The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Amid heightened awareness of avian flu, authorities say there should be nothing foul about this year’s Thanksgiving fare.

“There’s absolutely no reason not to have turkey for Thanksgiving,” said Dr. Ron DeHaven, an Agriculture Department official.

Properly cooked poultry poses no public health problem, he said. The H5N1 virus – which infected at least 130 people, killing 67 of them – is killed by heat. Even in the unlikely event that an infected bird were to make its way to a U.S. kitchen, normal food safety would protect you.

“If you cook your turkey or your chicken or your eggs all the way through, there’s not a danger,” said Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Some Americans remain concerned. A poll in mid-October by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a food consumer advocacy group whose members include restaurants and food companies, found that 47 percent of Americans believed they could catch avian flu from eating infected chicken.

Companies that make their profits in poultry aren’t relying on the government to spread the word about food safety. They are preparing ad campaigns, developing Web sites and forming task forces to assure customers.

Following plummeting sales in Asia during the avian flu outbreak, KFC executives told investors and analysts last month that U.S. sales could drop by 10 to 20 percent because of public fears, according to a report by Prudential Equity stock analyst Larry Miller.

The company has started developing television commercials that would stress the safety of KFC chicken products. They spots, says the company, are part of “contingency plans which we hope we will never have to use.”

KFC’s preparations are smart because the company walks the fine line between anticipating customer fears and encouraging them, said Eric Dezenhall, president of Dezenhall Resources, a public relations firm specializing in crisis management.

“The danger in too active communications is you can begin to associate your product with something negative,” he said. “To have something on standby is really an ideal scenario. The key is not to run it too quickly.”

KFC’s preparations are being watched by other businesses, especially those in the $38 billion-a-year retail chicken industry.

Chick-Fil-A would probably deliver information to its customers through its Web site and 800 calls, spokesman Jerry Johnston said. The chain is keeping contact with suppliers and the government, he said. “Anybody would be concerned about instances that could affect their business.”

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits has not yet put information about avian flu in any of its 1,500 U.S. restaurants. But the company has formed a task force “to assess risks for potential impact on our business and to formulate an effective response to those risks,” spokeswoman Alicia Thompson wrote in an e-mail.

On the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, a handful of the 100,000 questions answered annually have been avian-flu-related, said Tania Graves, a spokeswoman for ConAgra Foods, Butterball’s parent company. Most were to confirm that Butterball uses only domestic fowl.

“ConAgra foods probably, like most of the food industry, is interested in making sure that consumers are well-informed,” Graves said.

Many industry groups are stressing food safety. The National Chicken Council and National Turkey Federation have teamed up to create a Web site that answers questions about avian flu; chicken producer Perdue Farms presents a similar question-and-answer format on its site.

Some consumers appreciate the assurance. Marvin Schulte, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who recently visited Washington, D.C., said he knows he can’t catch avian flu from cooked poultry, but is unsure other Americans know that.

“With the kind of press it’s getting,” he said, “I would be really worried if I were a poultry producer.”