While experts continue to monitor and monitor the country's environment and food supply for H5N1 bird flu, an eruption of dead cats has numerous state -of -the -art officials.
Pets for pets in the County of Los Angeles and Oregon with captive wild cats in Washington and Colorado, dozens of felines died due to the consumption of crus infected by H5N1 Food for animals and raw milk.
Although the products carrying the virus have been largely marketed for animals – with the exception of raw milk – experts say that the presence of the virus in commercial meat and dairy products highlights the vulnerability of the American food chain to this virus.
“With several cases diagnosed with H5N1 mortalities, we can in all good conscience manage to provide widespread public warnings that raw meat … has been linked to several fat-cat mortalities,” said John Korslund, an American retired veterinary epidemiologist.
Deaths caused policy changes announced on Friday USDA and the Food and Drug Administrationwhich focuses on the pre-deputration rules for certain minnesota and southern Dakota poultry farms, as well as changes in food security risk assessments for pet food producers.
And they underline the disturbed and largely unregulated industry in the manufacture of brute pet.
Although the FDA Offers advice on best practices For producers of pet food, there are few rules, if necessary, concerning how raw meat comes from pet food; Industrial entrepreneurs can obtain Wild Game's meat and protein, herds and interrimbeal farms not inspected by USDA, as well as meat not considered in shape or appetizing for human consumption – as long as it is prudent to eat, produced in health conditions, does not dispute harmful substances, and be truly labeled “, depending on the federal food, drug and cosmetic act, the law governing pet food.
The agency will also investigate companies if animals have become defective to eat pet food. And birds affected by the virus are not allowed to enter the food supply, according to USDA regulations.
“Obviously, a large part of proteins produced outside the Food Security and Inspection Services of the USDA) is never intended for human consumption,” said Eric Deeble, an under-security assistant to marketing and regulatory programs for the USDA, at a press conference on Thursday. But birds infected with H5N1 “are not allowed in any food product. They are most often composed on site in the site in the context of efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus. ”
In the county alone, nine cats have been overshadowed or died of the consumption of raw milk, raw food for pets or the two containing the H5N1 bird flu. On Monday, the county public health officials said that five interior cats in a household were dismissed after eating raw monarch food (based in San Jacinto, California); Two are dead.
In December, 20 captive wild cats – including four couguars and a half -seer / half -year -old tiger – died after eating pet food contaminated by the H5N1 in an animal sanctuary in Shelton, Washington. At five additional animals in a sanctuary of private animals in Colorado – two tigers, a lion, a mountain lion and a fox – also weighing food. The same goes for two cat cats – one in Oregon, another in Colorado.
In all Washington cats except, the genetic sequencing of their H5N1 virus corresponded to the samples taken of the frozen turkey wrapped in May and June By Northwest Naturals Pet Food, based in Oregon, according to data published by the Inspection Service of Animal and Plant Health of USDA, Gisaid (a public genetic database focused on flu viruses), the National Institutes of Health's Genbank and the World Organization for Animal Health, an international organization dedicated to survey and monitoring animal diseases. The meat was raw when it was frozen.
According to the evolutionary molecular biologist Henry Niman, in each case, there is a signature mutation on a segment of the virus – a switch in position 52 on the NP protein – in food samples and dead animals, providing an undoubted link between them.
Only Oregon House Cat has been positively linked by state and federal agencies to the Northwest Naturals brand. Although other cats were killed by a virus genetically identical to that found in Oregon cat and Northwest Natural food samples, these animals have received foods from the same meat or the same epidemic, but under a different brand.
The questions sent to Northwest Naturals remained unanswered.
Northwest Naturals voluntarily recalled the suspicious lot: two -books plastic bags with the “Best if used by” dates of 05/21/26 B10 and 23/06/2026 B1. And on its website, The company suggests that the sample was contaminated after packaging and production.
“The test of an open bag of animal food leaves the possibility that the virus has entered the bag after its opening,” wrote the company on a FAQ page On the recall.
The change observed in genetic sequences, said Niman, “is extremely rare. And other than the samples of Northwest Naturals and the animals that ate it, “the only three other animals to have shown that the change in this last H5N1 epidemic has been three commercial turkeys of Minnesota which were discussed in June following an infection – the same month, pet food was treated and packaged.
Niman said that there was no way to show from the genomic sequencing that it was the turkeys of this Minnesota farm that entered pet food, but the virus was probably deployed in the region at the time. And in one way or another, he said, infected birds had to enter the slaughterhouse without anyone noticing-an event which, according to most researchers, should be extremely rare. Commercial poultry generally has symptoms within hours of H5N1 infection and die almost immediately.
Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor who is researching the epidemiology of health and food security health at UC Davis, agreed. “Not sure, but maybe the birds were infected just before slaughter?”, He said in an email, adding that he did not know that there were companies that sell raw poultry with the intention of pets. “”
But if infected turkeys reached slaughter without being identified, this suggests that there can be more infected meat, said Korslund, the former veterinary epidemiologist of the USDA.
And this is what has researchers and health authorities at the USDA and the FDA concerned.
On Friday, the USDA announced that it launched a new policy for turkey operations in Minnesota and southern Dakota which have more than 500 birds – birds must have an inspection and insulation before slaughter 72 hours before slaughter. The agency noted the link between infected turkeys and Oregon House Cat as the reason for the new program.
Meanwhile, the FDA cited the “cases of H5N1 in domestic and wild cats in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington State which are associated with the consumption of contaminated food products” as a reason to call raw food processors to relying their food safety systems and incorporating H5N1 into their analyzes.
“The FDA has determined that it is necessary for manufacturers of food and dog food … which use unwanted or not pasteurized materials derived from poultry or cattle … in food or dog foods, to relying their food security plans to include H5N1 as a new known or reasonably predictable danger.”
He will probably continue to come across cats to report the presence of the virus in food and the environment.
Scientists say that cats are extraordinarily sensitive to H5N1 infection. Since the epidemic was reported for the first time in a dairy herd in Texas last March, dead barn cats have served as sentinel warnings for veterinarians and investigators from the presence of the virus on a farm.
In cats, the virus can affect the brain and the nervous system. Many suffer from blindness, convulsions and abnormal behaviors. Necropsies often show large amounts of viruses in their brain.
And although the death of these cats is alarming in terms of animal conservation and protection whose habitats are destroyed and whose populations are increasingly marginalized, it is the death of captive cats, say scientists, who should concern public health authorities. This is a sign that the virus enters the commercial supply of meat and milk – a worrying, but not surprising development, taking into account the presence of the virus in dairy cattle and commercial poultry farms.
Health managers say that the best way to avoid infection is to cook meat and consume only pasteurized dairy products – and stop feeding raw meat and dairy products – commercial or not – for pets.
