Q: "I read on the FML that ferrets have a problem with getting
    tuberculosis frm raw meat.  Can they really get TB from raw meat?"
 
A: Well, they can get fat, protein, carbohydrates, and minerals
from their diet; I'm not sure TB is a common ingredient.  Hold on a
moment .ahhhh, there it is, just above anthrax and below carbohydrates .
 
I must have missed this post; I don't recall anything relating to
tuberculosis and a raw diet.  Perhaps you or someone can forward the
post.  Nonetheless, the topic is important and deserves an answer.
 
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacillus
bacteria that is found in more than 12 million Americans and perhaps as
many as one third of all humans on the planet (oh, yes, that many!  Just
ask WHO).  In non-industrial countries, TB is still a slow, painful
killer, but in today's America it is not much of a major cause of
disease and death.  For example, in 2002 the National Center for Health
Statistics reported 15,075 cases of TB, with 802 fatalities.  Compare
those numbers to the 2002 US auto accident figures: 2.92 million people
injured, 42,815 killed, 17,419 alcohol-related deaths, 3,244 motorcycle
deaths, 968 children under 7 years of age killed, and 4,808 pedestrians
killed.  Compare those to smoking deaths, where 1 in 5 deaths in the USA
are attributed to cigarettes and their consequences, resulting in an
average of 264,087 male and 178,311 female deaths per year (442,398
total).  Of those, an average of 966 people, including children, died
from being burned to death in cigarette-related fires.  Compare that to
the 14,054 people who were murdered in the USA in 2002; 9,369 killed with
firearms, 1,767 killed with cutting instruments, and 933 were beat to
death with hands or feet.  In the USA, your chance of being beat to death
is greater than dying of TB.
 
I don't want to trivialize 802 people dying from TB in the USA in 2002
there is nothing trivial about it.  The process of death from TB is cruel
and painful, and not even a hardened criminal deserves the torturous
anguish it can cause.  But we need to put it in perspective for this
discussion; in the same year in the USA, 42,136 people were diagnosed
with AIDS and 16,371 people died of the disease.  There were 2,428,000
deaths in the United States in 2002; just 802 were from TB.  The rate
of TB for the USA in 2002 was 5.2 per 100,000 people.  The New Zealand
TB rate for the same year was 6 cases per 100,000 people, even though
they have feral ferrets harboring bovine tuberculosis.  You noticed I
mentioned smoking and AIDS in these statistics?  The current worldwide
increase in TB is associated with smoking and AIDS, with perhaps half of
the people with the disease either smokers, suffering from AIDS, or both.
One hypothesis is the damage to the lungs caused by smoking makes them
particularly susceptible to TB infections; the AIDS association is
probably due to immunity issues.
 
The reason I can quote these numbers so accurately is because
tuberculosis is a monitored disease.  All diagnosed cases are reported
and local outbreaks, human or animal, are investigated and statistics are
kept and published.  Not only is Mycobacterium tuberculosis monitored,
but also M. bovis and M. avium, both of which can infect other species
and have severe economic consequences.  Luckily, human TB is only rarely
transmitted to other species, avian TB is somewhat more infectious, but
unluckily, bovine TB can and will infect any warm-blooded vertebrate.
Humans are actually fairly resistant to all types of tuberculosis; only
about 10% of all infected people ever develop the disease (if that many),
and many of those have other health issues.  Even so, in the USA between
1900 and 1950 perhaps as much as 30% of all human tuberculosis was caused
by bovine TB, most originating from the dairy industry.
 
The threat of TB was one of the reasons the pasteurization of milk became
commonplace.  In 1917, the US federal government initiated a program to
eradicate bovine tuberculosis.  This program was not just meant to make
cattle disease free, but to eliminate the disease from all other animal
reservoirs as well.  Over the years, the program has evolved, states have
their individual programs, but among other things, the anti-TB effort has
included testing animals at slaughter, testing of herds and farms, hunted
animals, and wildlife disease surveys.  The government takes this very
seriously and if a state, like Texas, has only two TB-positive herds (out
of an estimated 153,000 herds in Texas) in a 48-month period, they lose
their TB-free status, a move that has severe economic consequences and
requires considerable additional testing and tagging and lots of other
stuff to pacify bureaucrats in white lab coats.  If a herd is found with
TB, the herd is then "depopulated." Controlling the disease basically
means that bovine TB is contained by killing any animal which tests
positive for exposure.  As a consequence, while bovine tuberculosis
has not yet been eradicated in the USA, (mostly because of persistent
wildlife reservoirs), it is EXTREMELY rare.  For example, in 2001, out
of the millions and millions of cattle slaughtered in the USA, only 64
tested positive for TB and each one was investigated to determine source
(mostly imported from Mexico).  If you can prove raw foods being sold in
the USA are contaminated with TB, then call the news, the DA, the local
health authorities, and the USDA because someone has broken or subverted
federal and state laws and you get to be the hero.
 
(continued in the next post)
[Posted in FML issue 4651]