A California man whose two cats died after drinking raw milk recalled for a bird flu risk says he intended to keep his beloved pets healthy, but his efforts backfired tragically.

“It’s a terrible thing to realize that you were the one who gave them the milk that killed them,” said Joseph Jurnell, 56, of San Bernardino.

Jornell lost his 14-year-old cat, Alexander, and Toxsie, a 4-year-old Tuxedo cat, in late November. The third cat, 4-year-old Big Boy, was hospitalized for a week before tests showed the animal was infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus.

He said the cats drank unpasteurized milk from many of the products recalled by Raw Farm in Fresno, whose dairy products were pulled from California store shelves in December after health officials discovered the virus in milk on sale. State and county health officials confirmed the animals’ deaths. The owner said the cats were kept indoors, with no access to potentially infected birds, and ate conventional pet food, not raw.

Jornell said he had been drinking Raw Farm milk himself for several months because he heard it had “better immune and healing properties” than pasteurized milk. He thought he might be able to help Alexander who was losing weight.

“I was trying to make him healthier and make him live longer,” Jurnell said.

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Instead, Alexander died on Thanksgiving Day. Tuxsie followed two days later.

Big Boy was hospitalized and treated with antiviral medications, Jurnell said. Records showed that the veterinary team collected urine samples from the cat, which was confirmed to be infected with the H5N1 virus in laboratories run by the US Department of Agriculture and Cornell University.

Big Boy returned home blind and without the use of his hind legs, though he is recovering, Jornell said. The fourth cat, Cleo, did not drink milk and remained healthy.

Jurnell is seeking compensation from Roe Farm’s owner, Mark McAfee, for more than $12,000 he spent treating the cats, according to Seattle food safety attorney Ilana Corchia, who is representing him.

In an interview, McAfee doubted that the virus could make animals sick days after it was packaged and sold, citing preliminary research.

But Richard Wiebe, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, said flu virus survival likely varies greatly in different amounts of milk. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have previously confirmed that cats that drank raw milk from cows were infected He suffered from a nervous disease and died.

“I think the poor kittens are the best indicator!” Webby wrote in an email.

Nearly a dozen cats in California have died since early December after eating raw milk or raw pet food contaminated with bird flu, health officials said.

These infections followed a widespread outbreak of avian influenza virus in dairy cows, which affected more than 900 US dairy herds in 16 states. About 80% of those herds are in California.

Federal and state health officials have warned people not to drink raw milk because of the possibility of bird flu and a host of other germs. Officials also warned pet owners to avoid feeding their animals unpasteurized milk and raw meat.

The Food and Drug Administration warned last month that “cats should not be fed any products from affected farms if those products have not been thoroughly cooked or sterilized to kill the virus.”

After the cats became ill, Jurnell said he became ill himself and sought care at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Fontana, California. He said he was not tested for bird flu, despite his known exposure to the virus, because medical staff did not do so. You have tests available to detect it.

A Kaiser spokesman declined to comment on Jurnell’s case specifically, but said the hospital system is following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for screening for bird flu.

Jurnell has recovered physically but said he still suffers from the “mental pain” of losing his pets. Despite the ordeal, he said he still believes raw milk offers some health benefits.

However, he won’t be drinking it anytime soon.

“Not now,” he said. “Not in the foreseeable future.”

& Edition 2025 The Canadian Press