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david.crichton · Joined: 02 May 2008 Posts: 83

This August 9th-14th, the International Association for Paratuberculosis will be hosting its 10th International Colloquium for Paratuberculosis.

http://www.cvm.umn.edu/outreach/events/icp/home.html

The highlight for patients will be the opening night's debate (9th) between Herb Van Kruiningen ('con') and Tim Bull ('pro') on whether or not MAP causes disease in humans.

Also, there will be at least one other session focussing on MAP and public health: Thursday August 13th, Carol Nacy.

And a Mississippi riverboat cruise.

HungoPavi · Joined: 15 Aug 2009 Posts: 1

If anyone attended this I would like to hear what they concluded from this debate. Very Happy

admin · Site Admin Joined: 06 Jan 2008 Posts: 60

Hi

Thanks so much for posting this information. Hopefully we will have some news soon. Thanks again Diane

david.crichton · Joined: 02 May 2008 Posts: 83

Hi,

I will hopefully have the video from the colloquium up at www.youtube.com/ibdvideos within a month or so. I will drop back in to post that the videos have been posted. They may be posted all at once or staggered.

Overall the ICP was great. Lots of good presentations. Really too much to summarize. But the science continues and it does seem beyond reasonable doubt that MAP causes a chronic inflammation in the gut of some people.

Dr. VK's presentation was good. He'd make a very good lawyer. That said, to me, he really only presented evidence and posed questions that showed that we have been looking in the wrong places for MAP and that there are some legitimate issues/discrepancies in some of the data. He stressed potential for methodological errors/difficulties. Which makes some of the new research, that seems less prone to methodological errors, and not limited by the practical realities of not being able to hack out a seven year olds colon upon diagnosis before treatment to test deep in the mucosa for MAP, appear more compelling. Unfortunately, Dr. VK did not address the new data; he simply held up studies that he was critical of, and then said that they cast doubt on the theory. The odd thing was that he used these studies that he was critical of, and which did not look in the sub-mucosa (where he himself said the damage is and where any infectious agent would be residing), to somehow discredit the theory. I think he really just posed some important questions that need to be answered.

Dr. Bull's presentation was to the point and had some complex but persuasive immunology.

Lots of other great presentations. I especially liked Carol Nacy's presentation. It is a must watch. People seem to think that TB is completely understood, and that there are perfect tests, when really other mycobacterial diseases are not perfectly understood, and the problems with MAP are being experienced by TB researchers as well. Olsen and Greenstein also talked about the things we should take from other mycobacterial diseases. And how CD does appear to be like other mycobacterial diseases. Dr. Chamberlin did a great job of putting things in perspective, particularly what the theories of CD have been historically.

Take away message from it all. There needs to be a collaborative approach between all experts (gastroenterologists, microbiologists, immunologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, etc.) Need a validated test, a small animal model and good anti-MAP treatments. And we also might want to take some precautionary measures on our farms and in our food processing plants... Smile

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I don't know how much more evidence it will take to persuade people that MAP causes disease in some people, but i don't think it will take much more, or another century of research either. To develop a treatment that 'cures' people of their chronic MAP infection and allows for the reversal of the sometimes severe tissue damage, ~80% of the time is another story, however.

Reef08 · Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 14

david.crichton · Joined: 02 May 2008 Posts: 83

Of course!

I do not, however, have the expertise to translate such hope into statistical probabilities of success, but should one do so anyways?

There are other possibilities out there as well (though vaccine remains the most ideal given likelihood of reinfection). For instance, new antibiotics, mentioned by Dr. JHT in his "Doomsday paper" - supposed to be able to kill dormant bugs - and by Carol Nacy during her talk - but need a small animal model to test on (it would cost too much to feed cows antibiotics in sufficient doses).

Plus, the antibiotics currently being used have 'cured' many people already. Just not 80% or so.