Manitoba farmers spark anthrax scare

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Published: October 25, 2001

Charlene Kaartinen now knows first-hand how the anthrax scare has resonated in the minds of Canadians.

Kaartinen and her husband, cattle producers at Eriksdale, Man., were notified on Oct. 16 that a product they distribute had triggered a small evacuation at a major mail sorting point in Ontario.

“When (Canada Post officials) phoned me they were quite concerned,” Kaartinen said.

“They were upset with me.”

The Kaartinens distribute diatomaceous earth in Canada and the United States through their company, Star Lake Beef. The chalky, white product is viewed by many cattle producers as a way to prevent calf scours.

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The problems started when a bag of diatomaceous earth Kaartinen had mailed to the U.S. was torn open in Gateway, a facility based in Mississauga, Ont., for sorting mail and parcels.

The powdery substance triggered the evacuation while safety officials investigated and the product was removed.

Teresa Williams, a Canada Post official in Edmonton, said reports of suspicious parcels and envelopes have escalated since recent events in the U.S. where people are becoming infected with anthrax that arrived in the mail.

“We’ve had far, far more (reports) than we’d normally get,” she said.

As of Oct. 19, none of the Canadian scares actually involved anthrax, which is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis.

Health Canada said the last reported case of human anthrax in Canada was in 1990.

Williams said Canada Post employees are trained to know how to look for suspicious packages and what to do if they find one.

Special puncture-resistant gloves are available to postal workers concerned about anthrax.

“I would say that our employees are a good representation of society in general. You are going to have a certain percentage that are more cautious than others.”

Williams said there have been a number of incidents in recent weeks where parcels had to be isolated while safety experts investigated, but she couldn’t say how many.

Kaartinen said she will continue shipping diatomaceous earth through the mail. She was already double bagging it and then taping the packages tightly before the recent incident.

She is now thinking about creating a special label that would accompany the shipments so that postal workers would better understand the contents and know they do not pose a health threat.

“We never even thought twice about shipping it through the mail. That’s just the way we’ve always done it.”

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Ian Bell

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