Crohn's disease, sick cows and contaminated milk

[Guest guest]

I can't remember where I read about this first, if it was here please

excuse my poor memory. Have you all heard about this?

Sandy

Crohn's disease, sick cows and contaminated milk

Posted: October 1, 2004

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

For issues that affect public health, it shouldn't matter who leads the

government.

When research uncovers the cause of a disease, or shows where our food

technology is no longer adequate, public health agencies under the

leadership of either party should step forward.

When the agencies don't act, the effect is chilling. In the short term,

some special interests are protected, some companies make short-term

profits. In the long term, we all lose.

But by far the biggest losses are experienced by new patients diagnosed

with a disease that, arguably, should not have happened.

Over 20 years of independent research links a common disease in humans

characterized by chronic diarrhea and severe abdominal pain with sick

cows and contaminated milk.

We're not describing a disease process on another continent, or another

era. I'm sad to say that we're talking about the United States in 2004.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, from 20 percent to 40

percent of U.S. dairy farms have sick cows. These cows aren't mildly

ill, they're infected with Mycobacteria paratuberculosis , which

produces massive diarrhea and incredible weight loss. But on factory

farms, sick cows still provide commercial milk. Milk from sick cows is

pooled with milk from healthy cows. The result: contaminated milk and,

apparently, a whole lot of sick people.

It's not a pretty picture – for the cows, or the humans. And like most

medical matters, the story is not simple. I hope you'll stay with me.

Think of the worst stomach flu you ever experienced. Then imagine

trying to live with that every day.

That's Crohn's disease.

Crohn's disease was virtually unknown before 1940. But by the 1950s,

the number of confirmed cases doubled. And then it tripled, and then

quadrupled. Today, the disease affects somewhere between 1 to 2 million

people in the United States alone, and the number of new patients

increases every year. Many are children. According to epidemiologists,

Crohn's disease is advancing into epidemic levels.

This is a disease characterized by pain and extreme embarrassment.

Those who have it, don't talk about it.

Many Crohn's patients plan their day so that bathrooms are always

available. In order to go to work, some drive RVs instead of cars. Some

simply stay home 24x7. The direct costs of treatment are now estimated

at more than $2 billion per year in the United States alone. The

secondary costs to the economy in lost wages and productivity are many

times that. The costs in human misery are immeasurable. It's not an

exaggeration to describe Crohn's disease in the United States as a

health emergency.

Crohn's is classified by U.S. medicine as an autoimmune disease,

treated by a variety of anti-inflammatory drugs, including steroids. As

the disease progresses, many patients suffer the surgical removal of

diseased portions of their digestive system.

But what makes it unimaginably worse is compelling research, mostly

from Europe, which reveals this horrible disease is not autoimmune at

all.

Compelling evidence links Crohn's disease with Mycobacteria

paratuberculosis .

And the most likely source of the infection? Milk.

That's right, milk. According to published research, susceptible

individuals are consuming literally millions of pathogenic bacteria

while drinking off the shelf, pasteurized, in the carton, highly

subsidized ... milk.

Crohn's disease

Crohn's was unknown until the early 1900s when two very similar

diseases were described: one in domestic animals called e's disease

and one in humans named after the physician who first wrote about it,

Dr. Burrill Crohn.

Dr. H.A. e was the first to describe the disease in cattle. What

became know as e's disease is characterized by profuse and

intractable diarrhea, severe weight loss and diagnostic changes in the

lining of the small intestine. In diseased cattle, the intestine has so

many ulcers, the surface of the intestines, normally smooth, is

described as having a cobblestone appearance.

Untreated Crohn's disease is also characterized by profuse and

intractable diarrhea, severe weight loss and diagnostic changes in the

lining of the small intestine. In diseased humans, the intestines are

also described as having a cobblestone appearance.

By the 1930s, e's disease was found to be caused by an odd bacteria

named Mycobacteria paratuberculosis . This organism is in the same

family with bacteria which cause tuberculosis and leprosy.

