A Solution To Every Problem

"We invented this technology to make  the apples safer -- and that's when our business grew substantially."
"We are not in the mask business. But when the news came out about a mask shortage we thought, well, if they need something to clean the masks -- we could clean them -- and because of all our work with food safety we had about a five-year running start at this."
"You never know where you are going to end up in life."
"It is kind of a simple story, really, about a guy who loved being a farmer, who had a farm selling candy apples and ran into a problem and fixed it -- for fruits and vegetables -- with something that also happened to work on viruses."
Paul Moyer, farmer, co-owner Clean Works

This man, 54, and his brother operate farms next to each other on land that has been in their family for the past 200 years, handed down from generation to generation. His is the most current generation to farm the land, a 130-acre piece of rural Ontario hard by Beamsville, Ontario. Aside from farming, Mr. Moyer produces a sweet-tooth favourite; candy apples. They're popular not just as traditional fare at fairs, but they can also be found, labelled as Moyers Apple Products, that retail what is called gourmet sweets products.

Back in 2015 a deadly listeria infectious outbreak made news in California. The listeria infection was traced back to candy apples, and although not directly implicating the Moyers Apple Products, publicity about the deadly infection threatened the thriving business, leading the Moyers family to consult with each other to find a solution to the problem of bacterial contamination. Although listeria can be found in any type of food, milk products, meat, processed meat and unpasteurized milk, it also infects fresh fruits and vegetables, picking up the bacterium from the soil.

Well, it might not be practical to try to sanitize whole arable fields, but focusing on the products out of the fields could work. They decided to consult with Professor Keith Warriner, a food scientist at University of Guelph, and with his help a purpose-specific mechanical device was designed and produced which would effectively sterilize fresh fruits and vegetables. The device makes use of ultraviolet light, hydrogen-peroxide gas and ozone.

Named the Clean Flow Mini the machine is 99.99 effective in killing pathogens, listeria included, along with mould and mildew. Out of its successful production came a new pathway for the agro-business-involved family. The Clean Flow Mini is in demand on other farms, having been given attention through awards causing it to be adopted by the industry. A decade ago, five employees prepared the Moyer products. At the present time, up to 30 people work at production.

Finally, while the world threatened to spin off its axis since the SARS-CoV-2 virus began haunting global populations and people were dying in untold numbers from a terrifying new global pandemic, amidst a frantic search for personal protection equipment for health workers vulnerable to the infectious disease in their physical proximity to sufferers, it occurred to Paul Moyer that he could offer help.

iStock.com/gpointstudio

His sanitizing machine, so proficiently effective with vegetables and fruits could also disinfect sanitary masks worn by health professionals, partially solving a critical shortage of the N-95 gold-standard masks. He and his team of employees began placing used masks well steeped in a host of viruses into the Clean Flow Mini to cleanse them. the mini has the capacity to clean 800 masks hourly, and it has been renamed appropriately enough, the "health-care mini".

It has been approved by Health Canada and now the production line that would spit out a single unit weekly for farmers, now produces 15 of the units every week, to fill a backlog of 75 orders with more expected -- to supply hospitals, long-term care homes and the Department of National Defence with the efficient and effective little cleansing machine.

The Clēan Flow Health Care Mini can sanitize up to 800 N95 masks per hour, the company says. (Clean Works)

"These guys at the NRC [National Research Council] and Health Canada, they worked the past two weeks, I would say 24/7, with us to validate and ensure that the technology provides the health-care workers with the solutions that they need."
"It was quite an extensive walk that we did but, again, it was to get a solution out there to health care providers."
"You can move it from boardroom to boardroom, if that's what's required, or from floor to floor in hospitals and institutions."
"It's not a big, bulky machine of any sort. It's very portable. That's the way that we designed it."


