I just stumbled upon some disturbing article about milk... I think that'll turn your stomach like it messed up mine.
[img]/images/graemlins/angry.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/angry.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/soapbox.gif[/img]
http://www.mad-cow.org/00/paraTB.html
Milk and Pus
Professor Hermon-Taylor, internationally known expert on Crohn's and MAP genetics, who has researched the illness for 20 years, said: "If there were no MAP I believe there would be almost no Crohn's disease. It is certainly responsible for between 60 per cent and 90 per cent of all cases and I would think that it is more likely to be 90 per cent."[174] Obviously, everyone who's exposed to paraTB doesn't come down with Crohn's disease, as is the case in virtually all infectious diseases. As mentioned previously, just because one comes in contact with a pathogen does not necessarily mean one comes down with the illness. Genetic and environmental factors facilitate establishment, persistence, and production of disease.[175]
H. pylori, for example, (the bacterium proven to cause ulcers) is one of the most common of all bacterial infections[176]--a third of Americans have H. pylori in their stomachs.[177] A third of us, however, don't have ulcers;[178] some people are just susceptible. Similarly, only about one in three hundred people exposed to tuberculosis actually come down with active disease.[179] Until we know why some and not others fall ill, all one can do is to try to minimize exposure to the pathogen. For example, people should not let those with tuberculosis cough in their face.
Drinking milk from cows infected with Johne's disease is how people are exposed to paratuberculosis. Based on DNA fingerprinting techniques, there are two strains of MAP: one that affects cattle, and one that affects goats and sheep. All human isolates so far have been of bovine origin,[180] implicating milk.[181] Milk is the "logical" focus of exposure[182] because cows with Johne's disease secrete paraTB abundantly in their milk.[183]
Even sub-clinical cows--those that are infected but appear perfectly normal--shed paraTB bacteria into their milk.[184] Although these bacteria are found free-floating in milk, their transmission may be facilitated by their presence inside pus cells.[185] This is a particular problem in the United States, as we have the highest permitted upper limit of milk pus cell concentration in the world--almost twice the international standard of allowable pus cells.[186] By US federal law, Grade A milk is allowed to have over a drop of pus per glass of milk.[187] These pus cells may facilitate the transmission of paraTB.[188]
Pasteurization
In England, researchers took milk off grocery shelves and tested it for the presence of paratuberculosis bacteria using DNA probes. Depending on the time of the year, up to 25% of milk cartons contained paratuberculosis DNA.[189] Interestingly, the seasonal variation coincided with the periods when Crohn's patients tend to suffer relapses.[190] The researchers tried to culture live paraTB bugs from the milk, but were largely unsuccessful, because cow's milk is such a stew of microbes that fungal overgrowth and faster multiplying bacteria took over the samples.[191] The question then remained, did the positive DNA samples in up to a quarter of the milk supply indicate live or dead paratuberculosis bacteria? Can paraTB survive pasteurization?
Historically, pasteurization had been established in order to kill paraTB's cousin, bovine tuberculosis.[192] TB was thought to be one of the most heat resistant human pathogens, so the temperature was set at approximately 62o Celsius (144o Fahrenheit) for a half an hour.[193] Later, the disease Q fever was discovered, so the temperature was increased to 63o Celsius.[194] Now the HTST method, which stands for High Temperature, Short Time, is predominantly used--72o Celsius (162o F), but only for 15 seconds.[195] While 72o C kills most bacteria, paratuberculosis has been shown to survive 15 seconds at 90o Celsius (194o F).[196] By hiding in milk in fat droplets, pus cells, and fecal clumps,[197] paraTB might be able to survive at even higher temperatures.[198] Second only to prions[199] (which cause mad cow disease), paratuberculosis is considered the most heat resistant pathogen in the human food supply.[200]
Johne's on the Rise
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Johne's disease is one of the most serious diseases affecting the cattle industry.[201] Although it is found in cattle populations throughout the world, the United States appears to have the worst paratuberculosis problem on the planet.[202] In 1997, the USDA released a long-awaited report of the national prevalence of Johne's disease. Surveying over 2500 dairy producers,[203] they showed that between 20-40% of US dairy herds were infected, a figure that they concede is probably an underestimate.[204] Since milk from an entire herd is likely to be pooled together in tankers for transport to processing plants, the 20 to 40% figure is likely to indicate the level of contamination in American milk.[205]
Just as Crohn's disease is increasing in the human population--it may be no coincidence that the US also has the world's highest incidence of Crohn's ever recorded[206]--Johne's disease is spreading among dairy cattle.[207] Johne's disease is spread primarily by the fecal-oral route. One can imagine how a cow with intractable diarrhea can thoroughly contaminate her surroundings[208] and just a few bits of swallowed manure can potentially infect a calf.[209] Overtly infected animals, losing up to 300 lb. of body weight in one week[210] can shed as many as ten hundred trillion bugs a day.[211] One can also imagine what intensive modern farming practices have done for the disease.[212] Grazing bigger and bigger numbers of cattle on smaller and smaller plots of land is one of the reasons this dreaded disease is such a growing threat.[213] And every time animals are transported between farms, new herds may be infected. If no changes are made, the dairy herd infection rate is expected to reach 100%.[214]
USDA Farce?
