Cheryl Miller Addresses the NJWG
USAHA '98, Minneapolis MN, October 3 1998

Full text of speech

The Paratuberculosis Aggressive Research Association, (PARA, Inc.), is a charity that represents the interests of Crohn's disease patients. The greatest interest of those with Crohn's disease is to be cured, to be rid of this disease forever. Therefore, they are keenly interested in its cause.

Because of the remarkable similarities between Crohn's disease in humans and Johne's disease in cattle, mycobacterium paratuberculosis has been suspected for over 80 years of causing the human disease known as Crohn's disease. Moreover, with the use of modern scientific techniques, evidence that implicates mycobacterium paratuberculosis as a potential cause of Crohn's disease mounts daily. In fact, to date, paratuberculosis has not only been found in the tissues of Crohn's disease patients, but, in one study alone, over 93% of Crohn's patients taking drugs which kill mycobacterium paratuberculosis (anti-paratuberculosis drugs) experienced profound remissions of their Crohn's disease.

Physicians across this nation and throughout the world are successfully prescribing "anti-paratuberculosis" drugs for the treatment of Crohn's disease.

The Johne's committee (JC) was concerned enough about the zoonotic potential (potential to infect other species) of mycobacterium paratuberculosis that it created a National Johne's Working Group (NJWG) in 1994. The NJWG was created as a "...task force with the objective of studying the relationship between mycobacterium paratuberculosis and Crohn's disease." And, what has the NJWG accomplished in the past four years toward reaching its objective? Nothing much of substance, it appears.

Although it has been clearly demonstrated that the mycobacterium paratuberculosis found in Crohn's disease patients are of the Bovine Subtype, the NJWG continues to follow the path of least resistance with the responsible industries and agencies. In fact, the NJWG has neither funded nor conducted, not has it convinced the USDA, FDA, or Congress to fund or to conduct, research into the relationship between mycobacterium paratuberculosis and Crohn's disease.

And, what is happening in the meantime? The sick become sicker and endure more dangerous drugs and their side effects and endure still more surgeries, and 55 more people in the US are diagnosed with Crohn's disease each day.

The fact is that the scientific studies suggesting a link between mycobacterium paratuberculosis and Crohn's disease and the finding of mycobacterium paratuberculosis alive after HTST pasteurization are out there - and they are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals which you subscribe to and which you read.

Many of you at the USAHA meeting are scientists and/or government officials cognizant of and/or responsible for food as it relates to human health. Some of you are Veterinarians, and have sworn as part of the oath of your profession to protect human health. Scientists, Veterinarians, and Government officials, as well as dairy and beef representatives, - ALL of you have very serious responsibilities, given the existing state of scientific evidence and your knowledge of it.

As example, it is more than likely that every scientist, Government official, and Veterinarian in this room fully understands how difficult mycobacterium paratuberculosis is to detect and to culture. And yet, you stand before us relying on two studies saying mycobacterium paratuberculosis is killed by HTST pasteurization - and one of these studies performed by a researcher who, admittedly, could not detect or culture mycobacterium paratuberculosis from unpasteurized bulk tanks of milk from cattle known to be infected with mycobacterium paratuberculosis. And, the second study, evidently performed largely by students at a university under the direction of two researchers with little or no experience and, most certainly, no successful track record in detecting or culturing mycobacterium paratuberculosis.

PARA finds it difficult to accept these two studies as meaningful evidence about the potential survival of a Mycobacterium so difficult to work with that it has only been successfully cultured/detected in a few labs and by a few of the top researchers in the world - researchers and labs with successful track records in detecting and/or culturing paratuberculosis. Might not the average US citizen, learning the truth about these studies, feel the same way?

To be relied upon to ensure the protection of the public health, the task of determining whether mycobacterium paratuberculosis survives HTST pasteurization must, of necessity, be given only to those researchers with a proven track record in working with mycobacterium paratuberculosis.

Moreover, you, because of your education, training, background, and your positions are entrusted with recognizing and acting upon the evidence of potential health risks as well as known health risks. Further, you fully understand the difficulties involved in working with a bacterium as difficult as mycobacterium paratuberculosis, therefore, you are responsible for that knowledge as well as your knowledge of the level of expertise that is needed in working with this most difficult bacterium so that the findings can be relied upon as sufficient and competent evidential matter.

Because of your knowledge, you are held to a higher standard in this issue - ethically, morally, and perhaps even ultimately, legally.

The fact of the matter is that it is past time for the NJWG to live up to the responsibility it was tasked with.

With this understanding and with these concerns in mind, PARA, Inc., calls upon the NJWG to fulfill its responsibilities, and PARA, Inc., very strongly recommends that the National Johne's Working Group/Johne's committee (NJWG/JC) set forth the attached Resolutions (Appendix 1), without revision, for final adoption at the JC, 1998 U.S. Animal Health Association Meeting.