Paratuberculosis and Crohn's Disease: Got Milk?

[Guest guest]

by Mic. MedicalConspiracies@googlegrohael Greger, MD

http://www.veganoutreach.org/health/gotmilk-abridged.html

 

This is an abridged version of Dr. Greger’s full article, which includes

references.

 

Often touted as the Pulitzer Prize of alternative journalism, a Project

Censored Award was given to what was considered one of the most censored

stories of 1999— the connection between Crohn’s disease and

paratuberculosis bacteria in milk.

 

Described as a human scourge, over a half million Americans suffer from

this devastating, lifelong condition with annual US medical costs in the

billions. The director of the National Association for Colitis and

Crohn’s Disease says the best way to describe the disease to

nonsufferers is to have them think of the worst stomach flu they ever

had and then try to imagine living with that every day. Since the 1940s,

there has been a rapid increase in the incidence of Crohn’s disease in

the US and around the world, especially among people in their teens and

early twenties.

 

The US has the highest rate of Crohn’s ever recorded. The US also has

the worst epidemic of a similar disease among cattle, called Johne’s

disease, known to be caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium

paratuberculosis (MAP). There is now growing clinical, epidemiological,

immunological, experimental, and DNA evidence that this bacteria is the

cause of Crohn’s in people who drink milk from infected cows. Since

transmission of this bacteria is facilitated by its presence inside pus

cells, American milk drinkers may be at particularly high risk since the

US has the highest permitted upper limit of milk pus cell concentration

in the world—almost twice the international standard of allowable pus.

By US federal law, Grade A milk is allowed to have over a drop of pus

per glass of milk.

 

According to the USDA’s latest figures, there are now three quarters of

a million cattle infected with paraTB in the US. Between 20 and 40% of

US dairy herds have already become infected with paratuberculosis, and

the infection rate is expected to reach 100%. Intensive, modern farming

practices—grazing bigger and bigger numbers of cattle on smaller and

smaller plots of land—are blamed for the rapid spread of this disease.

 

Until 1998, controversy surrounded paraTB’s ability to survive

pasteurization. That year, however, researchers in Ireland grew live

paratuberculosis bacteria out of 6 of the 31 cartons of retail

pasteurized milk they tested— almost 1 in 5. This caused a national food

scare. Dairy industry experts described it as a “significant blow to the

industry.” Crisis management specialists called the ramifications

“enormous,” “horrific.” Despite headlines splashed throughout Europe,

not a word crossed the Atlantic, reminiscent of the media blackout in

the US in the early years of the mad cow disease crisis.

 

The industry and/or government know what kind of time bomb they’re

sitting on. According to one industry expert, the incrimination of MAP

in human disease would cause enormous economic damage to animal

agriculture industries. An article in MILK SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL

entitled “Is Mycobacterium paratuberculosis a possible agent in Crohn’s

Disease?” warns that “the present state of knowledge is…potentially

catastrophic for the dairy industry should existing information be used

in a sensationalist manner.”

 

This conspiracy of silence extends beyond the producers to encompass the

entire industry to the point of interfering with scientific dialogue.

From the JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE: “Fear of consumer reaction…can impede

rational open discussion of scientific studies.” Rodrick Chiodini was a

microbiologist at Brown University’s Rhode Island Hospital when he

became the first researcher to show the presence of paratuberculosis

bacteria in the gut walls of children with Crohn’s disease. He writes,

“the dairy and regulatory industries are concerned vocally…but their

concern is limited to the possibility of ‘bad press’ to the industry

rather than a concern for the truth or public health.”

 

Last year, the USDA’s United States Animal Health Association (USAHA)

rejected a proposal by a Crohn’s patient advocacy group to test retail

dairy products in the US because they were concerned about “the usage of

this information.” The USAHA statement reveals the gamble the industry

is willing to take. In Britain, when asked what the industry planned to

do about paratuberculosis, spokespersons said that it was “something

that bears watching” but that they “preferred to defer action” until

paraTB is proven to cause disease in humans. This sounded all too

familiar to the British public after the mad cow debacle, where the beef

industry made the same wager—and lost.

 

Despite the fact that paratuberculosis is now a known human pathogen, it

continues to be tolerated in our food supply. After finding of MAP in

their retail milk supply, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland now

requires that cattle infected with Johne’s be excluded from the food

supply. The flesh from an infected cow is no longer considered fit for

human consumption and her milk is simply dumped. Karen Meyer, co-founder

of the Paratuberculosis Awareness & Research Association, commented,

“The government of Ireland is to be commended for exercising the

precautionary principle. Instead of trying to sweep the problem under

the rug, they acted swiftly to give human health priority over special

interests.”

 

John Hermon-Taylor, chairman of the surgery department at St. George’s

Medical School in London, is an internationally known expert on Crohn’s

and paratuberculosis. In his view, “There is overwhelming evidence that

we are sitting on a public health disaster of tragic proportions.”

Europe’s Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare,

however, concluded that the currently available evidence was

insufficient to confirm or disprove the theory. This uncertainty should

not impede the government from taking concrete steps to prevent further

potential human catastrophe. If the British government had acknowledged

the precautionary principle over mad cow disease, millions of lives may

have been saved. A headline in THE TIMES sums up an inquiry into the

mishandling of the mad cow affair released this year in Britain: “Lack

of Proof Led to Disaster.”

 

Every few hours, another child in this country is diagnosed with Crohn’s

disease and may be condemned to a life of chronic suffering. The balance

of evidence strongly suggests a causative link between MAP and Crohn’s

disease. This public health issue has been at the periphery of the dairy

industry’s agenda for years, a nagging concern on the back burner. The

consumer movement needs to move it to the front burner and turn up the

heat.