With the growing Johne's epidemic, US governmental regulatory agencies have been in a bind. The only thing allegedly standing between people and the paratuberculosis bacterium are 15 seconds at 72o Celsius.[215] The government has had to somehow convince the families of Crohn's patients who started to ask questions that pasteurization was foolproof. The problem was that the preponderance of the scientific evidence was against them--almost every study ever done simulating pasteurization conditions showed that paraTB survived the 15 seconds at 72o C.[216] So USDA scientists designed their own experiment.
Critics accuse the USDA of trying to ensure that no paraTB would survive in their pasteurization experiment by first crippling the bacteria. Very irregularly, with no precedent in the scientific literature for using this type of approach,[217] the USDA began their experiment by first "starving" the MAP bacteria,[218] exposing them to high-frequency sound waves, and freezing them--a technique that has been shown conclusively to weaken MAP.[219] They were also criticized for making a number of methodological mistakes and omissions.[220],[221] Then, allegedly to make absolutely sure not a single bug would grow, they used an inadequate culture media[222] and report culturing them for only 2 to 3 months.[223] It is widely accepted that the minimum time it takes to ensure the growth of paraTB is 4 months.[224]
It is perhaps not surprising that no MAP grew from the pasteurized milk in their experiment. The researchers concluded: "Results indicate that the transmission of live paraTB bacteria via pasteurized milk is unlikely." Despite fifteen[225] years of better research to the contrary,[226] based on that single questionable study, in a letter dated Feb. 9, 1998, Joseph Smucker, the leader of the FDA's Milk Safety Team wrote "After a review of the available literature on this subject, it is the position of FDA that the latest research shows conclusively that commercial pasteurization does indeed eliminate this hazard."[227]
The FDA has argued that earlier pasteurization studies used unrealistically high levels of MAP that wouldn't be expected to exist naturally in the raw milk supply.[228] This is not a tenable criticism, primarily because the studies in question followed the published guidelines on the proper challenge concentration in the design of thermal inactivation studies.[229] Also, the concentration of MAP in raw milk is unknown.
Cattle infected with Johne's disease have uncontrollable diarrhea, which "sprays" out from them in liquid form. Due to the close proximity of the cow's anus to her udders, it is unavoidable that an infected cow's udders will be smeared with feces, potentially leading to the contamination of her milk with high numbers of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.[230] The feces contaminating her milk can have as many as a trillion paraTB bugs per gram.[231]
Off the Shelf
Despite its shortcomings, the USDA study continues to be cited and the rest of the scientific literature ignored by the government and the agricultural press.[232] Hoard's Dairyman, for example, cited the USDA study and concluded that "pasteurization destroys this dangerous disease."[233] It wasn't until the year after the study was published that such assertions were proven to be wrong.
The only way to demonstrate for sure that live paraTB bacteria survive pasteurization is to culture a colony of living paratuberculosis bacteria from retail pasteurized milk off the grocery shelf. In 1998, that is just what researchers did. Choosing Ireland, which has the highest per capita milk consumption in the European Union,[234] investigators went to 16 retail outlets and got 31 cartons of milk which were pasteurized at commercial dairies large and small.[235] Six grew out live paraTB, 19%--almost 1 in 5.[236] This caused a national food scare with daily front page headlines, not a word of which crossed the Atlantic.
