Medicine: Beware of Brucellosis

Every year, 2,000,000 cattle in the U.S. become infected with Bang’s disease (brucellosis), which causes cows to abort and infects milk—a double loss to dairymen. The cost to the milk and beef industries is close to $100 million annually. Among pigs, too, the disease is rampant, but no one has counted the cost. Humans also get the disease (often called undulant fever). Only 4,000 to 6,000 human cases are reported every year, but doctors suspect that there are really 30,000 to 40,000 cases.

Last week, the National Research Council was urging a nationwide campaign to stop the disease where it starts—down on the farm. Most adult men who get the disease work on farms or in packinghouses and have direct contact with diseased animals. Children are more likely to get brucellosis from drinking raw milk.

The usual symptoms are weakness, chills and fever, aches “all over,” headache, loss of appetite and mental depression. Since the same symptoms are caused by influenza or other common ailments, they are hard to diagnose. In cases without fever the victim may suffer for years without knowing why. Some authorities suspect that many unexplained miscarriages could be traced to brucellosis. If it attacks the heart valves or the brain, it can be fatal. Only in the last three years has an effective treatment been found: sulfadiazine combined with streptomycin, or the newer aureomycin.

“There is open conflict,” the National Research Council’s experts report, “between agricultural economics and the public health aspects of brucellosis.” To get around this difficulty, the council recommends that elaborate testing programs and the destruction of diseased livestock be carried out at public expense. (In many states, farmers are already indemnified for losses.)

Meanwhile, U.S. citizens should remember that raw milk is dangerous.