The FDA has issued a directive to pet food producers to ensure that their food safety plans address H5N1 influenza contamination issues. It’s in response to multiple cases of H5N1 avian influenza in domestic and wild cats fed contaminated raw diets containing poultry. Infection was fatal in many of these cats, and this also
Blue Ridge Beef has (again) recalled a diet because of Salmonella contamination – this time a kitten diet. As is often the case, the issue was identified after a pet that was fed the diet got sick. This follows a recall of a puppy diet from the same company in December for Salmonella contamination was
Issues with raw diets and H5N1 influenza risk in cats (and dogs) have gotten a lot of attention in the last week or two. Like most emerging disease situations, it’s still fluid, and we’re learning more as time goes on, but we know enough at this point to at least make some basic assessments and
Hot on the heels of the recent death of a cat in Oregon due to H5N1 influenza infection linked to a raw diet (that some raw diet proponents are trying to deflect or downplay), we have confirmation of a very similar case in California. Los Angeles County Public Health has issued a notice to avoid
The Oregon Department of Health has issued a warning to pet owners about contaminated raw pet food after H5N1 avian influenza virus was detected in turkey-based raw (and frozen raw) pet food from Morasch Meats. Testing was performed after the death of an indoor cat from H5N1 flu in Washington County, Oregon. The virus
In some ways, I wonder why there even are recalls for raw pet foods and Salmonella. We know contamination is common, and the contaminated foods that get identified and recalled are presumably a very small portion of the amount of contaminated food that’s in circulation. At the same time, when a problem is identified
A recent recall of a raw pet food diets in the US due to contamination with Listeria monocytogenes has sparked some concern about the risks to people (and pets) that might have been exposed to these products.
In some ways, the big concerns raised by the recall are misplaced, not because it’s not an issue
I’m supposed to be in Rome for an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) meeting but a positive COVID test but a kink in my travel plans. So, I’ll take some unexpected time to catch up on some blog material. We’ll start with a pair of pet-food-linked Salmonella outbreaks, starting with a Canadian outbreak.
Avian flu caused an uptick in discussion about health risks associated with feeding dogs and cats raw meat, based on the possible (and still pretty tenuous) link between raw poultry and a large number of H5N1 infections in cats in Poland.
The link between raw diets and flu infections is new, and something
The H5N1 avian flu outbreak in cats in Poland seems to be slowing down but the cause is still under investigation. While outbreaks often die out on their own (sometimes because of what we do, sometimes despite what we do), it’s still important to figure out what happened, to help understand the disease and ideally
