In medical news this week I read that scientists at Cornell Veterinary college have developed a vaccine for Johne's disease. Johne's disease is an animal disease that effects cattle, and other animals and has similar symptoms to Crohn's disease in people.
Here is a quote from Yung-Fu Chang, Cornell professor of microbiology and the paper's principal investigator, via physorg.com.
One of the frequently cited "conspiracy theories" about Crohn's disease is that there is a connection between the bacteria shown to be the cause of Johne's disease in cattle and Crohn's disease in humans. This link has not been proven in scientific tests, but their remains speculation that there may be some link in the diseases. It may be that the Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis bacteria (MAP) that causes Johne's disease in cattle and other animals is a trigger factor for Crohn's disease in humans. MAP bacteria is not killed by the current methods of pasteurization of cow's milk.
I am intrigued by the idea that if there is a vaccine for the bateria for use in cattle, if that means there might be some further study that could be done for a similar vaccine for humans. There are already certain genes that have been identified in people that seem to show a highter pre-dispsition to the Crohn's. I wonder if people that are shown to have these gene's could get a vaccine against MAP bacteria.
