Raw milk drinkers in 19 states at risk of rare, dangerous infectious disease
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If the explosion of measles cases hasn't made you question what year it is, this health alert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may inspire a double-take at the calendar: Unpasteurized milk may have sickened people in 19 states.
Yes, as the country grapples with five-count'em, five-outbreaks of a vaccine-preventable disease, the CDC is warning that another infectious disease of yore poses a risk to widespread dairy drinkers-at least the ones who soured on the standard, decades-old process to remove deadly pathogens from their milk.
The infectious disease is Brucellosis. It's a hard-to-define febrile illness caused by Gram-negative Brucella bacterial species that infect a variety of animals and the occasional unlucky human. There are four species that pose particular risks to humans: Brucella suis, found in pigs; Brucella melitensis, found in sheep and goats; Brucella canis, from dogs; and-the one at the center of this current health alert-Brucella abortus, which is carried by cattle. Usually, the disease pops up in developing countries. But in the US, meatpackers, hunters, veterinarians, farmers, and careless microbiologists are at risk-as well as those who consume unpasteurized dairy.
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