More people hired to wipe out chicken-killing Newcastle disease in Southern California

Federal and state officials are doubling the number personnel working to eradicate the virulent Newcastle disease killing Southern California chickens, thanks in large measure to $45 million in emergency funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The new funds come in addition to $27 million previously spent on the growing epidemic. But the total, about $72 million spent or allocated so far, still falls well short of the nearly $170 million spent during the last Newcastle outbreak, in 2002-2003, when 3.2 million birds were killed – mostly through preemptive euthanasia in areas where the disease had been identified. Read more