Confirmed FIP cases, what did you feed your cat before? What vaccines did you give it? (epidemiology

I'm convinced that FIP is not caused by a virus and instead it's caused by combination of food and vaccines over long term. Almost all cats have coronavirus (if that even exists) yet it does not cause disease except in some "mythical" cases. How can viruses, which are supposed to be "dumb", stay dormant and magically mutate and cause disease?!?!?!?

If scurvy was discovered today, it would be classified as an autoimmune disorder and they would be looking for a "mythical virus" to blame.

If your cat had CONFIRMED FIP, could you answer the following questions:

1) Has your cat had any vaccine?

2) Was the majority of their diet "major brand food/treats" (any food you did not cook yourself is major brand)?

3) What diagnostic method was used to confirm FIP?

My cat:

1) Has your cat had any vaccine? Yes

2) Was the majority of their diet "major brand food/treats"? Yes

3) What diagnostic method was used to confirm FIP? Biopsy

I believe we will not find a single raw meat fed cat (with no history of vaccines) that has FIP.

That's interesting  -  I've never had a cat with FIP, so I really won't be much help here - but I do agree that commercial brand cat food (esp. kibble) is not good for cats, and that most pet owners really over-vaccinate the heck out of their pets.    So you're thinking something in commercial food - something not a part of a cat's natural diet, like corn, soy, or wheat gluten - is causing a reaction in conjunction with repeated yearly vaccinations?   I just want to hear more of your theory, I don't have any personal experience to add here..........

I have not personally had a cat with FIP but I will say that is a pretty far leap to blaming diet and possibly vaccines. I think its more likely due to genetics, a cat may have a stronger immune system and be more likely to keep the virus in check whereas a immune compromised cat, may not be able to and the virsu mutates to what is know as FIP. FIP is a virus not anything regarding diet or vaccines, which is why there is a FIP vacccine. What was biopsied on your cat? This page has a lot of info regarding FIP. I hope it helps to clear up some things as its quite a complicated disease. http://www.lbah.com/word/feline-infectious-peritonitis/

All of the major brands contain a "meal" which is a sludge consisting of various low quality meats (animals deemed not fit for human consumption), diseased animals etc. This sludge is highly processed and cooked to high temperatures. Basically, the sludge contains no nutrients/vitamins/minerals whatsoever.

They have to add the vitamins/minerals into the sludge to make it nutrittious. There are a lot of industrial processes that produce minerals/vitamins as a byproduct. These synthetic garbage is added back into the food.

I think the combination of these heavy metals, BPA in the can lining, the toxic sludge and vaccines eventually start taking it's toll.

I think this epidemiology study should be very useful to determine if there is even a correlation between vaccines/pet food and FIP.

morse said:

 
All of the major brands contain a "meal" which is a sludge consisting of various low quality meats (animals deemed not fit for human consumption), diseased animals etc. This sludge is highly processed and cooked to high temperatures. Basically, the sludge contains no nutrients/vitamins/minerals whatsoever.

They have to add the vitamins/minerals into the sludge to make it nutrittious. There are a lot of industrial processes that produce minerals/vitamins as a byproduct. These synthetic garbage is added back into the food.

I think the combination of these heavy metals, BPA in the can lining, the toxic sludge and vaccines eventually start taking it's toll.

I think this epidemiology study should be very useful to determine if there is even a correlation between vaccines/pet food and FIP.

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Are you talking about dry food or canned food? I do wish you the best with the study.

nansiludie said:

 
I have not personally had a cat with FIP but I will say that is a pretty far leap to blaming diet and possibly vaccines. I think its more likely due to genetics, a cat may have a stronger immune system and be more likely to keep the virus in check whereas a immune compromised cat, may not be able to and the virsu mutates to what is know as FIP. FIP is a virus not anything regarding diet or vaccines, which is why there is a FIP vacccine. What was biopsied on your cat? This page has a lot of info regarding FIP. I hope it helps to clear up some things as its quite a complicated disease.

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You should read Peter Duesbergs research on auto-immune diseases (they don't exist). Viruses are dumb, they cannot lie dormant, play hide and seek, or magically mutate to cause disease.