In an editorial entitled "Media and Censorship," the Editor-in-Chief of the Cleveland Free Times wrote "The dairy lobby is notoriously powerful inside the Washington D.C. beltway. And a tax on dairy farmers helps the dairy industry spread its advertising dollars around generously (most notably the 'Got Milk?' ad campaign), to the point where the wholesomeness of milk goes virtually unquestioned in the media.
How else can it be explained that the possible link between a bacterium in milk and Crohn's disease is virtually unknown in the United States, despite front-page coverage in England and other places around the world."[425]
When the results of the Irish study were released, crisis management specialists called the ramifications "enormous," "horrific." Dairy industry experts described it as a "significant blow to the industry," "accelerating the long-term decline of milk," and noting "It's not a market that can just bounce back."[237] Dairy industry leaders reacted angrily to the suggestion that pasteurization was inadequate. The British National Dairy Council's "Information Officer," said she wished the investigators had contacted the industry before publishing their scientific findings.[238]
Responding to public pressures, the British government initiated a nationwide thousand-sample survey of retail pasteurized milk. The announcement splashed headlines all over Europe, but there was still no word in the American press.[239] The preliminary findings of the British government's survey were released in April, 2000. Three percent NAME="fnB240" HREF="#fn240">[240]--3 out of every one hundred cartons of milk off the shelves--grew out live paratuberculosis bacteria,[241][242] Based on the detection threshold of these tests, each quart had to contain at least about a million paraTB germs to come up positive.[243]
A year and a half earlier, after the announcement that milk was contaminated by at least paraTB DNA, the three British supermarket giants--Tesco, Sainsbury and Safeway--announced that milk pasteurization time would be increased from 15 seconds to 25 seconds, to reassure the public that their products were safe.[244] The finding of live paratuberculosis bacteria in retail milk over a year later has fueled the skepticism that the 10 second change would make any difference.[245] The change was not based on science--in fact there is a suggestion that some paraTB can survive pasteurization temperatures for 9 minutes[246] or longer.[247]
Conspiracy of Silence
Despite its pervasiveness and its ability to severely impact milk production and destroy whole herds of cattle, Johne's disease remains an industry problem that is not openly discussed.[286] In an article entitled "Johne's Disease: a Dairy Industry Perspective," Johne's is described as "Something that farmers talk about secretly--whisper behind hands." One dairy scientist stated that in all his years he had never heard an open, frank discussion of Johne's disease and calls for end of the "whispering campaign."[287] Dairy farmers try to hide the fact that they have the disease in their dairy herds.[288] As an article in Cornell Veterinarian notes, "Farmers prefer not to acknowledge its presence and enshroud suspect cases with secrecy."[289] It is a problem that is kept out of sight and out of mind. As one dairy farmer put it "It's [Johne's] a dirty word. It's like AIDS--you don't talk about it."[290]
This conspiracy of silence extends beyond the producers to encompass the entire industry to the point of interfering with scientific dialogue.[291] From the Journal of Dairy Science: "Fear of consumer reaction... can impede rational open discussion of scientific studies."[292] Without doubt, says Chiodini "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."[293]
The secrecy has successfully bred ignorance. Over a century after the disease was identified, almost half of all dairy farmers nationally surveyed by the USDA didn't know anything about the disease.[294] And those with the largest herds--the herds most likely to be infected[295]--were found least likely to have known of the disease.[296] Karen Meyer, then Executive Director of the nonprofit Paratuberculosis Awareness and Research Association (PARA), placed the blame on the representatives of the dairy industry. At a meeting of the USDA's United States Animal Health Association (USAHA), she challenged dairy producers to become more proactive. "If there are organizations you have been relying on for your information and to protect your interests, they have failed you miserably."[297] "I think we underestimate farmers," she told the Wisconsin Agriculturist. "If they even thought they were making someone sick, it would break their hearts."[298]
US Inaction
The USDA has been accused of continuing to keep its head in the sand. Industry specialists blame the federal government for "grossly underfunding" research, with less than one percent of its animal disease grant budget allocated to Johne's.[299] As Alan Kennedy, a co-founder of PARA and himself a sufferer of Crohn's disease remarked, "yet another case of CJD--Conflicting Job Description." The USDA is mandated to regulate animal industries and food safety, but it is also responsible for promoting these same agricultural products.[300]