Mark VanderVeen, president and CEO, Clean Works

Patronizing Mature Women

"[,,,Many women who desire sterilization at a young age experience barriers from physicians who decline to facilitate the request."
"...A woman who is child-free and wishes to remain so is less likely to regret sterilization than a mother who wants no additional children."
Drs. Dustin Costescu and Dylan Ehman, McMaster University Medical Centre, Hamilton

"It's unclear if this [chafing against the universal belief that women are meant to be mothers] is more women choosing to be child-free, or increased comfort in advocating [for sterilization]."
"Often these women have other role models in their life who are also child-free. They may be aunts or people in senior positions in their workplace -- role models who demonstrate they can meet all of their other life goals without having children."
Dr. Dustin Costescu, Family planning specialist

"I personally have zero worries about the risk of regret. I actually don't remember a time when I've had a parental instinct [other than with animals]."
"[I have experienced] the typical comments about how I'll change my mind, and that I'm 'too young to know what I want'. I've had doctors, all men, simply laugh off the situation and my concerns and tell me I'm not ready to make that decision [even though I have medical issues with my uterus and cervix]."
Anonymous 26-year-old woman awaiting tubal ligation at McMaster University Medical Centre

National Post

Certainly the observations made by the two doctors who co-authored a paper published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada know of what they speak when they refer to the 'paternalistic attitude' of male doctors confronted with requests by young women for sterilization, explaining to them that they will regret their decision at some time in the future, refusing to perform the procedure on the basis that 'doctor knows best'. But then Dr. Costescu falls into the same trap himself when he speaks of role models as leading young women into such decisions.

The fact being that by the age of majority women in their 20s and 30s should be regarded as sufficiently mature to have of their own agency reached their own conclusions about whether they foresee childbearing in their future as a choice for them personally. To his great credit, however, Dr. Costescu will not refuse such requests, basing his position on the fact that he believes women approaching him to take advantage of his professional capabilities as a doctor, have every right for their requests to be honoured.

He and his colleague, Dr. Ehman, wrote their article in response to what they see as their professional colleagues in refusing to conduct sterilization procedures on women who request them with full consideration respecting the fall-out are doing these women an injustice. Those women who have convinced themselves for whatever reason that motherhood is not and never will be a goal that appeals to them have the right to due consideration, as far as these two doctors are concerned.

And Dr. Costescu, as a family planning specialist and assistant professor, states without equivocation that any woman seeking to permanently prevent pregnancy and with no contraindications or medical reasons that might complicate sterilization should be -- as he does himself -- considered an appropriate candidate for the procedure of sterilization.

Professional guidelines, in fact, clearly state that well-informed, mentally competent women knowledgeable of birth control options and the resulting "permanency of the procedure", should be respected in their wish for sterilization, irrespective of age or birth history. The two doctors reviewed medical records of 29 women under age 30 on a wait-list for sterilization at Dr. Costescu's clinic to find that most had reported their experience in previously seeking the process elsewhere as demeaning.

Illustration, Mikey Burton. Chatelaine

Doctors consistently refused to perform the requested procedure, or would not refer the women to someone else in the profession who would provide sterilization for them. Among the women were some who related they were recommended the services of a psychiatrist to evaluate their requests, the implication being it is "pathological" to wish voluntarily to close out motherhood prospects for the future.

The surgery itself uses clips placed across the Fallopian tubes through laparocopic (minimally-invasive) laser surgery; alternately cutting away a part, or all of the tubes in their entirety, preventing the potential of a mature egg reaching the uterus to become fertilized. Fallopian tubes can be reopened, untied or reconnected with the traditional form of "tubal" ligation, though a reversal is no guarantee that pregnancy will ensue.

The study revealed that some of the women presented with medical conditions that could be risky for pregnancies while others had carried pregnancies to fruition and with children felt their families were complete and had no wish for additional offspring, while a third of the women studied had never gone through a pregnancy. Surgical risks in this generally safe and effective procedure include excess bleeding and infection with a complication rate of under two percent. Considered a minor surgery, it is performed under full anaesthetic.

A previous review undertaken in the United States involved over 11,000 women who'd received permanent sterilization in the 1970s and 80s, finding that fourteen years later the risk of regret was 20 percent in those 30 or younger at sterilization, and 6 percent for women over age 30. For women who had never had a child, compared with women who'd borne at least one, regret was lower.

As for the woman quoted above whose identity was not revealed on request, her partner is fully in support of her decision not to bear children. New Canadian guidelines recommend no restrictions on the basis of age, while according to Dr. Costescu, who had a hand in authoring the new guidelines, other doctors inform women in his practice they must await age 30 before they will be accommodated.