In fact, Peter Duesberg does a good job examining the last 100 years of "Virus Hunting". Just some examples, Pellagra and SMONS were both blamed on a virus.....it took decades to find out it was a nutrition deficiency (or cause by a medication in the latter case).

It's time to examine the Pet Food and Vaccines instead of "Virus Hunting". We have been "Virus Hunting" for the last 50 years, with no results.

Just the fact that most have cats have coronavirus but only some get sick is a good indication that it's not the coronavirus. It fails Koch's postulates.

I also don't think it's genetics (I think this is an invisible enemy...sort of like Virus Hunting). Genetic suspectibility could have other intepretations. For an example, I think the sphynx is diagnosed with FIP at a higher rate....that doesn't mean genetic suspectibility. That could mean there are more breeders of sphynx that are giving Pet Food and vaccines (just an example).

The theory about the origins of FIP falls apart in that it is also found in wild cats both captive and free roaming.  http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/g...verview_of_feline_infectious_peritonitis.html   It is especially common in Cheetahs which suggests there may be a genetic component.  Very few cheetahs survived the last ice age so there are a lot of genetic issues related to inbreeding in the cheetah population.  There was also a confirmed outbreak in the population of European wildcats, this was confirmed with necropsies. 

Denice said:

 
The theory about the origins of FIP falls apart in that it is also found in wild cats both captive and free roaming.  http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/g...verview_of_feline_infectious_peritonitis.html   It is especially common in Cheetahs which suggests there may be a genetic component.  Very few cheetahs survived the last ice age so there are a lot of genetic issues related to inbreeding in the cheetah population.  There was also a confirmed outbreak in the population of European wildcats, this was confirmed with necropsies. 

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Has the coronavirus ever been isolated? No

Is there a definitive test for it? No

This is "Virus Hunting". It is not science.

The cheetah could have some sort of malnutrition disorder. FIP could be a malnutrition disorder like scurvy. Some known/unknown mineral/vitamin is not in the diet which causes FIP.

Speaking as a retired virologist, I can assure you that viruses do mutate all the time and change the symptoms they produce. I worked with plant viruses where I've seen it happen first hand by doing something as simple as changing the temperatures under which plants were grown. Knowing nothing about cat viruses, I can't comment on FIP specifically - I just wanted to point out it is not impossible for a virus mutation to be involved.

Margd said:

Speaking as a retired virologist, I can assure you that viruses do mutate all the time and change the symptoms they produce. I worked with plant viruses where I've seen it happen first hand by doing something as simple as changing the temperatures under which plants were grown. Knowing nothing about cat viruses, I can't comment on FIP specifically - I just wanted to point out it is not impossible for a virus mutation to be involved.

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Sorry my mistake, viruses do mutate. I meant to say that they cannot lie dormant and play hide and seek with the immune system. They are too "dumb" to do that.....this is the explanation I believe by Peter Duesberg (noble prize winner).

There are thousands of bacteria in the human mouth. In a scurvy patient, what is the chance they will blame it on one of the bacteria?

We find the coronavirus in almost all cats with no issues, what is the chance they will blame it for causing FIP?

No one has ever isolated the mutated feline coronavirus. How can you blame it on something that doesn't exist?

Ah, I see what you are saying!

There is a lot that isn't understood about FIP but that doesn't mean it is caused by nutritional issues.  The coronavirus itself has been isolated and there are antibody tests that show if a cat has been infected at some point in their life.  All cases of FIP that have been confirmed with necropsy were in kitties that also had the coronavirus antibodies.  The reason for a small percentage of cats developing FIP is not understood.  It could be a combination of things, the immune response of the kitty being inadequate which then gives the virus the ability to mutate.  Viruses as well as bacteria that are exposed to things that normally kill them but they survive do mutate for  continued survival. 

Viruses that lie dormant in the body for years do come back sometimes in different forms.  The shingles virus in people is an example.  A virus isn't really dormant, it is kept in check by the immune system.  In people as they age the immune system weakens and the virus that originally caused chicken pox comes back as shingles.

morse said:

 
All of the major brands contain a "meal" which is a sludge consisting of various low quality meats (animals deemed not fit for human consumption), diseased animals etc. This sludge is highly processed and cooked to high temperatures. Basically, the sludge contains no nutrients/vitamins/minerals whatsoever.

