Smuggled Chicken Feet Could Carry Bird Flu.........

Smuggled Chicken Feet Could Carry Bird Flu
11 States Warned About Asian Delicacy

POSTED: 11:31 am EST March 4, 2005
UPDATED: 11:45 am EST March 4, 2005

<http://www.nbc4.com/healtharchives/4254107/detail.html>

QUOTE:

"CLEVELAND -- Health officials are putting 11 states on the lookout for boneless chicken feet -- an Asian delicacy the government says was illegally smuggled into the country.

The government banned imports of birds and poultry products from Asia last year because of bird flu.

Officials are visiting hundreds of Asian restaurants and markets in Ohio to explain the health risks."

....snip....

"Besides Ohio, affected states are Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin."

Feet, beaks, fat, asshole.......I thought that's what McNuggets were made from. I'm not eating Chinese for a LONG time.

Just a random thought that perhaps I should've kept to myself. Wahing your hands helps prevent the spread of contagious viruses. So, if you wash all your boneless chicken ft? On the other hand, viruses will someday rule the world, scary thought for we humans.

People who caught the bird flu from birds were spending LOTS of time in close contact with live (but sick) birds, such as the little girl who slept with ducks every other night.

Diners get cooked chicken feet. Eating is no more dangerous than eating any other cooked meat.

It's remotely possible that a food preparer might contract the bird flu from handling lots of uncooked feet from infected chickens. But he'd have to accumulate a certain amount of infected tissue first.

Unless people are powdering raw chicken feet and snorting lines in the bathroom, I don't see chicken feet playing much of a role.




Sounds like the officials are just ticked off that somebody is breaking their new rule.

...the Avian Flu from eating chicken about a month before.

Sounds like we should consider all potential sources of the Avian Flu before summarily dismissing them out of hand.

But the whole art of risk-management lies understanding the probabilities that a given risk poses. This is because there are literally thousands of potential threats to one's well-being everyday. Unless one has unlimited resources, overguarding is just as bad as underguarding.



The actual source of bird flu is known. It's a virus. It's a particularly nasty virus. But it's a virus nonetheless.

I agree with you that one would be wise to consider all potential vectors of transmission.

Since most of us don't raise birds, the biggest vector we have to worry about is person-to-person contact. Considering the number of colds and regular flu cases we collectively catch each year from ordinary vectors, the exotic food vector ranks pretty low in the big picture.

One case of potentially ingested transmission is worth noting. I never advocated dismissing anything.

However, considering all the virii that get passed around on doorknobs, handshakes, faucet handles, banisters, elevator buttons, flying boogers, cough splatter, and kisses, my own risk analysis suggests I should worry about other things first before worrying about a cooked food.

You'd have a better chance of catching bird flu from a fellow diner who recently travelled to an infected area than from cooked chicken feet.

Not all chicken feet are imported, let alone smuggled. Most chicken feet comes from American poultry farms (which can be nasty for an unrelated reason).

And how many of us here eat chicken feet regularly anyway? Most folks I know eat it only occassionally, if at all.





And if any diners suspect a restaurant isn't cooking chicken feet thoroughly, that alone is enough to warrant eating elsewhere... bird flu or no bird flu.

if a food handler got it from chicken feet, that food handler could pass it on to diners the usual transmission routes. Once more humans get it, we are screwed, that's the problem.

Bat Dung
and Seabird Guano
http://homeharvest.com/guano.htm

See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4305813.stm

Excerpt:

Tuesday, 1 March, 2005

Millions of doses of drugs to ward off a flu pandemic are to be stockpiled, the government has announced.

It said without the antiviral drugs an outbreak could kill 50,000 in the UK.

Experts say a pandemic is inevitable and will probably emerge in Asia if bird flu mutates with human flu, creating a highly infectious new virus.

The UK Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan also includes quarantine measures, as well as arrangements for the emergency services.

forward to the time when those too weak to be cogs in the wealth generating machines of industry will surcumb to this flu, die, and stop using resources so they can lower taxes for the top 1% again.*

* not nearly as long a sentence as Pitt pulled off last night, but getting there.