Did the American dairy people get the Bovine Leukemia Virus (BLV) under control? It has gotten worse. A new national study was done in the US last year.
The objectives of the current study were to document the prevalence of BLV in a national sample of dairy herds and to provide a basic epidemiologic description of the infection in the US dairy industry. The mean standardized AP of BLV reported here, 46.5%, is higher than previously reported in the US by any other large, multiregion study and is consistent with an ongoing trend of increasing prevalence over the last 5 decades. This finding, together with all the current evidence from the US and other countries with no established BLV control program, points to the prospect of ever increasing BLV prevalence. As the prevalence of BLV increases, the cumulative economic loss associated with infection will also continue to increase, making it a threat to the long-term sustainability of the US dairy industry. Future BLV research should therefore focus on controlling BLV transmission and reducing BLV prevalence.
Rebecca M. LaDronka
,1 Samantha Ainsworth,1 Melinda J. Wilkins,1 Bo Norby,1 Todd M. Byrem,2 and Paul C. Bartlett1
1Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
2North Star Cooperative, 4200 Forest Rd., Lansing, MI 48910, USA Published 11 November 2018
No mention of human breast cancer, only the loss of income to dairy farmers if BLV is not controlled. Some European countries have done eradication programs to eliminate BLV from their herds, but not the US.