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Not every brand uses "meal".  Many don't.  I just checked several of the cans I have on my counter, and NONE of them have it .  They still have added vitamins, but no "meal". 

mrsgreenjeens said:

 
Not every brand uses "meal".  Many don't.  I just checked several of the cans I have on my counter, and NONE of them have it .  They still have added vitamins, but no "meal". 

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The meat is still highly processed and cooked to very high temperatures to prevent salmonella etc. If the meat was nutritious, they wouldn't need to add industrial synthetic vitamins/minerals to it. A lot of the vitamins/minerals they add are by products from various industrial manufacturing plants.

For an example, Blue Buffalo said they use no meal, yet scientific analysis revealed they did use meal.

That is why I stated that anything you did not give yourself is considered "major brand food".

There is still the question of FIP found in different species of free roaming cats in the wild in different parts of the world.  They don't eat highly processed food.  It is true that dietary changes brought on by environmental changes do contribute to diseases.  It is common for lions during severe drought to begin dying of canine distemper.  They normally can rid themselves of  the virus without symptoms but because of diet changes during drought they become symptomatic and begin dying of distemper.  That has nothing to do with processed food though. It took them awhile to figure it out but it was caused by them only eating choice parts of buffalo and leaving the rest because of the unusually high number of buffalo kills that they were getting during droughts.

morse said:

 
The meat is still highly processed and cooked to very high temperatures to prevent salmonella etc. If the meat was nutritious, they wouldn't need to add industrial synthetic vitamins/minerals to it. A lot of the vitamins/minerals they add are by products from various industrial manufacturing plants.

For an example, Blue Buffalo said they use no meal, yet scientific analysis revealed they did use meal.

That is why I stated that anything you did not give yourself is considered "major brand food".

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Anything that is cooked is processed. I'm not sure why you are nearly certain it is a diet component. Cooking does destroy and also alter the way some vitamins and minerals are absorbed within the body and also the amount that is left remaining in the food. I really think there is a genetic component to this rather than strictly dietary. I do think the virus mutates and what one cat can keep in check, another cannot.

Even homemade raw food usually has supplements added to be a mostly complete and nutritionally balanced meal.

A lot of the FIP cases that rescuers see are in young kittens. Who haven't been vaccinated yet, and some of whom were raised on the streets/on a farm and didn't get a processed food diet. I suppose you could blame some kind of deficiency (although mice and birds ought to be adequate nutrition for a cat!) but it seems vaccines and processed food could be ruled out in those cases.

I doubt there's an easy answer. The body is complicated and we don't understand everything. The universe is complicated and we don't understand everything. So how an individual's body responds to any particular thing can't always be explained.

Willowy said:

A lot of the FIP cases that rescuers see are in young kittens. Who haven't been vaccinated yet, and some of whom were raised on the streets/on a farm and didn't get a processed food diet. I suppose you could blame some kind of deficiency (although mice and birds ought to be adequate nutrition for a cat!) but it seems vaccines and processed food could be ruled out in those cases.

I doubt there's an easy answer. The body is complicated and we don't understand everything. The universe is complicated and we don't understand everything. So how an individual's body responds to any particular thing can't always be explained.

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There is no definitive test for FIP. A biopsy is not definitive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_infectious_peritonitis

 There is as yet no definitive diagnostic test for FIP. Diagnosis may include a combination strong clinical suspicion, physical examination findings, presence of abdominal fluid with characteristic chemistry changes and examination of affected tissues for the FIP virus (this is usually performed post-mortem, but can be performed via tissue biopsy).

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Also, where was FIP before the 1950s?

morse said:

 
Also, where was FIP before the 1950s?

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Very probably misdiagnosed or called something else.  The quality of veterinary medicine for household pets prior to 1950 was nowhere near what it is now.

Veterinary medicine for kitties also lagged behind medicine for dogs.  That is still seen in many general vet practices.  The vets in these practices tend to be much more knowledgeable about dogs.  You still see it with the common name used for feline panleuk.  It is still often referred to as feline distemper.  It is actually a form of parvo virus not a neurological distemper type of disease.