Page 92 - Spring 2019 Journal

A Campaign for Real Milk BRUCELLOSIS PROPAGANDA
By Pete Kennedy, Esq.
Various media have been waging one of the bigger anti-raw milk propaganda campaigns in memory through their reporting on a recent individual case of brucellosis (also known as undulant fever) attributed to raw milk consump- tion. The media are using the case, the third individual incident of brucellosis blamed on raw milk consumption in the past year and a half, to warn the public that people are putting their health in jeopardy if they don’t consume milk that is pasteurized. The illnesses occurred in Texas in August 2017, New Jersey in October 2017, and New York in November 2018, with the latest illness blamed on Miller’s Biodiver- sity Farm of Quarryville, Pennsylvania; there is currently a quarantine in effect prohibiting the farm from distributing raw dairy products. A cow that tested positive for brucella has been removed from the dairy herd.
The media have been taking their cues from press releases issued by public health depart- ments, namely the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which have been giving the advice to pasteurize all milk. However, the solution to avoid getting brucellosis is far different from what public health officials and the media are telling you. In the words of one healthcare pro- fessional, “For public health officials to issue public notices that the solution to this avoidable problem is to pasteurize all milk is astonishing.”
BRUCELLOSIS FACTS
First, the three cases of brucellosis are the
only known cases attributed to raw milk con- sumption over the past twenty years. Brucellosis is a systemic disease in cattle and humans that is caused by the bacteria Brucella abortus. At one time the disease in cows caused severe reductions in offspring and was a problem for the cattle industry. A national eradication cam-
paign was launched in the 1950s and according to USDA statistics, the number of cattle or bison herds affected by brucellosis in the U.S. has been less than ten every year from 2003 onward.1
The eradication program’s success has led to a huge decline in the number of brucel- losis cases in humans; estimates are about one hundred cases of human brucellosis per year in this country.2 In the U.S., this is mainly an oc- cupational disease with most of the rare cases of brucellosis occurring in people who attended the birth of an infected cow and then became infected during handling of the birth tissues and fluids.3,4
In an infected dairy cow, the Brucella abor- tus pathogen can proliferate in the mammary glands and then enter the milk. The pathogen can pass to humans when drinking the infected milk, but as mentioned the cases of brucellosis attributed to drinking raw milk in the U.S. are extremely rare.
A lab test called “milk ring test” is the tra- ditional and commonly used method to screen dairy herds to detect any cows with brucellosis; the test is performed on the herd’s milk to check for the rare presence of brucella antibodies.
Two vaccines against brucellosis have been developed for calves: the S19 vaccine and the RB51 vaccine. The S19 vaccine is effective, but it has the disadvantage of causing testing for antibodies to become positive. The vaccine can make it difficult to distinguish between a vaccinated cow and an infected cow. The RB51 vaccine does not cause the antibody testing of cows to become positive, but another problem arises with its use.
The RB51 vaccine must be administered to calves before they become fertile; a side effect is that, if a cow is given the RB51 vaccine when
A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of
the Weston A. Price Foundation. To obtain our informative Real Milk brochures, contact the Foundation at (202) 363-4394. Check out our website, RealMilk.com for additional information and sources of Real Milk products.
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Wise Traditions
SPRING 2019