AR-News: (JP) Chicken farm owners say they're sorry, deny cover-up

[A. Sachiko]

Chicken farm owners say they're sorry, deny cover-up 
The Asahi Shimbun 
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200403030135.html
 
HIMEJI, Hyogo Prefecture-The owners of the poultry farm at the center of the 
latest avian flu scare denied Tuesday they had tried to offload their stock as 
realization of mass infection set in. 

Hideaki Asada, president of Asada Nosan, and his father, Hajimu, who is 
chairman of the company, met with reporters Tuesday to apologize for causing 
problems. They insisted there was no intention of a cover-up and tried to 
deflect criticism over their failure to stop shipments of poultry products. 

Asada Nosan operates the Funai Nojo farm in Kyoto Prefecture where tens of 
thousands of chickens have died from avian flu. 

``We had no experience in handling an unexpected occurrence and we made errors 
in dealing with the situation,'' said the father. 

When asked why the company waited until after thousands of chickens had died 
before informing Kyoto prefectural officials, Hajimu Asada, ``We had no 
intention of covering it up.'' 

According to his son, the company asked officials of Arinobe, a slaughterhouse 
in Yachiyo, Hyogo Prefecture, on Feb. 23 to process about 200,000 live chickens. 

As for the deaths of chickens at his farm, Asada said he had assumed it was 
from enteritis, not avian flu. 

About 9,900 chickens were shipped to the slaughterhouse on Feb. 25 and 26, but 
his stock kept dying before they could be processed. Asada Nosan finally told 
Arinobe officials it wanted to stop the shipments, but the slaughterhouse 
replied it had already set aside space to process the chickens. Asada said the 
company then considered shipping chickens from its Himeji farm. 

Arinobe officials said they contacted Asada Nosan officials after chickens 
began dying before being processed. Asada Nosan explained that the chickens had 
come down with enteritis and had become weak because workers had failed to give 
the birds sufficient water. 

In the wake of the recent revelations, the Japan Poultry Association dismissed 
Hajimu Asada from his post as vice chairman. Asada also resigned as head of the 
Hyogo prefectural poultry association.(IHT/Asahi: March 3,2004) (03/03)