With bird flu cases rising, certain kinds of pet food may be risky for animals, people
When Jamila Acfalle decided to get her first cat, she had one requirement: It had to be brave.
Related video above: Why This Polar Bear Dying of Bird Flu Is Very Concerning
Acfalle is a dog trainer in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. She works with dogs that have behavior problems that put them at risk of rehoming or euthanasia. She needed a cat who would not be intimidated by the large, bouncy canines she brought home.
When she met a litter of long-haired Maine coons in 2021, the smoke-gray kitten who walked straight up to her and sat at her feet was the one.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I knew at that moment that she was my cat,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Acfalle told CNN.
Because her dog바카라 게임 웹사이트s name is Hero, she named the cat Villain. The cat was friendly and silly but quickly learned to put the dogs in their place. Perhaps because she was already so used to working with dogs, Acfalle trained her to walk on a leash so she could take walks with her fur brothers.
She also wanted to be sure that Villain ate a high-quality diet. Like a growing number of pet owners in the U.S., she liked the idea of giving her pets raw food, which she believes is healthier since it is less processed than dry kibble and perhaps more similar to what animals eat in the wild.
Americans바카라 게임 웹사이트 interest in raw foods 바카라 게임 웹사이트 for pets and humans 바카라 게임 웹사이트 has surged, fueled by a growing distrust of highly processed foods and chemical additives.
Infectious disease experts, however, say the trend goes too far since it abandons tried-and-true safety steps 바카라 게임 웹사이트 including heating milk and cooking meats 바카라 게임 웹사이트 that kill dangerous viruses and bacteria. In the era of bird flu, they say raw milk and raw pet food are bringing a dangerous virus with pandemic potential too close to people and pets.
On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it is tracking multiple cases of H5N1 in domestic and wild cats, including cases linked to contaminated pet food. The that while dogs can also be infected, their symptoms are usually milder. Cats, however, are at greater risk.
The agency to consider the risk of bird flu in their required food safety plans, including adding a step to cook animal products like milk, meat or eggs or adding supply chain controls to ensure that the products they are using in their food don바카라 게임 웹사이트t come from infected flocks or herds.
바카라 게임 웹사이트We encourage consumers to carefully consider the risk of this emerging pathogen before feeding their pets uncooked meat or an uncooked pet food product,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the agency said.
Acfalle said she researched several brands while deciding on Villain바카라 게임 웹사이트s diet and looked for one she thought was taking extra steps to be safe.
바카라 게임 웹사이트They바카라 게임 웹사이트re just frozen little nuggets. And you scoop them out, and they defrost, and you smash it down, and it바카라 게임 웹사이트s just raw meat, organ and bone. And she had been eating that her whole life바카라 게임 웹사이트 and thriving, Acfalle said.
Until she wasn바카라 게임 웹사이트t.
Just after Thanksgiving, Villain spent eight days with an illness that confounded their local vets. First, she stopped eating, then she stopped going to the bathroom, and she began to struggle with balance and coordination.
As her condition worsened, Acfalle bought a variety of foods, making a kitty smorgasbord of different smells, trying to entice her to eat. Instead, Villain tried to smash her face into the food.
바카라 게임 웹사이트And then she was just walking back and forth,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Acfalle said. The pacing went on for hours. 바카라 게임 웹사이트She wouldn바카라 게임 웹사이트t stay still. She바카라 게임 웹사이트s just constantly moving, and she바카라 게임 웹사이트s trying to lay down, but then she wakes up as if something바카라 게임 웹사이트s trying to get her, and she바카라 게임 웹사이트s scared.바카라 게임 웹사이트
The next morning, Villain was barely able to open her eyes. Acfalle rushed her cat to an emergency animal hospital, but it was too late. Villain바카라 게임 웹사이트s brain had begun to swell, and she died in Acfalle바카라 게임 웹사이트s arms.
In shock and disbelief that she had lost her beloved 4-year-old companion, Acfalle took the extraordinary step of sending Villain바카라 게임 웹사이트s body to Oregon State University for a necropsy to find out why she died.
The phone call she got next was devastating.
It was H5N1 bird flu, and it came from a contaminated batch of the Northwest Naturals pet food that Acfalle had fed her own pets and recommended to her clients.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I really wanted it to come back as a blood pathogen or something that couldn바카라 게임 웹사이트t have been in my control, but I felt responsible for choosing that for her, for choosing a raw lifestyle for her,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Acfalle said. 바카라 게임 웹사이트I felt responsible.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Acfalle said she had to take Tamiflu to ensure that Villain had not passed the infection to her. As another precaution against spreading the virus, she was not allowed to have Villain바카라 게임 웹사이트s ashes after her cremation.