M. paratuberculosis produces disease by over stimulating the immune

system. The bacterium lives inside the cells of the host, where it

divides only once about every 2 to 12 hours. (By way of contrast, the

bacteria in the gut divides about once every 20 minutes.)

There are no toxins or poisons produced by the bacteria. Disease

happens when the immune system recognizes the " foreign " proteins of the

bacteria, even inside a living cell and mounts a furious attack. The

immune " attack " focuses on the infected cells in the mucosal layer of

the digestive system. Massive inflammation results, as well as ulcers,

diarrhea and weight loss.

The disease is known to pass from cow to calf, as infected cows shed

millions of active bacteria into their milk. The infected animals also

pass the infection to healthy animals by food contaminated by diarrhea.

Factory farming methods where larger and larger herds are grazed on

smaller and smaller plots of land further increase the potential for

infection.

Infected animals are known to lose over 300 pounds per week, mostly

from massive diarrhea. Fecal material from infected cows contain as

much as 1 trillion bacteria per gram. Infected cows spray fecal

material everywhere, including over their udders and on nearby cows

where the material contaminates milk. Infected cows also pass the

bacteria directly into milk in millions of bacteria per gram.

Sadly, in today's factory farms, milk from sick cows and milk from

healthy cows is pooled together and then trucked to the milk processor,

where it is piped into cartons and then sold at the local market.

A 1997 USDA study showed that that the number of herds infected is

increasing, and that at least 20 percent – and as many as 40 percent –

of U.S. dairy herds were positive for M. paratuberculosis .

Interestingly, the incidence of Crohn's disease is also increasing, at

roughly the same rate as e's. The United States now has the highest

incidence (new cases) of Crohn's disease in the world.

M. paratuberculosis and Crohn's disease

In the 1930s and 40s, Dr. Crohn was convinced that the human disease

was virtually the same as the disease in cattle. But despite repeated

trials, he couldn't isolate m. paratuberculosis from human tissue.

Also, the bacteria could not be detected in diseased human tissue using

a light microscope.

In cattle, the bacteria grows a special cell wall which is easily

stained and readily visible in microscopy. In infected cattle,

researchers could see swarms of bacteria under the microscope. In

humans, they could see none. Even though the progress of the two

diseases was extraordinarily similar, without an organism they could

either see or culture, Dr. Crohn and other researchers were forced to

conclude that the Crohn's disease was caused by an unknown autoimmune

process.

The mystery was resolved in 1984, when a microbiologist at Brown's

University, Dr. Rodrick Chiodini, demonstrated that m. paratuberculosis

sheds its cell wall in humans, and takes a new form, called a

spheroblast. In a landmark study, Dr. Chiodini cultured Mycobacteria

from children infected with Crohn's.

Dr. Chiodini's effort was extraordinary. Mycobacteria are very

difficult to cultivate. Special media are required and months of

incubation, since the organism divides only once or twice a day. M.

paratuberculosis is in the same family with the organisms which causes

leprosy and tuberculosis. In the case of Mycobacteria leprae , the

organism which causes leprosy, the only way to grow the bacteria

(believe it or not) is in the foot pads of a special species of mice or

in the nine banded armadillo. It just won't grow in outside of a very

narrow band of living hosts.

Even with the difficulties in cultivation, labs were able to isolate M.

paratuberculosis from Crohn's patients in California, Texas, France,

The Netherlands, Australia, England and the Czech Republic.

In 1987, using DNA probes similar to the techniques used to identify

forensic cases, researchers in England looked at tissue samples from

Crohn's patients and compared them with patients with ulcerative

colitis. Sixty-five percent of the samples from Crohn's patients were

positive for m. paratuberculosis, compared with 4 percent of the

control. Dr. Herman-, who led the research effort, was convinced

at the time that with better lab technique, over 90 percent of the

samples should have been positive.

In 2002, Dr. Herman- performed a similar survey, with a larger

group of samples, and with improved lab techniques. This time, 92

percent of the samples from Crohn's patients were positive for M.

paratuberculosis .

