zoonoses

[Guest guest]

Al Martens column: Animals, humans and their links to disease outbreaks

Any diseases that can be spread from animals to man are termed zoonoses, making them a potential threat to people.

A couple months ago, an American citizen with a drug resistant form of tuberculosis (TB) flew to Europe after he had been told to avoid people. After his return via Canada he was held in a hospital under guard.

Now the people who flew on that plane have months to wait and see if they will become infected, and the probability is pretty high that some of them will.

After all, any farmer can tell you that a respiratory disease outbreak in a pen of animals with a lot lower stocking density than a jet airplane will spread through the whole pen. But at least in this case, agriculture wasn't blamed.

At one time, tuberculosis was closely associated with the dairy industry and the organism was spread in milk. Pasteurization played a huge role in preventing the spread of TB through milk to the general public. [ ed. ??! ] The human-animal link of TB has been broken, which is a testament to food safety in this country — even though TB has not been totally eradicated from the cattle population.

Brucellosis in the cattle industry and trichinosis in the swine industry are other success stories where the zoonotic link has been broken. But there are several other diseases that affect animals in agriculture and the link to humans though the food chain hasn't been broken.

Our concern in agriculture with zoonoses is bad publicity and changes in consumer demand for our products.

The zoonosis Crytosporidia is an intestinal parasite that is extremely common in the dairy industry and a common cause of calf scours. All of us who are around cattle daily were long ago infected and are now immune.

In fact, most veterinary schools have outbreaks every few years because the vast majority of students come from urban, rather than rural, upbringings. The farm kids don't get sick because it was one of their childhood diseases.

Several years ago, when the Milwaukee water treatment plant failed to properly treat its water supply, the dairy industry got a black eye when hundreds of people were sickened with crypto. Right away the problem was blamed on dairy farm runoff.

Deer and other wildlife also shed crypto into surface water, but in most cases of human outbreak from improperly treated water it is traced back to a city dumping raw sewage upstream into the infected city's water source. Milwaukee would never dump raw sewage, right?

Salmonella and E. coli are probably the biggest zoonotic diseases. Invariably, salmonella outbreaks are caused by poor food handling. But there is almost always a trace back to an infected animal source and that is where the blame rests.

Raw eggs and uncooked poultry are common sources of salmonella. Raw milk may also contain salmonella.

Similarly, E. coli contamination is usually due to improper food handling, but the original source is almost always farm animals, with cattle being the primary culprit. Currently, pasteurization effectively cooks milk before it gets to the consumer, removing zoonotic diseases.

However, the meat industry is delivering a raw, uncooked product and there is a huge push to try to minimize salmonella and E. coli infection of the farm animal.

Al Martens is a veterinarian with Waupun Veterinary Service. To contact him with questions or feedback, send e-mail to waupunvet@...

[Guest guest]