Raw foods bring bird flu closer to pets and people
H5N1 infections are rare in American pets, but they have become increasingly common over the past two years as the virus has begun to circulate in a growing variety of animals, including dairy cows and farmed poultry like turkey and chicken.
Cats are particularly vulnerable to the virus. As with chickens, the virus can invade their brains and cause devastating neurologic complications.
Since December 2022, at least 74 pet cats have tested positive for bird flu across the United States, according from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Domestic cats are the third most common detection of H5N1 in nonfarm mammals in the U.S., behind red foxes and mice.
That official tally of infected cats is almost certainly an undercount, too.
바카라 게임 웹사이트With foodborne disease, we capture a small percentage of them,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Dr. J. Scott Weese, a veterinarian and professor at Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph in Canada. Weese specializes in the study of zoonotic infections 바카라 게임 웹사이트 infections that spread between people and animals.
Weese said cats usually get less vet care than dogs, so they are in clinics a lot less often. When cats get the flu, they can deteriorate very quickly and may not show signs of illness until it바카라 게임 웹사이트s too late.
To be added to the official count, animals not only have to be seen in a vet바카라 게임 웹사이트s office, they have to be tested, and those test results have to be reported to the state, which has to confirm them. Pet owners must pay for most of these steps, which can be a further disincentive.
바카라 게임 웹사이트You might have a cat that바카라 게임 웹사이트s looking a little bit off in the morning. The owner says, 바카라 게임 웹사이트Yeah, the cat바카라 게임 웹사이트s not looking that great. Let바카라 게임 웹사이트s see what happens,바카라 게임 웹사이트바카라 게임 웹사이트 Weese said. 바카라 게임 웹사이트They might be dead overnight. Most people aren바카라 게임 웹사이트t going to take their animal in for testing afterward.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Joseph Journell of San Bernardino County, California, said he spent thousands of dollars trying to understand why three of his cats suddenly became gravely ill in November.
Two of his cats, a 4-year-old black and white kitty named Tuxsie and a 14-year-old tabby named Alexander the Great, died.
A third cat, Big Boy, became critically ill. He went blind and lost the ability to walk. Veterinarians at a specialty animal hospital were able to test his urine for bird flu. After weeks of aggressive treatment, including the antiviral drug Tamiflu, he has recovered.
All three of the cats, who lived indoors, drank raw milk from a batch that was later recalled by Raw Farm dairy after it tested positive for the H5N1 virus. Journell said that a fourth cat who did not drink the milk never got sick.
For weeks starting in December, California-based Raw Farm was quarantined and stopped producing and distributing its raw milk. It has since resumed sales after clearing the required tests. The company disputes that its milk made Journell바카라 게임 웹사이트s cats ill, but he remains convinced.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I바카라 게임 웹사이트m going to have to live with that, that I actually gave the milk to my kitties and killed two of them,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Journell told CNN affiliate KCAL.
Journell told CNN that he began supplementing the regular diet of his oldest cat, Alexander, with raw milk after the cat lost weight. He said he believed that Alexander was developing kidney problems, which are common in cats, and hoped the raw milk might heal him. Journell said Alexander did seem to gain weight and get more energy, so he began to offer raw milk to his other cats, too.
Journell also drank the Raw Farm milk and developed mild symptoms, including a low fever, which started around the same time the cats got sick. He saw doctors twice, he said. The first time was before the cats had been diagnosed, and he was not tested for bird flu because his symptoms were mild, and neither he nor the doctors realized he had been exposed.
After his cats tested positive, he called his doctors back, and they encouraged him to go to the emergency room. Doctors there took blood and ran a battery of tests, but Journell said he did not test positive for flu.
Aside from consuming the same products, there may be other, less obvious ways raw pet foods put people at risk, including that many people prepare their pets바카라 게임 웹사이트 foods in the same space where they prepare their own.
바카라 게임 웹사이트Those can, of course, contaminate your counters. They can contaminate your utensils, your knives, your cutting boards and so on,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Andrea Love, an immunologist and microbiologist who writes the ImmunoLogic newsletter on Substack. 바카라 게임 웹사이트While I would love to believe that everyone has really impeccable kitchen hygiene, we know that that바카라 게임 웹사이트s simply not the case.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Pets might spread food around their bowls where kids or shoes might pick it up or expose people to germs later, when they are cleaning out a litter box.
At the moment, H5N1 is not very good at infecting people because the receptors it uses to enter cells do not match the receptors that are most common in the human nose and throat. But that could change, Love noted.
The more contact the virus has with humans, the more it will learn to adapt to us.
