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Raising Awareness & Funds For Crohns Across The World.

This Campaign is linked direct to Prof. John Hermon -Taylor, now in 2008 at Kings College London. We are linked directly to P.A.R.A in Florida,U.S.A, www.crohns.org , & Crohns Canada, two other Crohns Campaign groups. We are also linked to Action Medical Research @ Horsham. We are also totally, a family group , who have no business interests and no controlling body, we are totally independent of anyone.

We are Committed to Raising Funds for The New DNA Crohns Vaccine for Prof.John Hermon-Taylor @ Kings College London, now in 2008, which was at the previous time - in October 2005, being formulated to human strength, and showing very positive results. ( now formulated to human strength in 2007, at St George's Hospital, London.

This Campaign is also linked directly to The Natural Health Campaign UK, Raising Awareness to Natural Alternatives to drugs for Crohns Disease and many other illnesses.
TCCC.UK is a totally non-profit making organisation, and is there to help all those suffering the Horrific illnessses of Crohns, Ulcerated Colitis, Colitis, Irritable Bowel, or any other IBD or Irritable Bowel Disease or Irritable Bowel Symptom.

TCCC.UK has other Campaign arms in Cumbria, run by Mr Paul Taylor & another in East Yorkshire, run by Mr Peter Kerr. Another in Scotland run by Mr Roddy Flett, another in Ireland run by Mr Brian Audley , another in Birmingham run by Mr Stuart Morris. This Crohns Campaign is helping sufferers all over this Country, and across the World, suffering with Crohns and other IBD's to get better, infact some have gone back to work, with no sign or symptom of Crohns at all now. Most have shown in the early stages on these 3 alternatives, a remarkable return to actually getting a night of uninterupted sleep, less trips to the loo, and a feeling of better health, with more energy.

Our only interest is in helping those suffering Crohns, or IBD'S or IBS, who need help or advice, and to fight as a Crohns Campaign group to Raise Awareness to the causes of these illnesses, and to challenge Governments into putting this problem right, and to stop these illnesses and all the suffering continuing.

We do not blame the Farmers, we blame the System around the Farmers, which as History tells us, led to the BSE / CJD crisis over 16 years ago, now, and other problems of ill health in humans (TB). We also blame a Dairy Industry,who will not take it's Pasteurisation heat level to above 95 degrees, and for a longer period than 25 seconds, we believe totally, it's because of the cost to do this, and it's the Dairy Industry's view that this might alter the flavour of the milk, and we now know in 2005, even this heat level of 95 degrees, does not kill the MAP Bacteria. We know that cattle pastures are contaminated for an ongoing year with MAP Bacteria, once the cattle faeces are deposited on it, and how then the MAP bacteria goes on to contaminate our Envoironment, Water supplies and other Animals, such as Badgers and then to other animals such as Deer. Over use of Antibiotics in our food chain, in meat and other foods, and the toxic chemicals in our Envoironment, whether the Fluoride in our Toothpaste, Mouth Wash, and Water, or in our Food, All - All go on to destroy our Immune Systems, which then leave us all exposed to all types of Illness. Cattle once in the Barn, over bad weather periods, or Intensive farming, or time of year, lead to one cow giving the MAP Bacteria to another, as they tread in their own faeces and often eat off a dirty floors. It only takes one cow to infect the herd, or the Milk supplies, often collected by a tanker from farm to farm, then it is down to the low Pasteurisation Heat Level 72 or 73 degrees for 25 seconds as our last line of protection against the MAP Bacteria ending up in our Food Chain, in our Milk or Cheese, or other Dairy products. Infected animal meats can also end up in the Food Chain, from MAP Bacteria infected cattle, SO COOK YOUR MEAT WELL, BOIL YOUR MILK OR PASTEURISED MILK AND WATER TO BE 100% SAFE.

