Bird-flu risk 'in hands of consumers'
Consumer demand will be allowed to dictate the number of live chickens sold in Hong Kong but any live poultry presents a risk of bird flu, Health and Food Secretary Yeoh Eng-kiong said yesterday.
Dr Yeoh was talking at the opening of the Asia Pacific Conference on Food Security at Tsim Sha Tsui, where he told international delegates that the government had proposed a second rest day in wet markets to reduce the risk of avian flu.
'The proposals will only mitigate the risk, so at the end of the day it will be up to consumers as to how much live fowl or chilled chicken will be stocked,' Dr Yeoh said.
'So if very few people choose chilled chicken the risk will be greater. We would then have to implement appropriate measures.'
The conference was organised by global watchdog Consumers International whose president, Louise Sylvan, said that if Hong Kong could not offer protection against avian flu they would have to ban live chickens or introduce tougher regulations governing their sale.
'Your population's health has to be the main concern,' Ms Sylvan said. 'If they cannot handle the problem then they have to say is this risk worth it?'
The latest outbreak of bird flu early this year hit 22 farms in Yuen Long, leading to the slaughter of 950,000 chickens.
A team which conducted a comprehensive investigation into the disease reported last May that if chickens continued to be freshly slaughtered in wet markets, there would always be a risk of outbreaks, and a risk to humans.
Consumer Council statistics revealed there were 98 complaints against food and drink companies for poor hygiene or quality in the first six months of this year, compared with 178 in 2001 and 190 in 2000.
Health Department figures show 2,707 people suffered food poisoning last year, up from 2,452 in 2000.
The conference also addressed concerns about the push for genetically modified food, which Ms Sylvan said was led by a handful of companies whose goal was to 'whitewash' the community into believing GM was necessary to feed the world.
'The fact is that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. Hunger is not due to a lack of food, it is due to a lack of access caused by poor distribution, misdirection of resources or corruption,' she said.
'We are expecting serious problems with GM. We are asking governments to slow down in their race to be on top of biotechnology because the certainties to the environment and global health are quite low.'