바카라 게임 웹사이트The cats are the canaries in the coal mine,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in foodborne illness cases. 바카라 게임 웹사이트It바카라 게임 웹사이트s just a matter of time before that raw milk contaminated with bird flu or cat food contaminated with bird flu makes a human sick.바카라 게임 웹사이트
An attorney in Marler바카라 게임 웹사이트s firm is representing Journell.
A growing and risky trend
Grocery stores and pet stores now have whole aisles for frozen and refrigerated pet foods, including raw foods, which are more expensive than dry kibble. The Business Research Co., a market research firm, that the raw pet food market will nearly double in size from 2024 to 2028, expanding from $3.7 billion to $6.4 billion.
Raw food typically contains meat and may also have added fiber, vitamins and minerals. Raw milk is also sold as pet food in many states.
Whether premade or made at home, vets and infectious disease experts say there are no nutritional advantages to feeding raw diets, and the risks of raw food outweigh any potential benefits, particularly with bird flu circulating.
Raw foods can contain debris, like shards of bone, that may injure pets. have some types of raw diets to serious nutritional imbalances, especially when people try to mix their own at home. And tests of raw products show that they are with harmful viruses and bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli.
바카라 게임 웹사이트Wild animals don바카라 게임 웹사이트t live that long in the wild for various reasons. Foodborne disease is presumably one of them,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Weese said.
The idea that raw food is healthier because it is closer to the diets of wild animals is not correct, he said.
바카라 게임 웹사이트The little fluffy dog is sitting on your couch is very much removed from a wolf or a fox in terms of its intestinal tract, intestinal bacteria, its physiology. They aren바카라 게임 웹사이트t just wild animals that we moved into our house today. They바카라 게임 웹사이트ve evolved with us and changed with us,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Weese said.
Raw foods may not say so on the package
The FDA says there is no formal or regulatory definition of 바카라 게임 웹사이트raw바카라 게임 웹사이트 pet food. Although most companies that sell uncooked foods label them 바카라 게임 웹사이트raw바카라 게임 웹사이트 as a selling point, it is not required. Some freeze-dried pet treats are made with raw meat, for example, but are not necessarily labeled that way.
Companies often use the term 바카라 게임 웹사이트raw바카라 게임 웹사이트 to indicate that a product has not undergone heat treatment. The foods may undergo other types of treatments designed to reduce pathogens, including high-pressure processing, acidification or irradiation, 바카라 게임 웹사이트however, their effectiveness on viral pathogens such as H5N1 is unknown at this time,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the FDA said in a statement.
The Northwest Naturals frozen turkey that Villain ate had been treated with high-pressure processing, a method the company says kills harmful germs while leaving beneficial microbes intact.
Acfalle said some people might think she was reckless for choosing raw food for her pets, but she had seen raw diets improve the health of dogs she trained by cutting down on digestive problems like diarrhea.
After Villain died, the state tested bags of unopened and opened bags of Northwest Naturals products in Acfalle바카라 게임 웹사이트s home. Only the opened bag of turkey food tested positive for bird flu; the strain of the H5N1 virus in the frozen turkey was a genetic match to the strain that killed Villain.
바카라 게임 웹사이트We are confident that this cat contracted H5N1 by eating the Northwest Naturals raw and frozen pet food,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Oregon State Veterinarian Dr. Ryan Scholz said in a news release.
The FDA is attempting to trace the source of the contamination in the turkey.
In a on its website, the company says it does not know how the food became contaminated with H5N1 or why the high-pressure treatment did not seem to kill the virus. It said it is continuing to investigate, working closely with state and federal authorities and waiting for more answers in the investigation.
Northwest Naturals said in a statement to CNN, 바카라 게임 웹사이트Our hearts go out to the pet owner.바카라 게임 웹사이트
바카라 게임 웹사이트We remain fully confident in our rigorous quality controls and our ability to ensure that our safe and nutritious food is in our customers바카라 게임 웹사이트 hands. Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our products and that of our customers바카라 게임 웹사이트 beloved pets,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the statement said.
There are processes in place to prevent products from sick animals from entering the food supply.
When chickens or turkeys catch bird flu, they typically get very ill quickly, and affected farms are placed under quarantine by state regulators and depopulated, or culled, to prevent further spread of the infection.
Quarantine also means no birds or bird products, such as eggs, can leave the facility except for state-approved disposal. This should prevent meat or eggs from infected birds from entering the food supply, according to the USDA바카라 게임 웹사이트s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Pet foods are regulated at both the federal and state level and companies that make them are inspected. These inspections are risk-based, meaning their frequency depends on how risky the ingredients, process and facility are.
Northwest Naturals was last inspected in March, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and had no violations. It was considered low risk.