Further establishing the causative link, M. paratuberculosis isolated

from Crohn's patients was found to cause a similar disease when fed to

farm animals.

I wish I could report that the Food and Drug Administration, the USDA

and the U.S. Animal Health Association is responding to the health

implications of contaminated milk, but to date, there has been little

funding and minimal response from agencies of the U.S. government,

whose main responsibility is the health and welfare of its citizens.

Despite convincing evidence (only a small portion is presented here),

the agencies tasked with funding research and advocating disease

treatment are essentially ignoring advocates for bacterial Crohn's,

even while dramatic increases in the number of new cases are occurring,

especially in those under 30, and a coincident increase in the number

of very sick cows infected with paratuberculosis are seen in factory

farms.

Universally contaminated milk = epidemic Crohn's disease

As mentioned previously, cows infected with Mycobacteria

paratuberculosis shed literally trillions of bacteria, most of it from

diarrhea, but some excreted directly into milk.

OK, , that's certainly disgusting, but why write about it?

The reason is simple, and equally disturbing. M. paratuberculosis is

strongly – even conclusively – associated with a nasty disease in

humans called Crohn's disease, a disease characterized by extraordinary

pain and unchecked diarrhea, a disease currently reaching epidemic

levels.

The infection rate of M. paratuberculosis in U.S. dairy herds is beyond

epidemic. As reported by the USDA. as many as 40 percent of the nations

dairy herds have sick cows, infected with and actively shedding M.

paratuberculosis .

The response by the milk lobby and the USDA: No problem here.

The disease in cows is called e's disease, and in humans, Crohn's

disease. For most of us, the possibility that pathogenic bacteria might

exist in the milk supply is difficult to believe. After all, milk is

pasteurized, and pasteurization is advertised as a complete protection

against any potential pathogenic bacteria.

Sadly, this is not the case with M. paratuberculosis .

Pasteurization in the United States is accomplished predominately by

the HTST (high temperature short time ) method, where milk is exposed

to 72 degrees centigrade (165 degrees F) for 15 seconds, as milk

streams through the pasteurization coils.

In the laboratory, 72 degrees C. for 15 seconds doesn't kill M.

paratuberculosis . In fact, 90 degrees (194 F) for 15 seconds doesn't

kill the bacteria. Part of the reason is that the organism is

concentrated in pus cells in milk which protect the bacteria from heat

damage during pasteurization. Again, sadly, the USDA allows the highest

number of pus cells in commercial milk in the Western world.

Of all the available milk products on the shelf, only ultrapasteurized

milk was found to be free of live M. paratuberculosis .

OK, that's the lab ... what about store-bought milk?

In Ireland in 1998, researchers bought 31 cartons of milk from 16

retail outlets and tested them for M. paratuberculosis . Six (19

percent) grew out live cultures of the bacteria.

The results were widely publicized in the United Kingdom, but

singularly ignored by the major press in the United States. Responding

to public pressure, the British government initiated a 1,000-sample

survey of milk, finding in 2000 that over 3 percent of the milk sampled

grew live Mycobacteria . The detection levels were higher than the 1998

Irish study. In order to be labeled positive, a sample of milk had to

be contaminated with over 1 million bacteria.

The USDA initiated its own study in 1998, but curiously ignored the

established techniques to isolate Mycobacteria . It has been reported

that the milk samples tested by the USDA were first frozen (known to

weaken Mycobacteria ), then the samples were exposed to high frequency

sound waves. Finally the samples were grown on media which is

considered inadequate to culture Mycobacteria . In contrast with

accepted protocols, the cultures were incubated for only three months.

It is widely accepted that the minimum time required for M.

paratuberculosis culturing is four months. Not surprisingly, the

cultures were all negative.

