The FDA issued a warning this week after health officials discovered that a cat that became ill and had to be euthanized was likely infected with the same strain of bird flu discovered in raw cat food consumed by the domestic pet. It’s the first documented case of a cat being linked to eating food from flu-infected cats since the spring , when it was occurring more frequently in the U.S.
The FDA identified and tested retail samples of Rawr cat food in San Francisco, California, with a sell-by date of 9/18/26. Both tested positive for influenza A virus, and H5N1 bird flu was found in one of the samples, according to an FDA press release .
The USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories tested the deceased cat, confirming it had bird flu, and used subsequent whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine that the raw food “originated from a common source of contamination.”
From the FDA press release:
The WGS results also indicated that H5N1 from all three samples was within the same WGS cluster, indicating a relationship. The cluster involves a virus lineage that was detected from November to December 2024 and is no longer circulating, suggesting that the cat became ill from eating lot CCS 25093 of the Eats chicken product.
NVSL testing of cat lot ccs 25 093 and lot ccs 25 077 identified H5N1 as genotype B3.13. Genotype B3.13 virus has previously been found in other brands of poultry-based pet foods that were associated with cat illness or death.
There have been 70 human cases of bird flu in the U.S. since 2024 , according to the CDC website, which hasn’t been updated in over a month. The CDC is also no longer publicly tracking animal cases, according to Johns Hopkins .
No humans are known to be infected with bird flu from consuming food, and most cases are among farmworkers interacting with chickens and cows. But the public has far less insight into what’s actually happening with bird flu these days, thanks to the Trump administration’s changes. The only human death in the US attributed to this current H5N1 outbreak was in Louisiana in January, shortly before Trump took office.
Bird flu made the jump to dairy cows in the U.S. in 2024, sparking concerns about a mutated version of H5N1 potentially spreading from human to human. But there have been no documented cases of this, and much less attention has been focused on H5N1 in recent months, thanks to people like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In March of this year, Kennedy gave an interview to Fox Nation, where he said that farmers should not cull flocks of birds when they encounter H5N1.
“We actually said to [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] that they should consider maybe letting it run through the flock so we can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it,” Kennedy said at the time.
About a week later, Kennedy reiterated his point to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, insisting, “Most of our scientists are against the slaughter operation.” It’s unclear to what extent American poultry farmers have heeded his advice. Again, the CDC is simply no longer tracking farm animal cases.
