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I know quite a bit about viruses but very little about the stock market. However there is a person in my lab who has been touting American poultry exporting companies, as a short term stock opportunity, with an evangelical fervor today.

I do not know if this is a wise purchase or not but I throw the proposition out for my fellow freepers to mull over.

I will try to post what I know about the H5N1 outbreak and ping others who can help us understand the market aspects of this situation.

I am concerned that by the time schmoes like me get the word - it's way too late.

Anyway for what it is worth here it is....

[xrp]

great...now chicken prices are going to go up

Well, at least that is good for US chicken farmers

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Cluck

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[sistergoldenhair]

I will try to post what I know about the H5N1 outbreak

This is an influenza (virus) not a "parrot fever", right??

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BANGKOK, Jan 29 (Reuters) -

China denied on Thursday a report by Britain's New Scientist that the avian flu, which has swept through 10 Asian countries and killed eight people, began in the world's most populous nation, probably in the first half of 2003. "It is purely a guess, a groundless guess," China Vice Agriculture Minister Qi Jingfa told reporters in Bangkok. "We have had very strict surveillance."

The New Scientist said on Wednesday an "official cover-up and questionable farming practices" allowed Asia's outbreak of bird flu to turn into an epidemic.

"A combination of official cover-up and questionable farming practices allowed it to turn into the epidemic now under way," the weekly magazine said.

A decision by China's poultry producers to vaccinate birds after an outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 may have been a mistake and could have contributed to the problem, it said.

Hong Kong conducted a mass slaughter of chickens when the H5N1 bird flu killed six people. To protect its poultry, Chinese producers used an inactivated H5N1 virus after the outbreak.

"If the vaccine is not a good match for the virus -- as is the case with the H5N1 strain now sweeping Asia -- it can still replicate, but most animals do not show signs of the disease," the magazine said.

The Chinese vice agriculture minister was in Bangkok to attend a conference on the birdflu crisis that pledged a joint fight against a virus which poses a serious threat to economies and public

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[budwiesest]

Mad cows, sick chickens. I'd be buying futures in "the other white meat".

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Ping

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Ping

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Bird flu continues to spread across Southeast Asia. (Reuters)

Indonesia orders mass bird flu cull

Indonesia on Thursday ordered the immediate killing of all poultry infected with bird flu as it started to fall in line with other Asian nations following pressure from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"However much it will cost, we will help the farmers," said Mr Kalla, adding that culls will be carried out "anywhere" fowls are infected.

He said he believed authorities were aware of guidelines which stipulate that even healthy chickens should be killed on a farm if some birds on that farm are infected.

Indonesia says millions of birds across much of the vast archipelago have been infected.

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KFC Takes Chicken Off the Menu

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- Eight of the nine KFC restaurants in Vietnam, which has stopped some poultry sales to halt its bird flu epidemic, will serve fish and pasta instead of fried chicken when they open Saturday after being closed more than a week. Business fell about 30 percent after people died of bird flu in Vietnam, KFC Vietnam General Director Pornchai Thuratum said.

"We can't find the supply in Ho Chi Minh City, and the government isn't allowing chickens to be transported across provinces, so there was no point in trying to stay open serving chicken," Thuratum said in an interview in Ho Chi Minh City.

The eight Ho Chi Minh City outlets will serve non-chicken dishes for about a month, the amount of time it needs to arrange imports of U.S. chicken, Thuratum said. The outlet in neighboring Dong Nai province has reopened serving local chicken, he said.

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The European Union (news - web sites) said on Monday its ban on poultry imports from Thailand was likely to remain for some time, reflecting fierce criticism of Bangkok's slow response to the outbreak of avian flu.

 It comes just days after Thailand confirmed an outbreak of the highly contagious disease, which has killed a six-year-old Thai boy and six people in Vietnamand threatens to lay waste to large parts of south-east Asia's poultry industry.

Thailand exports 120,000 tonnes of chicken a year to the EU, its second biggest market after Japan.

News of the first fatality in Thailand caused a 3.8 per cent drop in Thai stocks. Thailand is the world's fourth-largest chicken exporter - and the biggest in Asia - and concerns about the economic impact of the disease have left investors jittery.

[mtbopfuyn]

What the heck is going on over there? Every virus or flu seems to originate there.

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  Thursday, January 29, 2004
 Local News

Asia's avian flu outbreak could benefit U.S. industry

By John Vandiver

SALISBURY -- An avian influenza outbreak stretching across much of East Asia, killing tens of millions of chickens, could provide a boost to the U.S. poultry industry as product demands increase in foreign markets.

"Some of the big players are on record as saying they may see increases," said Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council, an industry trade group.

For example, Thailand is a major chicken exporter in Asia, but its products have been banned from the Japanese market. Japan also has banned poultry from Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, all impacted by the virus.

Millions of birds have been slaughtered in the affected countries in an effort to stem the spread of the disease.
David Pogge, president of Mountaire Farms Inc. in Selbyville, said most U.S. chicken producers that export have markets in Asia.