The FDA has published for raw food manufacturers that suggest using only ingredients that have been inspected by the USDA and passed for human consumption, but these recommendations are nonbinding and have no legal authority.
Since late last year, warnings to pet owners have started to pop up.
After Villain died in December, Oregon to avoid two lots of Northwest Naturals frozen raw turkey, and the company recalled the food, which was sold through distributors in 12 states as well as British Columbia.
In December, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued an animal that several indoor-only cats had died after consuming raw pet foods and counseled veterinarians to ask owners about feeding raw products to their pets.
Los Angeles County also people not to feed their pets another raw brand, Monarch Raw Pet Food, after cats who ate it became ill with bird flu. Samples of the food, which had been sold at local farmers markets, also tested positive for H5 virus.
No recall has been issued for Monarch바카라 게임 웹사이트s products. In a on its website, the company said that it is 바카라 게임 웹사이트committed to the health and safety of pets and their owners바카라 게임 웹사이트 and that 바카라 게임 웹사이트there is currently no credible evidence to suggest that our raw food products are linked to avian influenza or any other health risks.바카라 게임 웹사이트
After Raw Farm milk and cream were recalled due to bird flu, the farm was quarantined for weeks, and California health officials warned consumers against drinking the products or feeding them to pets. In on its website, Raw Farm said, 바카라 게임 웹사이트There are no illnesses associated with H5N1 in our products, but rather this is a political issue. There are no food safety issues with our products or consumer safety.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Reckoning with the risks
The news that contaminated raw food led to Villain바카라 게임 웹사이트s illness was a bitter pill for many pet owners who swear by it. On the company바카라 게임 웹사이트s Facebook page, fans questioned whether the cat might have gotten sick from being outdoors and whether somehow those germs got back into the bag of opened food tested by the state.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture said it considered the possibility of cross-contamination early in its investigation. It said the strain of H5N1 that infected Villain was closely related to the strain that바카라 게임 웹사이트s circulating in cattle, and there are not any cattle infections in Oregon, so the agency doesn바카라 게임 웹사이트t believe the cat could have gotten it from its outdoor environment.
Acfalle said that although Villain was sometimes out on a leash, she had not been outside for weeks leading up to her illness because it was too cold.
Both Journell and Acfalle are seeking compensation from the companies that produced their food.
Acfalle said she spent about $20,000 on emergency care for Villain and the necropsy. She hopes Northwest Naturals will compensate her, but she said has not heard from the company. The company told CNN it had not been given her name, and so it had no way to reach her.
Journell said he has the empty milk jugs from Raw Farm, his receipts showing when he purchased them and the test results from his sick cat, Big Boy, showing that he had bird flu.
His attorney recently sent a letter to Mark McAfee, founder of Raw Farm, asking him to reimburse Journell for tens of thousands of dollars in vet bills, lost wages and other out-of-pocket expenses.
McAfee said he does not believe that his raw milk could be the source of the cats바카라 게임 웹사이트 infections since have shown that the concentration of virus in raw milk drops after several days in the refrigerator. McAfee also said no other pet owners or people have approached him to say they believe they or their pets were sickened by Raw Farm milk.
Journell said he had been unaware of bird flu and had not heard public health warnings related to H5N1 in raw milk until his cats got sick.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I바카라 게임 웹사이트m not a scientist, but I have done some research,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Journell said. Based on his reading online, he believed that if it was processed correctly and refrigerated quickly, good bacteria in raw milk would 바카라 게임 웹사이트take care바카라 게임 웹사이트 of any harmful germs.
This is a myth, the FDA: Raw milk does not rid itself of dangerous pathogens.
Studies that the bird flu virus is present in high concentrations in milk from infected cows and can remain infectious for days.
Journell said he still believes in raw milk, although he바카라 게임 웹사이트s not drinking it for the time being. 바카라 게임 웹사이트I do believe it has its benefits and is really good for you,바카라 게임 웹사이트 he said.
After Villain died, Acfalle switched her dogs to dried, heat-treated kibble for about a month, but she said they did not do well. She said several of them have digestive problems that came back when she switched away from a raw diet.
Acfalle바카라 게임 웹사이트s dogs are service dogs, and she feels like she can바카라 게임 웹사이트t expect them to work if they are not feeling well. She switched them back to raw food, this time from a different brand.
바카라 게임 웹사이트I still believe in raw feeding,바카라 게임 웹사이트 she said, but it also feels like 바카라 게임 웹사이트Russian roulette바카라 게임 웹사이트 바카라 게임 웹사이트 바카라 게임 웹사이트possibly risking my dog바카라 게임 웹사이트s life because some company is not taking the proper precautions.바카라 게임 웹사이트