The first US case of Johne's was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1908.[301] Almost a century later there is still no mandated control program,[302] even though as far back as 1922 scientists published warnings of the danger posed by the disease and outlined effective methods of controlling and eradicating it. Efforts to control and eradicate Johne's disease have been grossly inadequate.[303] "In the 75 years following the release of that publication, there's very little that any state has done to try to control the disease," says Collins, the University of Wisconsin veterinary researcher. Meanwhile, as predicted in 1922, the disease has continued to spread silently and surely. According to the USDA's figures, there are now three quarters of a million cattle infected with paraTB in the United States.[304]
The reason that Johne's has spread to such a degree is because there have been no direct constraints on the transport of infected animals.[305] Almost without exception, paratuberculosis is introduced into a herd through the addition of an asymptomatic infected carrier animal. Almost every infected herd can trace the infection to the purchase of an infected cow[306] that appeared healthy when offered for sale.[307] Disturbingly, the USDA found that dairy farmers with infected herds were no less likely to sell replacement cows to other farms than owners of noninfected herds.[308]
Regulatory vets know and accept this fact, acknowledging that movement restrictions on infected animals must exist for an effective control program. However, as described in the Veterinary Clinics of North America , "if the voluntary program imposes movement restrictions, it could quickly become a regulatory program and not have widespread support and participation from the livestock industry."[309] In fact the Code of Federal Regulations (part 80) was recently changed to remove restrictions on the interstate movement of Johne's disease positive animals.[310] The change was made because of pressure from the livestock industry.[311]
Though not putting its money where its mouth is, the USDA insists that the agency is doing everything it can with regard to Johne's disease.[312] The USDA, for example, cites the formation of the National Johne's Working Group in 1994. However, the executive committee of the group is composed of three people: one is John Adams of the National Milk Producers Federation and another is Gary Weber a director of the National Cattleman's Beef Association.[313]
For those that remember the Oprah Winfrey mad cow fiasco, Weber was the cattleman defending cow cannibalism. "Now keep in mind," he said on that show, "before you--you view the ruminant animal, the cow, as simply a vegetarian---remember that they drink milk." Years earlier he told industry publication Food Chemical News that the cattle industry could indeed find economically feasible alternatives to feeding rendered animal protein to animals raised for slaughter, but that the Cattlemen's Association did not want to "set a precedent of being ruled by activists."[314]
Not surprisingly the National Johne's Working Group has officially come out against making Johne's a reportable disease, advocating that all attempts at control be voluntary.[315] In a moment of rare candor, one Working Group member explained why: "If the farmers have to report positive cows, then it will be like the sheep scrapie [mad sheep disease] program. Instead of reporting the disease, the farmers will 'shoot, shovel and shut up.'"[316]
A year earlier, a national paratuberculosis certification program had been started in order to identify low risk herds, but only 1% of dairy operations reported participating in the program, citing associated costs.[317] Less than 15% of the dairy producers appear to test for Johne's.[318] In 1997 the Johne's Working Group set up a similar program designed to be more affordable,[319] but again chose to keep it strictly optional, relying on the "livestock industry in each state to sell its economic advantage to its members."[320] As a concession to the industry, there is still no federally mandated Johne's Disease control program.[321] Some states have Johne's control programs, but without exception they are noncompulsory.[322] Just as government deregulation of industry may have led to the mad cow disaster in Europe, the lack of industry accountability may also play a pivotal role in the human consequences of the paratuberculosis epidemic.[323]
The United States is being left behind in the world-wide race to eliminate paraTB.[324] The Netherlands, one of Europe's largest dairy exporters, has pledged to eradicate paratuberculosis by the end of this year by instigating a compulsory eradication program.[325] "To minimize the risk of human exposure to paratuberculosis" is one of the explicit reasons given for the Dutch program.[326] Sweden seems to be closest to winning the battle, probably because it was the first country whose control efforts were non-voluntary.[327] Australia is currently also certifying herds with a view to eradication.[328] Although there are currently no restrictions on international trade as a result of the disease,[329] that may well change and potentially threaten America's $700 million dairy product export industry.[330]
