Prime Energy drinks pulled from Canadian shelves — but how did they even get here?
CBC
The recall of a highly caffeinated energy drink is raising questions about how the cans of Prime Energy that violated Canada's health regulations got onto store shelves in the first place.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said Tuesday it is recalling cans of Prime Energy that contain 200 milligrams of caffeine after CBC News reported they were being sold in stores in at least three provinces.
Health Canada's limit for such drinks is 180 milligrams of caffeine. Other brands of energy drinks are also part of the recall.
One food law expert says, most often, items that violate Canada's health regulations were exported by foreign manufacturers who don't know the rules.
"[They might be] unaware of the limits of caffeine or is unaware that certain food additives are not harmonized," between Canada and the U.S., for example, said Glenford Jameson, a lawyer and partner at G.S. Jameson & Co. in Toronto.
It would be up to a distributor to restrict the access, he says.
But with e-commerce, that can get tricky. Jameson says big online retailers have struggled to follow regulations, but that the industry has seen improvements in making sure products follow each country's standards.
Another common way is through a third country.
A manufacturer might sell its product into another territory, where a distributor or merchant ends up exporting it to Canada, without letting the manufacturer know.
"They've created this product, [it's] deemed not to be safe or at least not compliant in Canada, yet it's arriving here, and so then how do they manage that?" he said. "It's a really difficult problem."
CBC News purchased a 200-milligram can of Prime Energy at a store in Montreal on Wednesday. Workers there said it was imported from the U.S.
Prime said previously it "complies with federal regulations" in its markets but was unable to explain the presence of the drinks in Canada. The cans with 200 milligrams of caffeine are intended for the U.S. market. The company claims to have a Canadian version with 140 milligrams of caffeine.
Prime did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the recall notice.
Jameson says, even though food and drinks are supposed to be regulated at the border, agencies often miss items.
A decision over how the provincial government regulates moose hunting in a First Nation's traditional territory now rests with a Manitoba judge, whose ruling will be precedent-setting, lawyers in the case say.
A teenager diagnosed with bird flu in British Columbia is the first domestically acquired human case of H5N1 avian influenza, the Public Health Agency of Canada says.
The Manitoba government made a "political compromise" in its decision to issue a reduced number of moose hunting licences to non-Indigenous hunters in northern parts of the province earlier this year, a lawyer representing a First Nation in the area has argued in court.
If it weren't for a stem cell transplant — less than half a cup of blood from a stranger's umbilical cord — four-year-old Tristan Ford would almost certainly have died as an infant, his parents say.
A Métis saddle from the early 1800s is at the centre of an exhibit that opened last month at a Swiss museum, along with contemporary beadwork created by other Red River Métis artists.
A dome-shaped device floating in Halifax's Northwest Arm could easily be confused with a buoy, but it is actually a contraption meant to turn ocean water into fresh water.
As of Tuesday, there are limits on the number of bottles of spirits a person can buy at the B.C. Liquor store in Tofino, a move that leaders of the Ahousaht First Nation were pushing for.
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
Mohawk code talkers and their missions were so vital during the Second World War, that some believe without them, there was no way of winning of the war.
Two feisty ferret babies in Virginia are being hailed as a symbol of hope for the future of their species.
On day one of Donald Trump's presidency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he'll be advising Trump to take fluoride out of public water. The former independent presidential hopeful — and prominent proponent of debunked public health claims — has been told he'll be put in charge of health initiatives in the new Trump administration. He's described fluoride as "industrial waste."