Food and Drug Patrol

On the Spot • Season 2 • Episode 18

About this episode

What is on the spot is the Food and Drug section of the Department of National Health and Welfare, a Canadian governmental agency. Ensuring the health and safety of Canadians, the Food and Drug section deals not only with those items listed in its name but also cosmetics. That work also includes efficacy in ensuring that any claims made by manufacturers is actually what a product does when used as directed. An actual case of a little girl ingesting a toxic amount of fluoride through a contaminated chocolate bar is dramatized, staff at the Food and Drug Directorate who have to go through the painstaking process of determining the cause of her illness, and locating its source so that it can be dealt with and that no one else gets sick from it. The work of the actual inspections unit of the Directorate is then presented. The consumer protection side of the coin concludes the presentation in discussing the work of the non-profit Canadian Association of Consumers.