Other countries have not been so cavalier. Milk studies continue in

Europe, among them a study from Switzerland in 2003, where 1,384 bulk

milk samples from different regions were tested for M. paratuberculosis

using DNA probe methods. Some 19.7 percent were positive for the

bacteria. Intriguingly, the cows from Swiss farms were predominantly

asymptomatic – they were apparently ill, but not producing the massive

diarrhea that characterizes the latter stages of M. paratuberculosis

infection.

Laboratories independent from the USDA have been examining milk for the

last 10 years. Anecdotal evidence from around the United States

indicates that over 10 percent of milk products surveyed by these labs

are positive for m. paratuberculosis.

It has also been reported that independent researchers are nearing

publication of a long-term study which concludes that random commercial

milk samples from a Midwest state are more than 10 percent positive for

live Mycobacteria .

Unfortunately, contaminated milk is not the only avenue of infection.

Eventually, even factory farm cows become too sick to be useful. These

cows are culled from the herds, slaughtered and made into hamburger,

which is also sold in stores. Sadly, the same process which

contaminates milk, also contaminates meat.

The USDA, however, does not consider these very sick cows to be any

health risk whatsoever.

Antibiotic treatment for Crohn's disease

Forefront physicians across the world have been treating Crohn's

patients with a cocktail of antibiotics specially formulated to be

effective against M. paratuberculosis . The results have been

stunningly successful.

In Florida, Dr. Ira Shafran published a study (self-financed) where 77

percent of the patients treated with antibiotics were markedly

improved. In Australia, Dr. Tom Borody is conducting a 2-year study on

the effects of antibiotic therapy on Crohn's. The results will be

published within months, but Dr. Borody states that the early

indications are strongly positive. Within his own practice, Dr. Borody

told WND that more than 70 percent of his patients eventually reach

remission. Approximately 15 percent of his patients are considered

healed – having no symptoms for four or more years.

In 1997, in England, a treatment trial was published where 52 patients

with severe Crohn's disease were treated with two antibiotics for

almost one year. Six of the patients were unable to tolerate the drug

therapy and dropped out. Of the remaining 46, 94 percent were in

remission at the conclusion of the trial.

Dr. Herman-, who continues to research and treat Crohn's patients

told the press: " I've seen people without hope get better like magic.

I've been a doctor for 40 years, and this is the best thing I've ever

seen in medicine. " Another researcher was quoted: " If this were cancer,

we'd be calling these long remissions a cure. "

While not 100 percent, no other treatment available today even comes

close.

Given the harsh realities of an epidemic disease, you'd think that all

of medicine would enthusiastically welcome a new treatment model based

on state-of-the-art research under which more than 70 percent of

Crohn's patients were able to resume normal lives.

If you thought that, you'd be wrong.

Medicine in the United States has a sad history of hanging onto foolish

disease paradigms, despite compelling evidence to the contrary. In the

recent past, gastroenterologists waited as long as 15 years before

recognizing that ulcers are not caused by stress, but are actually

caused by another unusual slow-growing bacteria – Helicobacter pylori .

In the United States, the engines for change in medicine are the drug

companies, university medicine – funded by various government agencies,

and research demanded by political pressure – AIDS research and

breast-cancer research for example.

Drug companies sell the current view of Crohn's disease as an

autoimmune disease and are unlikely to shake the paradigm. No single

drug company would " own " the treatment of Crohn's, should its bacterial

origins become commonly known. There is little profit motive.

In fact, there is arguably a negative profit motive, since at present,

a patient's steroid and anti-inflammatory treatments never end. When

ulcers were found to be caused by H. pylori , drug companies lost

millions. It's a terrible pun, but for the drug companies, Crohn's is a

cash cow.

In the case of government funding, the Cleveland Free Press reported

that over 25 of Dr. Herman-'s grant proposals for projects

associating M. para with Crohn's were summarily rejected. Other

researchers suffered similar reactions. The reasons are complex and are

arguably related as much to the milk lobby as they are to forefront

medicine.

