LA County warns bird flu is killing cats as human cases top 65 nationwide

Just in time for Vice President Trump to try and get another high score on the Assholes Who Killed Millions of Their Own People list. Hitler, Mao and Stalin would be so proud.

Vance is VP. We need a new term for Trump now that Musk is the real President. Maybe Junior President?
- Transcription: political cartoon style in a single pane:
  Three men in a car, the front holds JD Vance in the passenger's seat and Elon Musk in the driver's seat. A strap around the front seat secures a child's toy steering wheel, which faces into the back. Trump sits in back seat, clutching the wheel.
  Text on image: "So cute! He thinks he's steering!.."
  Credit given to: Michael E Luckovich; The Atlanta Journal- Constitution
- Oh yeah. I had completely forgotten about JD Vance. I don't have a couch in my house so he's usually out of context.
- Assistant president or assistant to the president.
- Well.
  Maybe we need to rethink the whole structure.
  Putin is Pres. Musk is VP...? Turmp is Co-Chief of Staff, along with Vance?
- President-consort.
You do realize that Biden just oversaw 4 years of conditions that led to explosion of bird flu, right?
Bird flu has been brewing for years. Biden has been president.
Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/24/health/america-bird-flu-next-pandemic-kff-health-news/index.html
Stop trying to slyly pin this upcoming pandemic on Donald Trump. The upcoming pandemic is a result of decades of regulatory capture and a for-profit Healthcare system that both Democrats and Republicans oversaw at the behest of their billionaire handlers. The issue is not Donald Trump; it is liberal capitalism.
- Dude, stop trying to pin this worldwide avian flu outbreak on the United States. There have been animal to human transmitted cases in the US, Australia, Canada, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, and more, and widespread infections are occuring in mammal and bird populations worldwide. New diseases decimating eukaryotic biota predates capitalism by billions of years and viruses have been coevolving with animals that entire time. The US healthcare system has absolutely nothing to do with even the 60ish cases of avian flu that have been detected in the US in humans, though with 60ish cases and zero deaths, all sign point to this not being a very serious illness for humans with access to western medicine.
  2020–2024 H5N1 outbreak

So everyone guzzle down that raw milk! HHS Secretary Kennedy says have at it, and no one will bother you about any pesky masks or social distancing and definitely not vaccines.

Keep that apple-flavoured horse paste on hand though.

It’s the worm talking. He controls Kennedy now.
- Do they call him Dr. Worm?
- The worm died in his brain. I assume because his thoughts are poison.
Ugg, I am not looking forward to the cost to deworm our horses tripling again.

God, I thought it was from exposure from being outdoors. It's from raw milk?! Adult cats aren't actually supposed to drink cow's milk in the first place.

It's from birds they kill.
- Read the article: they were indoor only cats

This isn’t the first time cats have been susceptible to death after being infected with bird flu. Last year, over half of a cluster of cats that sporadically died in Poland were infected with the H5N1 bird flu.

It's bridging species across the globe even. This shit is inevitable. All it will take is one blind spot.

Kinda wild that this is happening just prior to a Trump presidency again. I can't imagine the response is going to get stronger after Jan 20.

Raw milk recall? Shit, raw milk shouldn't even be legal in the first place.

cheesemaker turns around
- Cheese making uses pasteurized milk here in USA , even imported cheese are pasteurized

Feeding dangerous food to cats, and they die. That's animal cruelty.

They'd eat raw meat in the wild.
I mean, they're gonna be better off with processed food, sure, but I'd have a hard time setting the bar for cruelty below what they'd normally get.
EDIT: Oh, there are two cases, one with raw meat, the other raw milk:
The agency is also investigating a separate case, also in LA County, concerning a cat that has "tested presumptive positive for H5 bird flu after consuming two different brands of raw pet food composed of raw poultry and raw beef."
- They don't eat raw meat. They eat fresh meat.
  Raw meat implies that it's been harvested and not prepared. Fresh meat means it was still in an immune system controlled environment prior to ingestion.
  Still not as good as prepared meat but less pathogens than raw as time matters a lot.
I would LOVE to see this prosecuted, not because I want people who are hurting from the loss of a pet to be hurt more, but because not enough people consider raw milk dangerous and they really should. Even if the punishment was super small (because these people obviously didn't understand what they were doing) it would hopefully help prevent future incidents.
- Feeding a human baby raw milk would land someone in jail. (Or, I hope...)
IIRC cats cant digest milk well anyway as they are lactose intolerant but just fuckin love it

Raw milk ... Raw meat

I mean I'm not an expert, but generally "raw" anything is not something you want to consume.

Hell, cats don't eat raw meat in the wild - they eat fresh meat. Fresh meat has far less pathogens than raw. Still not as good as cooked, but better. Fresh meat means it had an active immune system prior to ingestion.

Edit: ... Yes I know it's a virus. This does not change my statement. I said pathogens.

Freshly killed birds carry bird flu. Cats can catch it this way and the current strain, H5N1 is 67% fatal to cats. It's a horrific death too. Cats should be kept inside where they belong.
- This is likely airborne, huh? Any idea what the incubation period is for cats? I'm seeing mixed information, but read that symptoms seem to progress very quickly. My cats are indoor only, but we usually have some fosters around, and I'm worried that we may need to put that on pause.
- I am pretty sure cats dont "belong" inside at all.
  They are wild animals, partially domesticated but much much more wild than dogs. Dogs don't survive much without us, cats do, and even thrive in the correct climate (remember they come from warm climates, we brought cats all over the world).
  Whether we messed up bringing a ferocious predator with superior physical capabilities all around the world and destroying local fauna (Australia, and such places...) It's not cats fault and doesn't mean they belong inside.
  In fact, cats belong outside and just take advantage of our "inside" unless they are kept captives on purpose.
I'm pretty sure the viral count in meat isn't going to increase after death. That only applies to bacteria.
Not how that works at all. Virus =/= as bacteria.

Am I the only person here who remembers when Hong Kong killed all its chickens because a few people died of H5N1 flu? https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-dec-29-mn-3171-story.html

Seems like the birds are getting their revenge.

It's a good thing we have historically unprecedented numbers of livestock held in confinement so tight they can barely breath, that really helps to contain and prevent the proliferation of mutated strains of viruses

Wait until you hear what they do when they find a single sick bird in one of those buildings!

Probably not a pandemic and it doesn't spread via mail packages and definetly not airborne because that's impossible if you just stay 6' apart.