Mike Collins began his messages to both the Johne's Disease Committee and the general session of the US Animal Health Association with the same words "Don't shoot the messenger."[331] Rather than participating in serious dialogue around the issue, the dairy industry has been accused of spending its energies slinging mud at researchers in the field,[332] giving lip service and vainly hoping it just all blows away.[333] Christine Rossiter, senior extension veterinarian with the Cornell University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told the Wisconsin Agriculturist that those who decide to address the issue are put at risk and there's "no value placed by the industry on a person who wants to do something about Johne's. Nobody wants to take it on."[334]
At an international colloquium on paratuberculosis, Chiodini expressed his view that the current focus of the American dairy industry "could put the industry in the same light as the tobacco industry, being accused of a cover-up and faced with all sorts of liabilities."[335] Paul Strandberg, Assistant Attorney General of the State of Minnesota warned the Johne's Committee that if they chose to be less than forthright about the possible link between milk and beef and Crohn's Disease, they could wind up on "60 Minutes" in the middle of a media circus.[336]
Off the Shelf USA
In order to put the problem in perspective and get the issue out in the open, the consumer movement needs to get a study of retail milk supplies in the US funded. That is the recommendation of the Paratuberculosis Awareness and Research Association.[337] That is the recommendation of researchers in the field.[338] Not only has industry allegedly "totally ignored" this approach,[339] one observer wrote that it would be "political suicide" for a researcher in the US to even suggest such a thing.[340] However, there have been two brave souls. Year after year, Chiodini and Hermon-Taylor, world recognized authorities on MAP on Crohn's, have submitted proposals to the USDA and to the FDA to test retail milk supplies, and year after year their proposals have been rejected.[341]
At a meeting of the US Animal Health Association, a resolution was debated on whether or not to recommend that the USDA test retail dairy products in the United States for the presence of live paraTB bacteria. John Adams, the National Milk Producers Federation executive member of the Johne's Disease Working Group, was quite vocal in his opposition: "The FDA has already stated their position. They are confident that pasteurized milk is safe. We don't need to test retail milk."[342]
Steve Merkel, a founding member of the Paratuberculosis Awareness and Research Association and whose wife has suffered with Crohn's disease since 1960,[343] replied "With all due respect, sir, if milk is as safe as you say it is, then retail testing will simply confirm that fact. Are you afraid of retail milk testing because you are afraid of what you might find?" The resolution was voted down by an overwhelming majority.[344]
The Paratuberculosis Awareness and Research Association kept at it. Finally, in 1999, PARA successfully submitted two resolutions to the Johne's Disease Committee, one recommending the testing of retail milk and milk products for the presence of live MAP and another recommending research to determine what cooking temperatures are needed to reliably kill MAP in ground beef. Although both resolutions passed unanimously in open committee, they were later voted down behind closed doors. PARA saw this as the USAHA going on record as deliberately choosing ignorance about the presence of MAP in food products for human consumption.[345]
The United States Animal Health Association tried to justify why the resolutions were quashed: "During the discussions of these resolutions, there was much concern about the feasibility of end-product testing of milk and meat for an organism that science has not confirmed as being the cause of Crohn's in humans, and the usage of this information." In the opinion of PARA, as expressed in a letter to Animal Health Association President-elect, "this statement presents USAHA as not only primarily self-serving, but further, is blatantly contemptuous of both its own member producers and the American public." The letter concludes "We at PARA are saddened that USAHA has chosen to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution."[346]
Gambling with Lives
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"[347] but that they "preferred to defer action" until paraTB is proven to cause disease in humans.[348] This sounded all too familiar to the British public after the mad cow debacle, where the beef industry made the same wager--and lost.[349] According to some social science studies, it was the British public authorities' decade-long insistence on the safety of beef that did the most damage to the public trust.[350]
The American dairy industry is similarly gambling not only with the health of consumers, but with their own financial health. The financial impact of paraTB is enormous;[351] paratuberculosis currently costs the American livestock industry over a billion dollars a year.[352] A collapse in consumer confidence could raise that figure much higher.
