Asian Chicken Feet and Avian Flu

(Cleveland, Ohio) On Thursday, the Ohio Department of Agriculture issued warnings to local health departments regarding illegal chicken feet after seizing five frozen packages from the Dong Duong grocery in Cleveland. According to Paul Panico, the Agriculture Department Food Safety Chief, chicken feet were also found in three Columbus stores and another in Franklin County. Food King Inc. of West Haven, Connecticut, imported more than four tons of the chicken feet from Thailand labeled as jellyfish and distributed the product to 68 stores in 11 states.

The federal government banned imports of Asian poultry and poultry products last year to prevent the possible spread of avian flu. The flu has been blamed for deaths in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam within the past year and medical experts fear a possible worldwide pandemic. The virus spreads rapidly, jumping directly from birds to humans, and kills an astonishing 70% of humans infected (33 deaths in 45 cases reported in 2004). Very disturbing is the report of one case where a Vietnamese boy apparently had the avian flu not only in his lungs but also throughout his body. And, even though over 100 million birds have been slaughtered, the flu continues to spread.

Companies are urgently working to develop a human vaccine for avian flu, known as H5-influenza, or H5N1. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) distributed an avian flu virus strain to major vaccine manufacturers all over the world to develop a Pandemic Influenza Vaccine.