French infected after dining on bear meat
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jim robertson
Jan 1, 2010, 4:49:05 PM1/1/10
to ARNews Two
Subject: [Grizzly-Commons] French infected after dining on bear meat
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2337731
For the second time in four years, health authorities in France have
identified an outbreak of the parasitical illness trichinosis from an
unusual source: bear meat devoured by French travellers in northern
Canada.
The grizzly that ended up as steaks, stew and even "grizzly-bear
Bolognese" had been threatening an Inuit camp on the Nunavut shore
when it was shot by rangers, with the carcass later divided up among
locals and visitors.
In 2005, 19 French travellers got sick after eating black bear in
Labrador, while two others caught trichinosis from a polar bear in
Greenland a few years earlier.
A Paris-based expert who investigated the outbreaks attributes the
spate of bear-meat illness among his compatriots to the French
culinary penchant for trying unconventional meats, and either eating
them raw or cooking them very little.
One of the French adventurers -- on a sailing trip across the Arctic
-- ended up hospitalized for 11 days after digesting the tainted food
in September, though she avoided the most serious heart and brain
complications of the infection.
"It's quite fascinating to see that French people seem quite fond of
bear meat," Dr. Jean Dupouy-Camet, head of a trichinosis-tracking
program, said in an interview from Paris. "French people travelling
abroad like to consume exotic meats ... [And] they are usually fond of
raw meat: steak tartare."
But the latest episode was not confined to the French sailors. Members
of another North-West Passage sailing expedition, headed by a
Canadian, ate some of the same meat and two of them also became ill.
"It was an odd thing. We ate the bear, and the grizzly kind of came
back to haunt us," said Cameron Dueck, a Manitoba native who led the
Open Passage expedition. "It was incredible cramping of muscles, and
real fever: freezing and sweating, freezing and sweating."
Mr. Dueck, who lives in Hong Kong, said he had only just finished drug
therapy for the infection.
Meanwhile, newly published federal research indicates the parasite
worm that causes the disease, trichinella, is present in 15 Canadian
species, from walrus to cougars.
The worm enters the gastro-intestinal system, then migrates to other
parts of the body. Most patients have few or relatively mild symptoms,
but it can sometimes cause serious complications, including cardiac
infections and brain damage. It used to be found widely in pork, but
farming practices have more or less eliminated that threat in the
industrialized world, Dr. Dupouy-Camet said.
The disease is endemic in northern Canada, though. The rate of 11
cases per 100,000 in the native population is 200 times the national
Canadian rate, according to a paper just published in the online
journal Eurosurveilance by the French physician and Alvin Gajadhar, a
Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) veterinarian.
It is most common for Inuit to contract the disease from eating
walrus, which they consume fermented, frozen or air-dried, as opposed
to bear, which they cook.
The five French sailors, on the yacht Baloum Gwen, were crossing the
NorthWest Passage from the Aleutian Islands west of Alaska to
Greenland in the east. The contamination was traced back to grizzly
bear meat they ate -- barbecued or pan-fried -- in the Cambridge Bay
area of Nunavut. All five got sick.
For the second time in four years, health authorities in France have
identified an outbreak of the parasitical illness trichinosis from an
unusual source: bear meat devoured by French travellers in northern
Canada.
The grizzly that ended up as steaks, stew and even "grizzly-bear
Bolognese" had been threatening an Inuit camp on the Nunavut shore
when it was shot by rangers, with the carcass later divided up among
locals and visitors.
In 2005, 19 French travellers got sick after eating black bear in
Labrador, while two others caught trichinosis from a polar bear in
Greenland a few years earlier.
A Paris-based expert who investigated the outbreaks attributes the
spate of bear-meat illness among his compatriots to the French
culinary penchant for trying unconventional meats, and either eating
them raw or cooking them very little.
One of the French adventurers -- on a sailing trip across the Arctic
-- ended up hospitalized for 11 days after digesting the tainted food
in September, though she avoided the most serious heart and brain
complications of the infection.
"It's quite fascinating to see that French people seem quite fond of
bear meat," Dr. Jean Dupouy-Camet, head of a trichinosis-tracking
program, said in an interview from Paris. "French people travelling
abroad like to consume exotic meats ... [And] they are usually fond of
raw meat: steak tartare."
But the latest episode was not confined to the French sailors. Members
of another North-West Passage sailing expedition, headed by a
Canadian, ate some of the same meat and two of them also became ill.
"It was an odd thing. We ate the bear, and the grizzly kind of came
back to haunt us," said Cameron Dueck, a Manitoba native who led the
Open Passage expedition. "It was incredible cramping of muscles, and
real fever: freezing and sweating, freezing and sweating."
Mr. Dueck, who lives in Hong Kong, said he had only just finished drug
therapy for the infection.
Meanwhile, newly published federal research indicates the parasite
worm that causes the disease, trichinella, is present in 15 Canadian
species, from walrus to cougars.
The worm enters the gastro-intestinal system, then migrates to other
parts of the body. Most patients have few or relatively mild symptoms,
but it can sometimes cause serious complications, including cardiac
infections and brain damage. It used to be found widely in pork, but
farming practices have more or less eliminated that threat in the
industrialized world, Dr. Dupouy-Camet said.
The disease is endemic in northern Canada, though. The rate of 11
cases per 100,000 in the native population is 200 times the national
Canadian rate, according to a paper just published in the online
journal Eurosurveilance by the French physician and Alvin Gajadhar, a
Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) veterinarian.
It is most common for Inuit to contract the disease from eating
walrus, which they consume fermented, frozen or air-dried, as opposed
to bear, which they cook.
The five French sailors, on the yacht Baloum Gwen, were crossing the
NorthWest Passage from the Aleutian Islands west of Alaska to
Greenland in the east. The contamination was traced back to grizzly
bear meat they ate -- barbecued or pan-fried -- in the Cambridge Bay
area of Nunavut. All five got sick.
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