"If MAP is ultimately shown not to be the cause of Crohn's disease," Chiodini argues, "then the industries have taken the appropriate position of 'lip-service,' to give an image of concern."[353] If, however,--as PARA phrased it in an open letter to the industry--"dairy products become associated with the dreadful, life-destroying disease known as Crohn's disease, your markets may also collapse and may never recover. The image of dairy foods as being necessary for good nutrition, carefully propagated and nurtured by you for decades, may be destroyed."[354]
Other Dairy Products
It's not enough to test milk; we need to test other dairy products as well. One third of cheese produced in the US is made from raw unpasteurized milk, in which one could expect the highest levels of paraTB bacteria.[355] Cheese manufacturers rely on the salty acidic environment of cheese to inhibit bacterial growth,[356] but MAP is resistant to such conditions.[357] Even less robust mycobacteria can survive in soft cheese for at least 3 months and in hard cheese for up to 10 months.[358] Reportedly, at the University of Wisconsin, there is currently a research project which is investigating the survival of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in cheese.[359]
Since MAP can survive freezing for at least a year,[360] products such as ice cream may also be implicated.[361] Ice cream may also come from less rigorously pasteurized milk.[362] Other dairy products like butter, yogurt, and infant formula must also be high research priorities.[363]
Beef
The standard veterinary recommendation when a cow is diagnosed with Johne's is to have her sent to slaughter. Beef from Johne's cattle is not prevented from being sold for human consumption because paratuberculosis is not officially considered a human pathogen. End-stage animals, their bodies dripping with literally trillions of paratuberculosis bacteria, are ground straight into hamburger meat.[364] When Crohn's patient advocates found out that infected tissue from animals with severe clinical paratuberculosis were funneled into the human food supply they were described as, not surprisingly, "abhorred and nauseated."[365]
In the advanced stages of Johne's Disease, MAP bacteria course through the cow's blood stream, infecting her internal organs, and potentially her muscle tissue. Even if the muscle tissue didn't contain large numbers of MAP before the infected cow's death, when she's slaughtered it seems impossible to ensure that feces do not contaminate the various tissues that are taken from her, as evidenced by the numerous E. coli food poisoning deaths in recent years.[366] As a scientist put it: "Consequently, both preharvest and postharvest contamination of food products originating from cattle is plausible."[367]
Although Americans eat 2.6 billion pounds of culled dairy cows annually, most hamburger meat comes from cattle raised for beef. In 1984, about one percent of US beef cattle were found positive for Johne's Disease. Research is ongoing at the USDA to determine the current prevalence of Johne's Disease in beef cattle, but since Johne's is such a hidden disease, is not reportable, and is not the subject of a mandatory control program, one might suspect that the incidence has increased significantly as it has in the dairy cattle population.[368] In spite of this situation, lack of awareness among beef producers is even greater than in dairy producers. The USDA Center for Animal Health Monitoring reports that 69.8% of US beef producers "had not heard of it [Johne's] before." And less then 10% of producers had any knowledge beyond name recognition.[369]
MAP bacteria probably survive standard cooking temperatures. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis is the most heat resistant mycobacterium present in retail beef.[370] Even well cooked meat may contain live paraTB. The USDA recommends that hamburgers be cooked to 71o Celsius (160o F). An unpierced roast or steak need only reach an internal temp of 63o C (145o F). Studies show prolonged exposure to at least 74o (165o F) may be necessary to eliminate the paratuberculosis bug.[371] Mycobacterium paratuberculosis is also resistant to nitrites and the smoking process used in sausage production.[372] MAP may contaminate other meats as well--paratuberculosis is suspected in pigs and chickens.[373]
Milk may be more dangerous to consume than meat, though, in regards to paratuberculosis. MAP is thought to survive digestion when carried in a vehicle like milk, because--as designed by nature--milk buffers the stomach environment to a near-neutral pH. In meat however, MAP's ability to survive digestion by stomach acid is less certain.
not good on cloth seats!