Raising Awareness to this, and the desperate need to raise the final funds of �400.000 in 2008, that are really needed to get The New DNA Vaccine for Crohns through it's official trials, testing & red tape for manufacture, is the Challenge before us here at this Crohns Campaign - TCCC.UK.

Please contact Tim Page if you need any help or advice, either for yourself, a relative or a friend, Thankyou.

P.S. Here Is Food For Thought.......................................

** Is it the Fact that the reason MAP (The cause of Crohns ) is allowed to continue at present, to continue to make people ill, an aid to making the Government money through taxes, along with the Drug companies who make vast fortunes out of supplying drugs to ill people suffering Crohns and other IBDs or IBS ?, Do all the Drug companies want, is their money back after 50 years of investment ?????

** Does the fact that �54 Million is given by the EC to the Dairy Industry here in the UK, to give free milk to children at school, knowing it causes Crohns Disease, Does This Concern You ?????

** Is it a fact that the Government's Benefits system here in the UK, is secretly instructed, in the main, not to pay out to those suffering Crohns & Other IBDs or IBS, as they are seen / considered not sick enough, but as to be fit for work ? If this is True, as I have been told by several people on this, that it is, this is a disgrace to humanity !!!!
Another COVER UP, to try and hide the severity of this illness, the deliberate misunderstanding / misguidance of how sufferers are left to suffer in agonising pain, discomfort, torment, anxiety & depression, often no money, trying to get through one day at a time, often hour by hour, minute by minute, to COVER UP MAP - THE CAUSE OF CROHNS.

** Yes it is a FACT, some doctors will try every drug in the book to try and balance these illnesses, making the drug companys � BILLIONS. A lot of doctors will deny of hearing about MAP being the cause of Crohns, but want you to carry on taking " their " drug company's drugs. Are Patient Care Trusts ( PCTs ) influenced by Drug Companies, who are controlling doctors ? We believe they are.
** Do you hear of anyone getting better on these drugs ?or is it the fact nearly all go on to face surgery, then again every 3 to 5 years ?

** FACT MAP survives in the blood's white cells to reak havoc on the body's internal organs & digestive tract. Causing massive amounts of inflamation, strictures etc..

Leave this with you, I find this info extremely worrying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* Update December 2006. New Hospital Entrant Figures released, showing over 20% increase in Crohns Sufferers in just England & Wales alone, this year to April 2006. We know Scotland & Ireland also have high amounts of Crohns Sufferers.

* Please see figures lower down this website menu, thankyou.

The Chronic Crohns Campaign UK

Prof John Hermon-Taylor's Data /A Causative Agent For Crohns

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor - Science Data Supporting MAP As A Causative Agent of Crohn�s Disease in 2001.

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor reiterated some of the points raised by Dr. Collins regarding Johne's disease in animals particularly the broad range of histopathological types from pluribacillary to paucimicrobial like leprosy in humans. He also noted that in cattle infected with Map, fecal culture is falsely negative in about 20% of cases, and in infected sheep in 60-80% of cases. Laboratory culture is not a reliable method of detecting Map in animal, food, and environmental or human clinical samples. However, the Map genome contains 14-16 copies of the 1451bp DNA insertion element termed IS900 that is uniquely specific for this organism. In recent years IS900 has provided a convenient target for DNA-based detection systems.

DNA fingerprinting of 740 isolates of culturable Map from infected animals and humans around the world carried out by Dr Ivo Pavlik in the Veterinary Research Institute, Czech Republic, has so far identified 23 different genotypes. A multiplex PCR typing system for MAP is applicable to culturable as well as unculturable forms, supports the view that different strains of Map have emerged with individual host preferences for bovines, ovines, and for humans.

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor then presented a detailed description of the occurrence of CD in the UK. Western Europe has a high incidence of the disease estimated conservatively to be 280,000 rising at the rate of 23,800 per year. He pointed out that certain "hot spots" occur and that they are coincident with areas that use water supplies that can be contaminated by agricultural run-off. Map could be periodically detected with the IS900 probe in these waters. He made the case for the possible spread of Map by contaminated waters or their aerosols and pointed out that standard water disinfection methods would not eliminate Map.

