Why cuts to a U.S. inspection agency matter for Canadian food
For months, the 'buy Canadian' movement has inspired Canadians to shift their shopping habits away from American goods. While this has mostly been a patriotic move, some experts say recent cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for inspecting 80 per cent of American food, might give Canadians another reason to think twice about buying American products at the grocery store.
Kate Helmore is The Globe's agriculture and food policy reporter. She's on the show to talk about why the cuts at the FDA have some experts concerned, how intertwined the U.S. and Canadian food systems are, and why it's so challenging to disentangle them.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com
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CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
Climate change is driving a rise in tick-borne diseases. Here's what to know.
This is a March 2002 file photo of a deer tick under a microscope in the entomology lab at the University of Rhode Island in South Kingstown, R.I. (AP Photo/Victoria Arocho, File) TORONTO — A warming climate is driving a rise in Lyme disease and the introduction of lesser-known tick-borne diseases, public health specialists say. 'Climate change in Canada is happening at a much more accelerated rate than we see in parts of the rest of the world,' said Heather Coatsworth, chief of field studies at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. 'Ticks, which are eight-legged organisms, but general bugs, all require a certain amount of heat and humidity to complete their life cycle,' she said. Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia continue to be the hot spots for blacklegged ticks, which can carry bacteria, parasites and viruses that cause disease in humans — but the changing climate is allowing the tick population to grow in other parts of the country, including Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, Coatsworth said. Janet Sperling, a scientist who specializes in bugs and the president of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, said that means increased awareness of tick-borne illnesses is needed not only among the public, but among primary-care providers and infectious disease specialists. 'A lot of doctors have been told — this was their training — 'you can't get Lyme disease in Alberta; if you don't have a travel history don't worry about it,'' said Sperling, who lives in Edmonton. 'There's no doubt that it has changed and the education hasn't caught up with some of the doctors,' she said. The rise in tick-borne disease doesn't mean you should stay inside, experts agree. But you can protect yourself. Here's what to know about the illnesses and how to safely enjoy the summer weather. HOW COMMON IS LYME DISEASE? Lyme disease has been on the rise in Canada and the United States for several years. When provincial public health units started monitoring it in 2009, they reported 144 cases across the country. The preliminary case count for 2024 is 5,239, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. The real number is likely higher because many people may have had very general symptoms and never got a diagnosis, Coatsworth said. 'There's estimates that if things keep going the way they are and climate change keeps going the way things go, that in 25 years we'd have about half a million cases of Lyme disease here in Canada,' she said. WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF LYME DISEASE? Lyme disease can feel like many other illnesses and may bring on fever, chills, fatigue, headache, swollen lymph nodes and/or muscle and joint aches. One telltale sign of Lyme disease is a rash that looks like a bull's eye, a target or that is circular or oval-shaped. But Coatsworth cautions that about 30 per cent of people who are infected never get a rash, so a Lyme disease diagnosis shouldn't be ruled out if people have other symptoms. WHAT ARE SOME OTHER TICK-BORNE DISEASES? In the last couple of years, some provinces have started monitoring three other diseases spread by blacklegged ticks: anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan virus. Of those, anaplasmosis — although still rare — seems to be growing the fastest, said Coatsworth: 'It's kind of the new kid on the block.' When public health officials first started monitoring it around 2012, there were about 10 to 50 cases per year in Canada. There were more than 700 cases of anaplasmosis reported last year, Coatsworth said. 'It's really picking up speed within the population.' The symptoms of anaplasmosis can be similar to Lyme disease, without a rash. They can also include cough, diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Babesiosis can also cause similar symptoms to Lyme disease without a rash, but it often causes anemia as well, Coatsworth said. Powassan virus can cause fever, chills, headache, vomiting and general weakness but it often progresses to serious neurological symptoms, such as encephalitis (brain swelling) and meningitis. CAN THESE DISEASES BE TREATED? Lyme disease and anaplasmosis are both caused by bacteria and can be treated with antibiotics, usually starting with doxycycline, said Coatsworth. Babesiosis is caused by a parasite and is similar to malaria, she said. It can be treated with anti-parasitic medications. There is no treatment for Powassan virus. Patients are treated with supportive care, which can include intravenous fluids, medications to reduce brain swelling and respiratory assistance. WHAT KIND OF TICKS CARRY THESE DISEASES? Two types of blacklegged ticks carry these diseases: Ixodes scapularis, also called a deer tick, is found in several parts of Canada, especially Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. In parts of British Columbia, the dominant tick is Ixodes pacificus, also known as the western blacklegged tick. Ticks feed on the blood of deer, mice, rabbits and other mammals, as well as birds and reptiles. Birds can carry the ticks long distances, so they can be transported to different parts of Canada. The ticks get infected if the host animal is infected, and they in turn transmit the disease to humans when they bite them and latch on. WHAT DO THE TICKS LOOK LIKE? 