According to the milk lobby, one of the most powerful in Washington,

there is absolutely no reason to suspect that there could be anything

wrong with the U.S. milk supply. In the face of increasingly convincing

evidence, a spokesman for the U.S. milk lobby compared those who are

trying to publicize the evidence to those who believe in flying saucers.

Where do we go from here?

Clearly the United States lags the rest of the world in recognizing the

link between Mycobacteria paratuberculosis and Crohn's disease.

Equally clear, Americans will not long tolerate out-of-date treatment

protocols and disinformation.

If the research is correct that the disease in cattle and the disease

in humans are the same, the U.S. government needs to address this right

away.

Dr. , a professor of veterinary microbiology and pathology

at Washington State University, and a member of the National Academy of

Science's e's Disease Committee, has stated that the research

linking M. paratuberculosis with Crohn's disease is intriguing, but

that the numbers of patients cited in existing research are not large

enough.

Dr. told WND that a conclusive study would involve a

significantly large group of patients and would proceed under strict

controls. He also admitted that funding for M. paratuberculosis is not

deemed a high priority at the National Institute for Health, and that

the exhaustive research that he would like to see is unlikely at the

present.

It has been reported that the United States currently spends less than

$4 million per year on Mycobacteria paratuberculosis research. Consider

that a typical medium-sized downtown office building costs more than

$100 million. For a disease that costs over $2 billion per year in

direct treatment costs, $4 million in research funding is woefully,

even criminally inadequate.

To contrast Crohn's disease with breast cancer: 2.8 million women in

the United States are estimated to have breast cancer, approximately

equal to the upper estimate of Crohn's patients. In 2003, from the

National Cancer Institute alone, $550 million was allocated to breast

cancer research.

Medical professionals correctly warn patients against betting the lives

of their loved ones on some off-the-wall treatment program trumpeted on

the Internet and sold in a foreign country. Most reasonable people know

this and agree whole heartedly.

But in the case of Crohn's disease, many professionals, including

physicians, whose children have been diagnosed with this disease are

actively seeking antibiotic treatment, in many cases without the

endorsement of traditional gastroenterologists. Anecdotal evidence has

parents educating their own physicians and then begging them for

antibiotic treatment.

Without adequate research and a responsive government, the sad reality

is that across the country, literally hundreds of thousands of children

cry themselves to sleep every night, because when they eat it hurts so

bad, and sometimes even the steroids don't work.

Can we live with that?

Crohn's IS caused by MAP (in perhap 80% of cases). Please excuse me if

I'm a little cynical about the milk lobby. The problem with

antibiotics, as far as I can tell, is that for now you must take them

for several years to be successful (if you can find a doctor who will

buy this research). Also, you must not have had those particular

antibiotics before (For instance, I believe biaxin is used in

combination with another drug). If I can rid my body of this bacteria,

you can be sure I will not be having milk, beef, or cheese again.

As to the underlying mechanisms, this interview with a leading

researching was very enlightening:

http://ibd.patientcommunity.com/features/korzenik_crohn.cfm?link_id=2424

The researcher states that, like periodontitis-causing bacteria,

certain bacteria can foil the bodies first line of defense

(neutrophils) thereby causing inflammation (backup defense).

Leukine (gm-csf)is one of the first remedies that is actually an

immune-stimulant and should be on the market by late 2007- it seems to

be VERY effective but trials are ongoing (but look for an effective

immunemodulator(sic) called Antegren to be also helpful in 2006).

Remicade will only last so long and Humira may replace it- BUT I want

to find this bacteria, not let it just reside in my system.

Until then I have to go on methotrexate this month.

For those of you with mild crohn's I heartily suggest Sachromyces

Boulardii (prebiotics: effective yeast capsules) and Lactobacillus GG

(probiotics that add a protective layer to the intestine).

I used to have lots of bowel problems until I stopped drinking milk.

After reading this I imagine many people could get better by just not

drinking the stuff. I also about a year or two ago took some of those

internet colon cleanser pills. Amazingly enough they got rid of a

tapeworm that I had had for years. I felt good as new after that

regimen of pills.