe when you know that it is not safe and you are laughing all the way to the bank because the food supply is not safe and don’t ever forget that you are a consumer.” Bill Riedel, 2011