Al Martens should be told that he is correct that the most effective way to eliminate E. coli 0157:H7 from our food supply is to get it out of the farm animals. But he should do a little research and discover that there is an effective way to make the gut of the cattle/cows (where about 1/3 of the herds have this human pathogen) resist the 0157:H7 strain is return these animals to their natural feed, forages. Just stop the grain feeding and this human pathogen will disappear from the mature of the cattle and cows. Ted zoonosesAl Martens column: Animals, humans and their links to disease outbreaks Any diseases that can be spread from animals to man are termed zoonoses, making them a potential threat to people. A couple months ago, an American citizen with a drug resistant form of tuberculosis (TB) flew to Europe after he had been told to avoid people. After his return via Canada he was held in a hospital under guard. Now the people who flew on that plane have months to wait and see if they will become infected, and the probability is pretty high that some of them will. After all, any farmer can tell you that a respiratory disease outbreak in a pen of animals with a lot lower stocking density than a jet airplane will spread through the whole pen. But at least in this case, agriculture wasn't blamed. At one time, tuberculosis was closely associated with the dairy industry and the organism was spread in milk. Pasteurization played a huge role in preventing the spread of TB through milk to the general public. [ ed. ??! ] The human-animal link of TB has been broken, which is a testament to food safety in this country — even though TB has not been totally eradicated from the cattle population. Brucellosis in the cattle industry and trichinosis in the swine industry are other success stories where the zoonotic link has been broken. But there are several other diseases that affect animals in agriculture and the link to humans though the food chain hasn't been broken. Our concern in agriculture with zoonoses is bad publicity and changes in consumer demand for our products. The zoonosis Crytosporidia is an intestinal parasite that is extremely common in the dairy industry and a common cause of calf scours. All of us who are around cattle daily were long ago infected and are now immune. In fact, most veterinary schools have outbreaks every few years because the vast majority of students come from urban, rather than rural, upbringings. The farm kids don't get sick because it was one of their childhood diseases. Several years ago, when the Milwaukee water treatment plant failed to properly treat its water supply, the dairy industry got a black eye when hundreds of people were sickened with crypto. Right away the problem was blamed on dairy farm runoff. Deer and other wildlife also shed crypto into surface water, but in most cases of human outbreak from improperly treated water it is traced back to a city dumping raw sewage upstream into the infected city's water source. Milwaukee would never dump raw sewage, right? Salmonella and E. coli are probably the biggest zoonotic diseases. Invariably, salmonella outbreaks are caused by poor food handling. But there is almost always a trace back to an infected animal source and that is where the blame rests. Raw eggs and uncooked poultry are common sources of salmonella. Raw milk may also contain salmonella. Similarly, E. coli contamination is usually due to improper food handling, but the original source is almost always farm animals, with cattle being the primary culprit. Currently, pasteurization effectively cooks milk before it gets to the consumer, removing zoonotic diseases. However, the meat industry is delivering a raw, uncooked product and there is a huge push to try to minimize salmonella and E. coli infection of the farm animal. Al Martens is a veterinarian with Waupun Veterinary Service. To contact him with questions or feedback, send e-mail to waupunvetcharterinternet (DOT) net

[Guest guest]

i would take this a step further. The only way that E. Coli 0157:H7 gets into burger is when the butchering is done sloppy and poop is on the meat. So when someone is sloppy and pokes an intestine or slaughters animals that have been held in sloppy conditions at the abattoirs and transfers the poop to the meat people get sick. Even if they get all the animals off grain there will be a new thing to get us sick if this practice of shoddy workmanship isn't controlled. On the farm we eat what we kill and I can tell you we are very cautious of what touches our meat.

Debbie ChikouskyManitoba, Canadagdchik@...

Re: zoonoses

Al Martens should be told that he is correct that the most effective way to eliminate E. coli 0157:H7 from our food supply is to get it out of the farm animals. But he should do a little research and discover that there is an effective way to make the gut of the cattle/cows (where about 1/3 of the herds have this human pathogen) resist the 0157:H7 strain is return these animals to their natural feed, forages. Just stop the grain feeding and this human pathogen will disappear from the mature of the cattle and cows.

Ted

[Guest guest]

There is still an investigation going on as to exactly what the TB

patient was told. The CDC is really trying to backtrack on this one.

They were not as communicative as they would like us to believe.

Also, his TB has been downgraded to " many " drug resistant, rather

than the one they told us he had. I realize that this article was not

about the TB....but, we need to have facts straight before making

statements, IMO!

Patty:)

>

> Al Martens column: Animals, humans and their links to disease

outbreaks

>

>

>

> Any diseases that can be spread from animals to man are termed

zoonoses,

> making them a potential threat to people.

>

> A couple months ago, an American citizen with a drug resistant form

of

> tuberculosis (TB) flew to Europe after he had been told to avoid

people.

> After his return via Canada he was held in a hospital under guard.

>

> Now the people who flew on that plane have months to wait and see if

> they will become infected, and the probability is pretty high that

some

> of them will.