Raw pet food warning draws pushback over risk framing

Raw-pet-food safety messaging is drawing pushback after Truth about Pet Food founder Susan Thixton accused the Center for Science in the Public Interest, or CSPI, of overstating the relative bacterial risk of raw diets in an April 27 commentary. Thixton was responding to a CSPI article published April 23 that said raw pet food “poses the greatest risk,” citing an FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine study from 2010 to 2012 in which 15 of 196 raw pet food samples tested positive for Salmonella and 32 tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes, versus one positive Salmonella finding in dry cat food among the other product types tested. (truthaboutpetfood.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the dispute is less about whether raw diets carry microbiological risk, which FDA, CDC, and AVMA all continue to acknowledge, and more about how that risk is communicated to pet parents. CSPI relied on contamination-rate data from FDA’s sampling study, while Thixton argued that recall volume and known human illnesses tied to dry pet food have been larger in absolute terms, pointing to the 2012 Diamond dry food outbreak and the 2023 Mid America Pet Food outbreak. CDC has documented seven human illnesses in the 2023 dry dog food outbreak, and earlier reporting tied dozens of human cases to the 2012 Diamond event. (fda.gov)

What to watch: Watch for any response from CSPI, and for whether this debate spills into broader veterinary guidance on how clinics counsel pet parents about raw feeding, food handling, and zoonotic risk. (truthaboutpetfood.com)