Keeping your food safe

Another busy week causes me to be a bit delayed on my blog post for this past week.  I usually write on Thursday afternoons as I have the day off and the time to sit down and type.  Last week I was invited to a Young Farmers meeting hosted by Farm Bureau. This was my first Young Farmers event in this area and I was quite impressed with the number of attendees.  It’s another one of the things I love about this area. There is so much young enthusiasm for agriculture around here; a sign of an exciting future!

In my first post, I mentioned that I wanted to educate whoever will read, on how we as veterinarians ensure a safe and wholesome food supply.  One of the ways we do this as a veterinarian is to perform “regulatory work.”  In order to perform regulatory work, a veterinarian must be federally accredited, which means that we have to be “certified” by a USDA veterinarian and maintain certain educational requirements.  Not only do we have to be federally accredited, we have to be accredited in every state we want to perform regulatory work in.  Currently I am accredited in Vermont and New York, and am still working on Massachusetts.

So what is regulatory work? It includes giving Rabies vaccinations, writing health charts (intrastate, interstate and international), performing specific tests on animals such as Tuberculosis and Brucella vaccinating and others.  This week I Brucella (also known to farmers as BANGS) vaccinated a group of animals on one of my routine herd checks.  This farm sells and markets a large number of animals, so vaccinating is an important part of the import/export process.  

Brucella is a disease caused by the bacteria Brucella, which has several different sub-species.  It mostly affects, cattle, bison and swine, but can affect others as well.  Some of you may have heard about the bison in Yellowstone that are infected with Brucella.  The contagious disease causes abortions (term used for “miscarriage” in animals), infertility, lameness, and decreased production in these animals and is the causative agent of undulant fever in humans. The bacteria can be found in milk, reproductive organs, and the placenta and fetus of an animal that aborts (miscarries).

Years ago, Brucella was endemic throughout the country and there was a federal program in place to try to eradicate the disease.  Testing and vaccinating of animals was a common procedure done on all farms. Female animals 4-8 months of age were vaccinated with a brucella vaccine.  In order to identify animals that were vaccinated against those that may have contracted the disease, animals receive a metal ear tag and a specific ear tattoo, in the right ear, at the time of vaccination.  As of 2000, there were 44 states that were considered Brucellosis free.  If you are from a Brucellosis free state, it is no longer required that you vaccinate the animals. However, before any animals are sold or leave a brucellosis free area, most buyers still require a blood test to see if they are truly negative.

So what does this all have to do with keeping a safe food supply and what does it mean for you?  Well because Brucella is found in milk, it is up to veterinarians to keep an eye out for animals that are possibly infected with the bacteria. There is no cure for the disease, so these animals must go to slaughter and the herd is placed under quarantine.
 
Since the discovery of pasteurization of milk, the numbers of cases have been reduced in humans.  Let me be really clear here; PASTEURIZATION KILLS THE BACTERIA AND MILK IS SAFE TO DRINK!!!!! The risk lies in the milk products that are not pasteurized, such as certain yogurts and cheeses, and if you drink RAW milk.  Because the majority of the country is Brucellosis free, the risk for contracting brucella is MUCH less than what it was 70-80 years ago. There is concern with the increased interest in drinking raw milk; especially in areas that are close to states where Brucella is still found, and not only for brucella,  but for other bacteria such as Listeria and E. Coli. The farms that sell raw milk must test their herd for Brucella and these farms are closely regulated by the state to ensure public safety.

Like I said in a previous post, farmers and veterinarians understand these risks and really do try to make sure the food you consume is safe. It’s a big job, but someone has to do it… J