FREDERICTON - As the death toll rose Tuesday from the national listeriosis outbreak, an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal slammed the federal government for undermining public health safeguards.

An elderly woman in New Brunswick became the 17th person whose death has been linked to the recall of food products from a Maple Leaf Foods (TSX:MFI) plant in Toronto. It is the first confirmed case east of Ontario.

The New Brunswick Health Department said Tuesday that the woman, in her early 80s, was infected with the same strain of listeria involved in the country-wide outbreak -- which the CMAJ editorial commented on when it was released on Tuesday.

"As in the Walkerton and SARS epidemics, an outbreak of this size may point to systemic failures across multiple levels," states the editorial in the latest edition of the journal, referring to a deadly water contamination eight years ago in Walkerton, Ont.

"Listeria is the biological agent, cold cuts the vector, but the ultimate cause may be found in risky government decisions."

The editorial, signed by several doctors and journal editors, states that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has reversed much of the progress previous governments made in relation to public health.

The editorial takes aim at the Conservative government's decision to transfer inspection duties for ready-to-eat meats to the meat industry itself, while allowing listeria standards to remain lower than they are in most countries and stripping the Public Health Agency of Canada of much of its political clout.

The editorial also makes the case for a full-scale, arms-length public inquiry similar to those for the tainted blood scandal, Walkerton and the SARS epidemic, rather than the investigation called for by the Harper government.

"A full-scale public inquiry into the major failings of Canada's food inspection system is necessary to protect Canadians from future epidemic threats, and the Canadian public should settle for nothing less than that," the editorial states.

The woman's death in New Brunswick is the first such fatality in Atlantic Canada.

Dr. Eilish Cleary, New Brunswick's acting chief medical officer of health, said listeriosis was a contributing factor in the woman's death.

"Listeriosis is considered a contributing factor but it is not likely the immediate cause of death," she said, adding the woman had been seriously ill with other afflictions.

Cleary said the nursing home where the woman had been living did serve a Maple Leaf product that was on the recall list. But she said there is no way of knowing if the woman was infected at the nursing home because she had access to food outside the facility.

Cleary refused to release the name of the woman or the name of the nursing home. She also wouldn't reveal the region of New Brunswick where the nursing home is located.

"The risk is very low," Cleary said, defending the government department's secrecy in the case.

"It is important if you get sick to be diagnosed and treated but there is no preventative medication of early diagnosis that can be done ahead of time. The risk in this facility is no greater than it is anywhere else."

Cleary said the health department will not compromise patient confidentiality even when a person is dead, unless there is a good reason for the public to be given information.

New Brunswick typically has two to three cases of listeriosis every year, but this is the first and only case in the province since Maple Leaf Foods began a massive recall of deli meats last month due to fears of contamination.

A Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto, where the listeria bacterium was found embedded deep inside slicing equipment, has been closed since Aug. 20.

Health officials in Prince Edward Island are awaiting test results from a Winnipeg laboratory on a man hospitalized with listeriosis earlier this month.