by As more cats become sick or die after consuming raw food or milk contaminated with the H5N1 virus, health authorities have advised pet food companies to take extra precautions to protect against bird flu.
In recent guidance, the Food and Drug Administration suggested that pet food manufacturers include precautions in their food safety plans such as “looking for ingredients from healthy herds or herds” and “performing processing steps such as: B. heat treatment, which are able to “inactivate viruses.”
Since the H5N1 virus began spreading in 2022, bird outbreaks have occurred in every state.
Cats appear to be particularly susceptible to the H5N1 virus. Since the current H5N1 outbreak began in 2022, dozens of domestic and wild cats have been infected. Some farm cats became sick from eating raw milk. Others died after eating raw animal food contaminated with the bird flu virus.
Dr. Jane Sykes, a professor of small animal internal medicine at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, said the FDA guidance provides few details.
“There are no strict instructions on how to ensure that the food does not contain H5N1,” she said. “They don’t say specifically how to test or whether heat treatment is necessary.”
The FDA also released advice for pet owners, suggesting cooking raw pet food to eliminate risks.
“There have been several recent studies indicating that H5N1 is transmitted to cats through food, most often unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat,” the FDA said in its warning. “H5N1 can be fatal to both cats and dogs, so we encourage consumers to carefully consider the risk of this emerging pathogen before feeding undercooked meat or any undercooked pet food product to their pets.”
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Veterinary Medical Association recommend against feeding uncooked meat foods to pets due to the possible presence of pathogens, including H5N1.
“Heat treatments have been shown to be effective in inactivating H5N1 in meat, dairy and egg products,” the FDA said in its consumer advisory. “We recommend consumers follow USDA guidelines for handling and thoroughly preparing raw meat before feeding. Animals should also be discouraged from hunting and eating wild birds.”
Compliance with FDA guidelines is voluntary, said Dr. J. Scott Weese, professor at the Ontario Veterinary College and director of the Center for Public Health and Zoonoses at the University of Guelph.
“Companies have to decide what they want to do,” said Weese. “The FDA is trying to stay away from mandating practices. This is a first step. If there are more cases, they may take tougher steps.”
Sykes said the agency could potentially require that commercially available animal feed be treated to inactivate pathogens or require proof of regular testing.
In addition, the agency could require companies that market raw foods to display warning labels on their products indicating the risk of foodborne illness in pets and people who handle the products.
The FDA did not respond to a request for comment.
NBC News reached out to five raw pet food companies by phone and email for comment on the FDA’s guidance.
“We live in a rapidly changing world and continually monitor potential threats like avian flu so we can re-evaluate our food safety plans accordingly,” Brock Zentz, senior director of food safety and quality at pet food company Instinct, said in an email. “Like the FDA, we are aware of the risks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and have processes in place to mitigate this risk.”
In addition to carefully sourcing ingredients, Zentz says the company uses a process called high-pressure processing or pasteurization (HPP) to eliminate pathogens.
Amy Zalneraitis, co-founder and chief brand officer of We Feed Raw, said the company places a strong emphasis on safety.
“All of our meat comes from USDA-certified human-grade suppliers that meet strict quality standards,” Zalneraitis said in an email. “As an additional safety step, we use HPP for all of our meats.”
Three other raw pet food manufacturers, Primal Pet Foods, Stella & Chewy’s and Carnivore Meat Company, did not respond to requests for comment.
HPP is an approach touted to kill pathogens by subjecting food to very high pressure, although viruses could survive the process, Weese said.
“It’s better than nothing, but if you really want to be safe, cooking is the only safe thing to do,” Weese said. The HPP process could eliminate H5N1, “but it would depend on how it is done, the exact pressure and time parameters.”
Therefore, HPP should be viewed as “risk reduction” rather than “risk elimination,” Weese said.
Experts agree that cooking is the only way to completely protect pets from food infected with bird flu.
“If you really want to be confident, cooking is the only safe thing to do,” Weese said.
Similar to preparing poultry and eggs for human consumption, cooking poultry in raw pet food to an internal temperature of 165 F kills bacteria and viruses, including H5N1, according to the CDC.
People often think that freezing food kills viruses and bacteria, but that’s not true, Sykes said. The only sure way to kill the pathogens is heat, she added.
For people who want to stick with the brand of raw, freeze-dried food they give their pets, she recommends cooking it before feeding.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
