curious and curioser: Chinese meats in our food?

Metro Detroit

Bird flu sleuths sent out

Poultry precaution: 300 sites targeted

July 13, 2006

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER and KIM NORRIS

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

Officials aren't sure how much poultry allegedly smuggled into the United States from areas of China affected by the avian flu outbreak made its way into southeast Michigan's Chinese restaurants, Asian markets and residential kitchens.

But they plan to find out.

State agriculture workers and county and local health inspectors are fanning out to 300 Chinese restaurants and Asian grocery stores to search for the frozen poultry -- geese, ducks and chickens with intestines still intact -- distributed by a Troy wholesaler, the Tinsway Co., at the center of the controversy.

It's an incident that raises questions about the purity of the food supply, given the nation's global food network, and what steps people can take to protect themselves.

Officials said as long as the food was cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, it should not have presented a threat.

"The food supply is safe," said Brad Deacon, emergency management coordinator for the Michigan Department of Agriculture. "We have seen no indication that any of this material was contaminated with avian influenza."

But he and other state agriculture officials conceded that there's no way to know for sure because federal inspectors destroyed all of the poultry they recovered without testing it.

The owner of the 7-year-old Troy company where the poultry was shipped, Wei Zhi Hou, insisted in a telephone interview Wednesday that none of the poultry he purchased from a supplier in New York had been smuggled from China.

"We don't buy chicken or duck from China," Hou said. He called the investigation a "misunderstanding."

Hou, 46, who goes by Wilson, came to the United States 20 years ago from China. He couldn't explain why he was certain the poultry was legal. Hou said he was in the Toronto area to help a friend open a restaurant and denied that he had left the country to avoid inspectors -- contrary to authorities' assertion that he disappeared in late June. He said he plans to return to Troy on Friday.

Hou's accountant, Christine Jen of Troy, said she has known Hou since 1991.

"He's a very responsible person," she said. "I don't think he would knowingly smuggle meat from China, but I also don't think he understands how serious this situation is."

Jen said Hou struggles with English and has a hard time communicating. She said she planned to call him to encourage him to return immediately to meet with authorities.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is investigating Hou, said Wednesday that it seized 1,940 pounds of illegal poultry believed to be from China from the warehouse on June 5 and destroyed it. It said testing would have served no food safety purpose.

State officials found out federal inspectors were in Michigan June 22 after one stopped by the Genesee County Clerk's Office to report that inspectors had just checked a Chinese carryout restaurant Hou once owned in Flint.

Genesee County health officials then alerted state and county authorities that federal inspectors were looking for smuggled flu-contaminated poultry in southeast Michigan.

The USDA said federal and state inspectors returned to the warehouse at the state's request on June 27, and found and impounded five boxes of illegal products, including goose intestines and pig carcasses.

State and federal inspectors returned July 5 to pick up and destroy the items, but discovered that the goose intestines had been swapped with chicken parts, which authorities then destroyed with the pig carcasses. The USDA said it is conducting a criminal probe of the swapped goose intestines.

On July 6, state inspectors seized and destroyed about 1,600 pounds of meat, poultry and other animal products because of state food violations, not because they suspected it was smuggled from China, state officials said.

Officials have said the smuggled poultry was packed in unlabeled boxes or boxes labeled as tilapia fish.

Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490 or ashenf@freepress.com. Staff writer Sylvia Rector contributed to this report.