The turkeys were doomed anyway, so the discovery they had a "mild strain of bird flu" didn't seal their fate, which had already been hermetically sealed. The birds showed no sign of illness. The evidence for infection came from finding the presence of antibodies to the low pathogenic strain prior to being sent to slaughter. The US Department of Agriculture reassured everyone: no human has ever caught bird flu after eating properly cooked poultry or eggs. So who cares? It turns out lots of people in the poultry industry elsewhere care a great deal:
But officials in Japan, Russia, Turkey, the Philippines and Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong, are taking no chances. Karen Eggert, with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, confirmed Thursday that those countries have barred all poultry and related products, such as eggs, coming from Nebraska."This ban and other emergency measures were necessary to protect human health and the poultry industry in the Philippines," Arthur Yap, agriculture secretary for the Asian country, said in a news release issued Tuesday.
Yap ordered inspectors at the country's major airports and seaports to confiscate all poultry shipments from Nebraska and Virginia, which last month faced a domestic band on live poultry sales after 54,000 turkeys tested positive for avian flu antibodies. (AP)
This low pathogenic virus is of concern because all the high pathogenic viruses probably started out life as low path variants. That's one of the reasons agriculture officials in other countries don't take chances. In this case there most likely was [no] public health issue, even if the turkeys had entered the food supply. But the USDA's Eggert was also misleading in the way she minimized the public health aspect. We've discussed it pretty often here, but to summarize, the claim that there is no risk from eating "properly cooked poultry or eggs" is not the point. There is no risk of salmonella from eating properly cooked poultry, either, but we have tens of thousands of foodborne salmonella infections yearly. And many people handle the food prior to "proper cooking," and we know from the H5N1 experience in Asia that handling, and sometimes eating, infected poultry is one of the principal ways people contract avian influenza infection, which is fatal more than half the time.
The USDA has a built in conflict because it both regulates and promotes the food industry. The confusion is clearly seen in this statement by USDA.
Time to separate these two roles.
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I think this was a typo, and you meant to say "was no public health". In any case, your point was clear.
Was there a time when some federal agencies had as their primary concern and objective their direct effect on general public welfare? I seem to remember such a time, but it may have been youthful naiveness.
Jim: Yes, typo, now corrected. Thanks. I am on the road and grabbing internet connections where I can find them (in this case a Days Inn) but posting under these conditions is more challenging than usual, so mistakes are more frequent. I appreciate the help.
As per usual, the USDA is serving up the information 'sunny-side up' - which is a good way to acquire an infection from salmonell and H5N1. This dish is just dripping with irony sauce. (Irony sauce originated in the Kansas region in the US)
Big Bussiness again...All in the name of (protecting the citizens from panic) their town crier is getting a little hoarse. They (poultry industry stock holders) should get bird flu first...Money wont mean a darn thing then...