Studies Showing MAP Survives Pasteurization
The first attempt to culture live MAP organisms from pasteurized milk took place in Ireland in the late nineties. Investigators obtained 31 cartons of pasteurized milk from 16 retail outlets and grew MAP organisms out of 20% of them. This caused a national food scare, widely publicized in the UK and the EU, and which received no media attention whatsoever in the US. Bowing to public pressure, the British government initiated a study of their own in which they sampled 1,000 cartons of milk and were able to grow MAP out of 30 of them. This was followed by more studies showing that MAP is the most heat resistant organism ever identified and that it can only be destroyed by at boiling temperature (212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Centigrade).
Dà ©jà Vu: Regulatory Agencies that Refuse to Regulate
As in the case of the banking regulators, whose inaction led to the economic collapse, the FDA and other government regulatory have caved in to the farm and other food lobbies they theoretically regulate. As a result, they continue to obstruct veterinary and medical researchers who have been fighting for twenty years for mandatory preventive measures to slow the spread of MAP. Despite dozens of studies from Europe, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) persists in claiming MAPis eradicated by pasteurization.Likewise, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) resists compulsory monitoring of herds for MAP or compulsory reporting of Johne's Disease or evencompromise measures, such as mandatory testing of animalsfrom infected farms or improved farmer education about MAP, Johne's Disease andbasic calf hygiene techniques that reduce MAP infection. This would seem the best place to start, given surveys revealing that 50 per cent of American farmers have never even heard of MAP.
Europe, on the other hand, employs the Precautionary Principle in its approach to all environmental toxins. In the EU public health agencies don't believe children should continue to be exposed to MAP while we wait for unequivocal proof that it plays a causal role in Crohn's disease. This could take decades (especially as most US funders continue to decline research proposals to study MAP infection in humans). They feel (as do I) that it's unconscionable to continue to expose children to a potentially fatal illness when simple and inexpensive public health measures could greatly reduce their risk of MAP infection.
In Europe public health measures have been extremely aggressive. In the late nineties the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden committed to total MAP eradication, based mainly on mandatory testing and reporting and improved calf hygiene, which has been largely successful. Herd screening for MAP and reporting of Johne's Disease is mandatory in most other European countries. In Australia the government has the ability to declare an infected area a control zone and require testing (and culling where indicated) of all cattle within that zone. While New Zealand (where I live) has no mandatory testing and reporting, there is major government support for research, farmer education and a promising cattle vaccine.
The Crohns/MAP Link: Implications for Treatment
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