On the First Opinion Podcats — sorry, I mean Podcast — this week, I spoke with a veterinarian and epidemiologist about how felines could play a pivotal role in an expanded avian flu crisis. Meghan Davis of Johns Hopkins University told me that she has recently stopped letting her own cats (she wouldn’t say how many she has) onto their outdoor “catio” because H5N1 bird flu had been found in her area. She didn’t want to risk that bird droppings could infect her pets. Cats, it turns out, are highly susceptible to bird flu.
I’ve mentioned before that I’d love more veterinary medicine coverage in First Opinion, and Meghan’s interview — plus her previous First Opinion essays on surveilling pets for infectious disease and on the dangers of gutting the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — reminded me why. It’s not just that so many of us love our pets and want to keep them healthy. It’s that we’re all deeply intertwined. Just as human workers on dairy farms have been infected with bird flu, so too have barn cats. And the more the virus passes between species, the riskier things get.
So keep those submissions about veterinary medicine — the money, the regulation, and the effect on human health — coming.
Recommendation of the week: I’m grateful to Bravo for distracting me from the news for an hour each week with “Summer House,” in which gorgeous people drink too much, gossip, and never discuss politics (except for one time, and it was honestly pretty good). One cast member recently had a baby with her biotech investor boyfriend, who I must assume is a STAT reader and STAT+ subscriber. New dream First Opinion assignment: how reality TV is like biotech.