'A lot of people are very surprised when I show them a blacklegged tick. They can't believe how small they are,' said Dr. Curtis Russell, a vector-borne disease specialist at Public Health Ontario. An adult tick that isn't full of blood is about the size of a sesame seed. A younger tick is about the size of a poppyseed. WHERE ARE TICKS FOUND? Ticks are found in wooded and grassy areas, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. That includes forests, parks and hiking trails, but ticks can also live in more populated areas, Coatsworth said. '(It's) a lot about the animals that exist in those environments. So a lot of those are peri-urban spaces ... kind of those in-between spaces that now have become just maybe your local neighbourhood park where there's a lot more squirrels. Small rodents and white-tailed deer, especially, have really contributed to sustaining the populations of ticks.' HOW DO I PREVENT TICK BITES? Preventing tick bites is similar to repelling mosquitoes, said Dr. Mayank Singal, a public health physician with the BC Centre for Disease Control. Wearing long sleeves, long pants and using bug spray are all important measures. Choosing light-coloured clothing is best because it's easier to spot a tick when it lands. Singal also encourages 'trying to not come in contact with foliage and bushes, because that's typically how they will latch on.' Russell said that means when hiking, stay in the middle of the trail. After outdoor activities, do a full-body tick check, including parts of the body that weren't exposed. Russell suggested taking a bath or a shower. 'You can check all your areas where the ticks might have been and if they haven't bit you yet ... they can maybe wash off,' Russell said. 'They usually crawl around ... before they bite and they usually tend to bite your hairline, your armpits, the back of your legs, your groin area.' Russell also recommends washing your clothes and putting them in the dryer, where the high heat will kill ticks. IF I FIND A TICK, SHOULD I REMOVE IT? Yes. Do it with tweezers as soon as possible, experts agree. A tick will embed its mouth in the skin as with the legs sticking out and it's important to remove the whole tick. 'You want to grab it as close to the skin edge as possible, squeeze the tweezers ... and grab the tick and then pull it straight up,' said Singal. 'We don't want to twist, we don't want to go left and right. Just pull it straight up so that we get all of it out as much as possible.' It generally takes about 24 hours for the tick to transmit Lyme disease, anaplasmosis or babesiosis while it's latched on. Powassan virus can be transmitted as quickly as 15 minutes after attachment, but very few ticks currently carry the virus, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. THEN WHAT? People can take a photo of the tick and submit it to along with information about where you were when you think it bit you. The service, run by several universities and public health agencies, will tell you what kind of tick it is and how much tick-borne disease risk there is in the area. If you had a tick on you and begin to develop any symptoms, see your health-care provider and let them know you were possibly exposed to tick-borne illness, Russell said. -- This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 28, 2025. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content. Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press
Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Like Terry Fox had hope, my friend Vanessa Davis had gratitude until the very end
Jillian Horton is a physician and author of We are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing. My friend, Vanessa Davis, died on April 27. The day before her celebration of life, I was in St. John's, Newfoundland. I'd planned to write her eulogy on the flight home to Winnipeg. I went for a walk that morning; it was bitterly cold. I saw an arrow pointing me toward the Terry Fox monument, and so I followed the signs. St. John's Harbour is where the 21-year-old Fox started the historic 1980 Marathon of Hope, a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. Fox ran for 143 days before he had to stop just outside of Thunder Bay, where he learned cancer had spread to his lungs. Shivering despite the morning sunlight, I read a series of commemorative plaques that tell the too-short story of his life. I learned that Fox was born in Winnipeg – just like Vanessa. And I was reminded that, in 1981, he died on June 28 at the tender age of 22. As of 2024, the foundation in his name had raised more than an incredible $900-million, and Terry Fox is rightly considered to be one of the 'greatest Canadians' – a young man who transformed our country's national vocabulary of courage, a regular person who was exceptionally moved by the suffering of people around him. That morning in the harbour, looking up at the bronze rendering of Fox's youthful, determined face, I was struck by how well that description also suited my friend Vanessa: a regular person, exceptionally moved. I wrote about her in 2022, when she was a few months into treatment for her highly aggressive form of breast cancer. She was a brilliant, compassionate ward nurse who worked through the worst parts of the pandemic. She was also a beloved mother of two sons, and a cherished wife with a massive circle of loving family and faithful friends. We ached for a miracle; it never came. But I believe there are traces of other miracles in her life – and in the brave, painful, disrupted lives of almost everyone we love and lose to cancer. Cancer treatment is like Terry Fox's run: another kind of marathon of hope. Vanessa had two mastectomies and endured endless rounds of chemotherapy, countless emergency department visits, agonizing waits and occasional system snafus. But hope wasn't the word Vanessa used the most. That word was gratitude. Gratitude for her life. Gratitude for the time she did have, for the care she was receiving, for the years she had spent nursing, for the people who were there with her at every turn. Even starting