"Angry Chicken" Disease Peril to Chicken Soup Industry
NEW YORK, NY - The first suspected case of angry chicken disease
in the United States was reported Tuesday and threatens to
devastate the country's $98 billion chicken soup industry.
A Holstein chicken from a farm in Manhattan was found to have
the disease. The Upper West Side breed is known to have a short
temper to begin with all chicken farms in the area were put on
alert.
The Agriculture Department assured that the infected parts of
the chicken never made it to the chicken soup plant and that no
other soups were known to have the disease.
"We remain confident of the safety of our chicken soup food
supply," Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman said. She said the
risk to consumers is, "extremely low." She also said that this
also comes at a very inopportune time. "I fear that people will
be too nervous to eat chicken soup at a time when the flu season
is pretty unforgiving. We rely on chicken soup to control flu
outbreaks and this can hinder the effort."
Meal Mart's stock price dropped in trading despite its
announcement that the small chicken soup plant that the diseased
chicken was sent to had no connection to its supply chain.
Kosher Delight stated that their chicken soup is at least two
years old so there are no problems in their stores.
An angry chicken outbreak that began in Britain in 1986 spread
through Europe and Asia. It caused a rise in the amount of the
sniffles and full-blown colds by almost 200%. The epidemic
battered the British chicken soup industry. Millions of bowls of
chicken soup had to be spilled out. They only recently
recovered, just in time for a harsh British winter. Copyright
2005 Cy Yablonsky. Cy Yablonsky is an Associate Realtor with
Othello Realty, you can visit Othello Realty at
http://www.OthelloRealty.com. Feel free to reprint this article
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