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Zhitz INTERNATIONAL November 2008 Update |
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zero tolerance |
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I attended a rural conference a few years ago. I hoped to informally convince any of the many politicians there to get something done about MAP. In the event the Farmers stole the show, everyone felt so sorry for them. There was a demonstration and I was given a lift in a Minister’s big car, from the station. I took this photo out of the window of some of the protestors who lined the route.
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What Hope Our Future? |
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It was Organised by Farmers For Action. I was quite impressed and a bit scared.
In 1972 Aunty June asked me why I was so thin. I said I had colitis, she laughed and said “cows get that” she had worked on a dairy farm and some of them had Johne’s disease. I looked it up in the library and discovered that it was similar to crohns. The cows were given the same drugs I was on to keep them well. |
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They had to stop giving sulphonamides to dairy cows. Did these keep Johnes disease away?
When TB testing was first introduced it was a simple test, if cows reacted they were culled. Eventually when TB became less of a problem, it was noticed that a lot of the reacting cows did not have TB. They had either Bird TB or Johnes Disease. These diseases are known as “Environmental Tuberculosis”. A new test was devised that is being used to this day. If a cow is found to be a reactor to the Avian part of the test they are put back into the herd. Eventually, maybe 5 years later, the cows with Johnes become sick, and when their milk production falls and it’s obvious something is wrong, they get the chop. These Cows can shed the MAP bug into milk. If they do it some of it survives pasteurisation.
Pasteurisation of milk has saved countless lives. The main threat was from TB. The problem is that any heat treatment of milk spoils its taste. Modern farming methods being developed after WW2 made milk even less palatable. The solution was to pasteurise milk for a shorter time and at a lower temperature. The standard time is 15 seconds now. I does not kill all MAP. The bug has even been found in UHT milk. In India where crohns is rare they boil milk
A recipe for disaster, the MAP was safe from the drugs, the TB test and the pasteurisation.
Then came the MAD cow epidemic. Farmers accepted they had to feed cows with more expensive alternatives. Some may have helped MAP spread into their cows. They fed chicken litter to them. Its highly nutritious and cheap. Containing straw, faeces urine and bacteria. The government quietly stopped them doing this. At least I hope it has? |