At present most Mycoplasma Avium Paratuberculosis (MAP) research takes place in Europe, even though Rhode Island surgeon Dr Rodrick Chiodini was the first to culture MAP from children with Crohn’s in the mid-nineties. MAP research is extremely controversial in the US owing, in part, to a US Department of Agriculture Survey (USDA) revealing that 68 percent of US dairy herds test positive for MAP infection (which can be asymptomatic).

Given European studies showing that MAP can be cultured from 5-20 percent of the “pasteurized” milk sold in supermarkets, it seems safe to assume American milk (which undergoes an identical pasteurization process) can also harbor the organization. In my opinion, the dairy industry and the federal agencies that regulate them have a moral and ethical duty to inform the public of these facts – giving American parents the choice of whether they want to expose their children to a potentially fatal disease (or at least boiling their milk, presently the only safe method of eradicating MAP). For some reason, neither the farm lobby nor the US government see it this way. The dairy industry specifically opposes boiling milk, claiming that it adversely affects the taste.

Studies Showing MAP Survives Pasteurization

The first attempt to culture live MAP organisms from pasteurized milk occurred 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 an announcement that milk pasteurization time (the length of time milk would be heated to 72 degrees C) would be increased from 15 to 25 seconds. However the finding of live MAP in retail milk a year later suggested this modification was inadequate. This is born out by subsequent 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).

Déjà 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 agencies steadfastly refuse to fund studies testing US retail milk supplies for MAP. Moreover, thanks to the black-out in the US media on European research, most American doctors continue to regard Crohn’s as a genetically inherited autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are a varied group of illnesses in which the immune system goes haywire and begins attacking the patient’s own body – in the case of Crohn’s the intestinal lining.

The Precautionary Principle

Europe, on the other hand, employs the Precautionary Principle in its approach to all environmental toxins. There 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.

Note: readers with Crohn’s or irritable bowel syndrome should definitely see the YouTube presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pYuf5rnnQo&feature=related) by Dr Hermon-Taylor from St George’s Medical School in London.

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