From late 1990 to mid 1994 he carried out an extensive survey of MAP in retail whole pasteurized cows' milk widely obtained throughout central and southern England and South Wales. With peaks in January, February, March and September, October, November, an overall 7% of retail milk cartons tested positive. Some liquid cultures were seen to contain visible acid fast mycobacteria after 6 weeks of incubation and tested strongly positive with IS900 PCR. He concluded that in the U.K., the risk that MAP is being conveyed to the human population in retail milk supplies is very high. Recently, Dr. Irene Grant in the Department of Food Science, University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, has developed an immunomagnetic capture method for MAP applicable to milk sample processing. Using this, together with BACTEC liquid culture and IS900 PCR, she recently tested 31 cartons of pasteurized milk from 16 pasteurization plants and found 6 (19%) to be positive.

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor cited 6 studies each reporting residual culturability of Map at least once following exposure of spiked milk to experimental pasteurization at 65o C for 30 minutes or 72oC for 15 seconds, and two other studies which reported no culturable organisms remaining. He invoked the "viable but non-culturable" state to explain why individuals may be infected with food or environmental samples that fail to demonstrate the presence of "culturable" organisms. Such a state has been demonstrated in other bacterial species such as Vibrio cholerae. In general, the problem of identification of Map in samples can be attributed to the difficulty of culturing this organism. A recent study by Dr. Ivo Pavlik in the Czech Republic cultured 2 strains of Map from fresh tissues of 39 CD patients. The detection rate of laboratory culture of Map in Crohn's disease has risen to about 30% when IS900 PCR has been applied to long term cultures. Recent work by Dr. Saleh Naser and colleagues from the University of Central Florida, using an improved liquid culture incubated for about 10 weeks followed by IS900 PCR, has so far detected Map in 6 of 7 Crohn's disease patients and none of 10 non-IBD controls.

Tissue preparation may facilitate the identification of Map by IS900 PCR applied directly to DNA extracts of Crohn's disease tissue. Using fresh frozen tissues from sheep with paucimicrobial Map and humans with Crohn's disease, it was shown that treatment with 6M guanidine HCl at 50oC or prolonged incubation in SDS with proteinase K, are not sufficient for Map. Reliable access to Map DNA in both sheep and human samples required dissolution of the sample in SDS proteinase K followed by mechanical disruption for 45 seconds using the Hybaid ribolyser system followed by nested PCR for IS900.

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor then summarized what is known about immunological detection of Map in humans. A number of protein antigens from Map have been identified by researchers and are recognized by a significantly greater proportion of CD patients than controls. Among these are two antigens of 35K and 36K molecular weight (see Dr. El-Zaatari�s transcript). In immunoblots, IgG recognition of either or both of these proteins was 92% by CD sera and 25% in controls (p<0.01); recognition of both proteins was seen in 75% of CD and none of the control sera. The Map specific insertion element IS900 that is the target of PCR diagnosis encodes a 43kDa protein on its positive strand. Studies using RT-PCR have identified p43 mRNA expression in association with inflammatory bowel disease in humans. A preliminary study suggested the presence of an epitope within the carboxy terminal portion of p43 that is recognized by CD sera. This has subsequently been confirmed in a blinded study using sera from 104 CD patients and 104 age/sex matched controls. IgG binding was elevated (p< 0.0001) in Crohn's disease compared with control normal subjects. Recent outcome analyses have reported substantial remission in active Crohn's disease following treatment with combinations of rifabutin and clarithromycin or azithromycin, drugs known to have enhanced activity against M. avium complex. Controlled trials are needed.

