Save This Life Microchips has abruptly shut down and unlinked its database from national registries, posing a risk for that animal shelters and veterinarians will have no way to trace lost pets whose microchips are registered through the company. Pet owners with Save This Life microchips are advised to register their pets with a different company or organization.

Chips that begin with "991" are most likely affected though there are some other prefixes affected as well. Keep reading to find out what to do.

(Photocredit: Morguefile.com)

The Chicken Situation

Avian influenza is why eggs are so expensive right now. The virus is extremely lethal to chickens and affected chicken operations must kill all their birds, disinfect with foam, and start over. Here are some of the issues in play:

• As mentioned, affected poultry operations must depopulate and disinfect. The government pays the farm money for each chicken killed. This an expensive project and hundreds of millions of U.S. chickens have died each year from virus or from depopulation.
  
  
• Vaccination is in development but 1) must be practical. It is not possible to inject thousands of chickens with a vaccine; it must be given in feed or water. 2) Becoming a country that vaccinates for avian flu changes our ability to trade poultry products internationally. The broiler industry (chicken used for meat rather than egg-laying) is much less affected than the laying industry and they do not wish to lose international trade. 3) An mRNA vaccine is the fastest route to widespread vaccination but because of political issues surrounding the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine many states are processing legislation banning mRNA vaccines. The avian flu virus is present in all 50 states. 4) The cost of the vaccine must not exceed the value of the bird being vaccinated or no one will use it.

The Dairy Situation

At least cattle do not die of this disease like birds do. They get sick for 3-5 weeks and then they get well. They shed virus in their milk for a long time but pasteurization will kill any virus. Here are the problems:

• Proximity of an affected dairy farm to a poultry farm is a recipe for disaster (for the poultry farm).
• Human dairy farm workers have been infected. (The good news is that human contagion seems to be low and the only person to have died with avian flu had many other diseases and, while they were infected, this was only one factor of many.)
• Birds and other wildlife around the farm are likely to become infected and who knows where they will transport the virus.
• Raw dairy products are almost totally unregulated for diseases.

So far 993 dairy herds have been affected in the U.S

The Feline Situation

Cats living around the dairy barns readily consume raw milk and have been dying in droves. Pet cats fed raw meat and raw dairy products have also been getting sick and dying. According to one report, the feline mortality rate approaches 70%. Symptoms are both respiratory and neurologic (unexplained blindness, seizures, incoordination, seizures etc.)

Preventive measures include:

• Keep cats away from wild birds (indoor lifestyle is best)
• DO NOT FEED RAW FOODS! Especially beef, poultry or dairy. This include Freeze-dried Raw. Freeze-drying does not kill the influenza virus.
• Keep cats away from livestock (not usually an issue in Los Angeles)
• Numerous online resources are available on this outbreak. So far, there is no evidence of human to human transmission

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