chemotherapy – she was 'grateful to be getting the show on the road,' and excited. Excited to start destroying some cancer cells, excited to get up to the lake, excited to watch movies with the family, excited quite literally just to be alive. Vanessa hadn't transformed the vocabulary of her family and friends. She'd done something much quieter, subtler, but deeply impactful: She'd reordered it. This is where I make a critical distinction, because even though I knew her for more than 20 years, it took me time to understand what I thought at first was just her coping in a 'silver-linings' way. I was utterly wrong. This wasn't a mechanism. It wasn't toxic positivity or censorship of hard emotions or a delusional spin on the devastation of what she faced – a cancer she knew would inevitably kill her. This was a choice. A deliberate, intentional, life-altering choice. She didn't need to make up stories about silver linings. She knew the life in front of her was gold. I recently read about a talk given by author Suleika Jaouad, the author of Between Two Kingdoms, who has chronicled her life with leukemia. Ms. Jaouad said she didn't want to live each day as if it were her last – that was depressing, uninspired, no bridge to anything. She wanted to live each day as if it were her first. In those words, I recognize the mindset that allowed a 21-year-old man with a prosthetic leg to wake up every morning and run half-way across the second-largest country in the world, despite almost unfathomable physical pain, determined to help legions of people he would never live to meet. And I recognize my friend Vanessa's life-affirming mindset – her gratitude, her authentic and bone-deep joy, her excitement to tackle whatever the day would bring, knowing how tightly those days were numbered. When Vanessa was hospitalized for the last time in April, I couldn't go see her – I'd been sick at home, running a fever for days. Even as her situation was deteriorating, she would interrupt my constant requests for updates to make me promise I would text a colleague about getting a chest x-ray – for myself. She wanted very specifically for me to tell this colleague that she, Vanessa, was worried I had pneumonia (which, as it turns out, I did). To paint this picture in its fullness: She was in the hospital, post-bronchoscopy, on several litres of oxygen with cancer everywhere in her body – but she was worried about my lungs, still deftly, lovingly nursing until the very end of her life. 'It took cancer to realize that being self-centered is not the way to live. The answer is to try and help others.' Those words are Terry Fox's. That last sentence might as well be Vanessa's. That's how she lived, and that's how she died too. Terry Fox said he believed in miracles; he had to. The hardest part to handle in his story – like Vanessa's – is that hope doesn't always win. But that's also not where either of their stories end. Sometimes the most transformative, radical act is to think far beyond a finish line, to run because you believe there is nothing more urgent, more sacred, more beautiful, than lighting someone else's way.
CTV News
4 hours ago
- CTV News
How to keep your home bug-free this summer
How to keep your home bug-free in the summer. Summer has officially arrived and that means it's an important time to stay protected from ticks and mosquitoes. While it's important to protect yourself from bugs while hiking or camping in the woods, they could also be lurking in your backyard. Ticks and mosquitoes are the most common critters that bring not only bites, but illnesses and viruses as well. CTV Morning Live spoke with Dr. Paul Roumeliotis to talk about ways to protect your backyard from bugs this season. Ticks Roumeliotis says personal protection is key when preventing ticks, including long sleeves and insect repellent, but knowing how they move and breed is equally important in keeping them away. Lyme disease can be transmitted by ticks, an infection that is spread to humans from bites. Ticks can also carry other diseases. 'There's a lot of things we need to do to understand where ticks live. Ticks like to live in the dark, foresty, grassy areas,' he said. Homeowners living by a forest or grassland are most at risk of being affected by ticks on their property. Roumeliotis recommends building a barrier of mulch or gravel to surround your property. 'You can prevent the ticks from entering your property because they don't fly,' he said. 'If there's a lot of shrubbery, old branches, get rid of them too because they like to hide in there.' Ticks How to keep ticks off your property from Dr. Paul Roumeliotis. (CTV Morning Live) The higher the grass, the more likely they will lurk in that area, he says. Making sure your grass is mowed properly is also important. 'If you have picnic tables, you can put gravel or sand or keep the grass as low as possible,' he said. Roumeliotis says reports of tick bites are increasing in the summer months. He says it doesn't just impact kids, but those working in shrubbery and landscaping as well. 'The amount of ticks that we see in the area has risen. Right now, we see them across eastern Ontario, Ottawa, between the St. Lawrence River and the Ottawa River.' Mosquitoes Outside of an itchy and painful bite, mosquitoes can also carry diseases such as West Nile virus, making it even more important to prevent them from growing near your home. Roumeliotis says knowing their habits and where they thrive is important in learning how to prevent them. 'When we talk about personal protection, it's great, but you need to be aware of these mosquitoes and ticks and where they breed and then we can actually diminish the amount of them in our backyard,' he said. Roumelitois says mosquitoes like to lay their eggs in pooled water. He recommends checking your property to limit areas that collected water, including pales and tires. 'Similarly, pots, wheelbarrows, recycle bins, all those things left out in the rain that create a puddle or a pool, can actually promote mosquito growth in your area,' he said. Roumeliotis says some may have noticed an increase in mosquitoes this year, linked to higher amounts of rain in the region this year.
