Is Pasteurization Inadequate?
Nevertheless, if the St. Georges researchers are right, urgent action may be required to deal with the second plank of their argument. Hermon-Taylor and his collaborators think that the vehicle through which MAP passes from animals to humans is milk. They also believe that current high-temperature, short-time (HTST) methods of pasteurization may fail to inactivate the organism completely. Controversy over the involvement of MAP in Crohns disease, and the alleged deficiency of milk pasteurization, has now spilled out from learned journals into the general media. “If there were no MAP, I believe there would be almost no Crohns disease,” Hermon-Taylor was quoted as saying in a recent article in the The Times of London. “The problems caused by MAP in the milk supply constitute a public health disaster of tragic proportions, for which a range of remedial measures are urgently needed.” The difficulties in establishing (or disproving) the etiological role of MAP is Crohns disease have been si
