Section F. Milk-borne diseases

Abstract

The general policy as regards the provision of a safe, and at the same time adequate, milk supply in this country is about to enter a new phase. The contending interests of producer and consumer will now become merged, and, in the near future, the progress which is envisaged in the new legislation sponsored by the Government will become an accomplished fact. During the past few years the medical press and parliamentarians in both Houses have stressed the urgency of the need for new legislation. In the House of Lords, Lord Bledisloe's recommendations as quoted in a leading article in the Lancet^) were as follows: (1) a proper survey of the incidence of cattle disease throughout the country; (2) increasing the bonus given for milk from attested herds, and an intimation that, within a fixed period, milk from herds which are not free from tuberculosis will not be accepted for human consumption; (3) establishing a free State veterinary service; (4) marking cows eliminated from attested herds so that they cannot be sold into other herds and so spread disease without the purchaser knowing that the animals are affected; (5) compulsory vaccination of calves against contagious abortion; (6) compulsory health service for cattle; (7) establishing disease-free areas; and (8) a State abattoir service under veterinary supervision. During the debate it was stated that the annual milk supply was reduced by over 200 million gallons owing to disease. The editorial in the Lancet also pointed out that although the recommendations of Lord Bledisloe were admirable the needs of the people were immediate, and since all admitted that millr is being contaminated to a greater or less degree and is unsafe, immediate steps should be taken to rectify this by pasteurization. As Prof. G. S. Wilson pointed out in his book, The Pasteurization of Milk (2), 'Accredited milk is just as heavily infected with tubercle bacilli as ungraded milk; and Tuberculin Tested milk is just as heavily infected with Br. abortus as ungraded milk, if not more so.' In 1945, also, an editorial in the British Medical Journal!?), entitled 'Milk still unsafe', dealt with a debate which had taken place at the Annual Representative Meeting of the British Medical Association. It was emphasized that, so far, nothing had been done to implement the recommendation in the Government's White Paper on 'Measures to improve the quality of the Nation's Milk Supply'(4), particularly in regard to the fact that the Minister of Food was enabled by a Defence Regulation (55 G) to make it an offence to sell milk in any area which he might schedule, unless the milk was either heat-treated or from disease-free animals. The editorial also pointed out that American troops in this country had not been allowed to drink milk unless obtained from a tuberculin-tested herd and then pasteurized. In 1946, as reported in a further editorial in the same journal(5), the House of Lords again raised the question of the safety of the milk supply, and Lord Rothschild 'rose to call the attention of His Majesty's...