BIRD FLU Asian poultry enters U.S., despite ban

Some fear the virus could stay alive in frozen birds.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
WASHINGTON -- Chinese-grown poultry, banned in the United States out of fear of spreading diseases, is nonetheless reaching markets and restaurants in the United States after escaping detection at borders.
Outbreaks of bird flu in Asia have led the government to step up its anti-smuggling operations. In a two-month period this fall, the government seized 165,000 pounds of Asian poultry, according to figures compiled in the Department of Agriculture.
No bird-flu virus was found in the prohibited items, which included frozen chickens, ducks, pigeons and poultry parts prized by Asians for cooking. The H5N1 avian influenza virus can stay alive in frozen products, leading some to fear that infected birds could be a conduit for the disease.
That's why the government is working to shut down pathways by which the disease might enter the United States and pose threats to the nation's $28.9 billion poultry industry -- and potentially to people.
Recent discoveries point to the broad scope of the smuggling problem, according to internal government documents.
Recent seizures
Working with the Customs and Border Protection Service, U.S. Agriculture Department agents recently seized 27,000 pounds of smuggled frozen poultry from China in a single operation at Port Elizabeth, N.J.
Sometimes, the poultry arrives in mislabeled containers.
For instance, ducks and chicken products from China seized in New York City in September reached the United States in packages labeled "dried lily flower," inspection reports show. Duck eggs removed by agents from the same location were labeled "prune slices."
The government agents are targeting both wholesale and retail operations. In Brooklyn this month, a container labeled "vegetables" held 30,000 pounds of preserved duck eggs along with prohibited rice and citrus bound for a warehouse. Everything was seized.
At a Philadelphia warehouse Nov. 3, inspectors took away 3,000 pounds of frozen squabs (young pigeons) and goose intestines smuggled from China.
A series of raids at Asian restaurants in Chicago this month turned up more of the Chinese squabs along with up to 50 pounds of frozen goose parts.
Not all of the prohibited poultry comes from China: At a Thai grocery in Chicago in October, agents seized 57 pounds of chicken feet and duck feet that originated in Thailand, among the Asian countries where the virus has been found, according to inspection records.
The seizures are not made public by the government.
Increased efforts
But Scott Sanner, national coordinator of the Agriculture Department's Smuggling, Interdiction and Trade Compliance program, acknowledged during an interview that his agency has increased its efforts in recent months in response to the spread of the flu virus in Asia.
He described the challenges of stopping the smuggling and said he welcomes tips from the public to a toll-free hot line, (800) 877-3835.
"We've seen a significant increase in containers arriving from some of these countries," he said. "There are a lot of these containers coming in every day, and the resources are very limited as to how many of them can be looked at. So there is stuff that will get through."
The Agriculture Department is among federal agencies seeking to prevent arrival of the flu virus, which experts worry will mutate into a form that spreads easily among people.
Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns asked Congress for $91 million for several programs to protect the nation against the virus.
About $9 million would be spent to combat smuggling, money that Sanner said would enable his unit to hire more inspectors, conduct more surveillance and do the coast-to-coast police work needed to uncover smuggling plots by increasingly sophisticated operators.
Agriculture specialists
The Agriculture Department's anti-smuggling unit provided key information that enabled Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, to make seizures of the prohibited poultry at three ports recently.
Nonetheless, several government agriculture specialists said they wish that Customs and Border Protection -- which emphasizes stopping terrorism -- would put a higher priority on protecting agriculture and conducting special operations designed to halt the poultry smuggling.
The Customs office declined to make anyone available for an interview, citing the sensitivity of its enforcement actions.
But the agency noted that it had hired agriculture specialists to fill vacancies, adding in a statement that those specialists "are more vigilant than ever in addressing the potential threat posed by prohibited imported animals and animal products."
Assessing threat
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control, said he did not have enough information to assess the threat of the imported poultry. But he observed that most of the illnesses in Asian countries occurred after prolonged contact with infected birds.
China last week reported its first human cases of bird flu and said that two people had died from the disease, blamed for about 70 deaths since 2003 in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia.
"There's no indication whatsoever that anyone has become ill from birds that are properly processed and cooked," he said.Michael Osterholm, a bird flu expert at the University of Minnesota, said he did not view the smuggling as a significant threat because there would be few opportunities for people to come into contact with the live virus even if the poultry turned out to be contaminated.
But Timothy Moore, a Department of Homeland Security contractor and director of federal programs at the National Agriculture Biosecurity Center at Kansas State University, noted that the avian flu virus is so potent that it can remain alive in frozen poultry.
Perceived shortcomings
Moore testified in front of Congress recently about what he regarded as shortcomings in preparation for a bird flu outbreak in the United States, which he expects to occur in 2006.
In an interview, Moore noted that an outbreak could be "catastrophic" to the poultry industry. And he noted that poultry workers would have the most risk of disease.
Moore believes that the federal government should be doing a better job -- from stopping more of the imported poultry at the borders to training government veterinarians to handle an outbreak.
"Avian flu has the potential to be the agriculture sector's Hurricane Katrina," he said.