Prof.John Hermon-Taylor summarized his view of the pathogenesis of CD as follows. Some strains of Map are pathogenic for humans and cause chronic granulomatous inflammation of the intestine. We are unlikely to make satisfactory progress in elucidating the causation of CD and the role of Map if we think CD is like tuberculosis. Although we do not yet know its pathogenic mechanisms, these are unlikely to involve the release of damaging microbial toxins, or of molecules which are directly granulomagenic. Map is present in low abundance within a critical population of target cells such as macrophages. It is much more likely to cause an intermittent immune disregulation within the gut wall and elsewhere, in humans with an inherited or acquired susceptibility. Together with an accompanying defect in mucosal integrity, this results in a chronic inflammatory and allergic response to bacteria and other constituents present in the fecal stream.

Clinical improvement can be achieved by suppressing or modulating the immune response itself or by reducing the intensity of the allergic component by diet. Some clinical improvement can also come from the use of general antimicrobial agents. However, without killing the causative agent, such therapeutic approaches are unlikely to achieve lasting resolution of the disease. New drugs and immunotherapeutics active against MAP are needed. By preventing infection, however, we can prevent CD in the first place. Strategies aimed at controlling Map in domestic food animals and water supplies may help in this regard.

Question : I'd like to explore the cell-mediated immune response. It's always bothered me that we haven't been able to detect a CMI reproducibly in CD. How could mycobacteria alter antigen presentation to deregulate the normal dendritic function. John, could you expound on how you think engulfing Map with M cell macrophages could deregulate the immune response, and maybe we could hear what might happen in leprosy with APC activity?

Answer : This is entirely putative but it's consistent with what we know and what we see. The model that I was sketching is not one like tuberculosis. It's one in which this organism, in a phenotype that we badly need to identify, becomes taken up by macrophages and I would guess it exists free in the cytoplasm. It's not in the bacillary form. It can just sit there and do nothing, like an inert mitochondrion. But if the relationship between the two is perturbed, and this can be a perturbation that is made more likely on the basis of an inherited or acquired susceptibility � a susceptibility which includes psychological stress factors known to perturb the immune system. Then, a disruption of the normal immunoregulatory functions of APC�s and macrophages can occur, which by analogy with other tissues leads to imperfections in the function of the overlying epithelial layer. An overreaction to normal flora or food results in an inflammatory process within the bowel wall. The best mimic of this is the IL10 knockout mice or the cadherin gene knockouts. I think the way that fits with the evidence that Dr. Bayless and others were discussing is that the immunologic reaction that characterizes the major portion of the disease process is not against MAP itself. It's against these other things. So if we apply non-specific inflammatory influences, we can temporally control the disease, the same with reducing the allergic component, the same with reducing the ambient microbiological flora, and that would fit. Of course, the signals that allow the organism and the cell to communicate are not known.

Comment : There is compelling data in animal models, that normal bacteria provide the antigenic drive, but if a mycobacteria could alter the host immune response to those bacteria, I could see how a very paucibacillary form of disease could cause inflammation. It's always been my personal hang-up with the whole mycobacterial theory, that how does an extremely paucibacillary, or paucimicrobial form of infection, end up causing the disease? We have to wrestle with that, I believe, in order to understand how a small infection might cause chronic inflammation.

Comment : Tubercular leprosy is a classical example. The paucibacillary form of the disease can't really be diagnosed on the presence of organisms. You look at the pathogenesis as manifested nerve damage, and so on. It happens to be granulomatous and it happens to have a very strong cellular immune response so it's easy to detect the presence of an invisible antigen immunologically, but you can't usually find organisms in those patients. Obviously it's possible, I think the difficulty here is that we can't find the organisms and we can't see a good T cell immune response, so we're sort of stuck without a good model. We have to create a new model that combines the lack of organisms, or very low number of organisms, or modified organisms, with a somewhat unusual cellular immune response. We have to think very creatively to come up with a new model.

Comment : There's no doubt that you can induce a cross-reacting self-perpetuating autoimmune response due to molecular mimicry from an inducing agent. The inducing agent goes away but the immune response continues. But you still should have an immune response against the original inducing antigen in that scenario.

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