Tuberculosis is one of the top three infectious diseases along with HIV/AIDS and malaria. It infects nearly a third of the world's population and still kills well over two million people a year, with India heading the list. Jawaharlal Nehru’s wife Kamala died of it in her early thirties. It is the fastest spreading disease in our country. 

Why is tuberculosis not eradicable? In large part, because we continue to drink milk and eat meat. Human tuberculosis is from a germ called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A large percentage of cattle in India are infected with a strain of tuberculosis called Mycobacterium bovis. Are humans capable of getting tuberculosis from cattle infected by Mycobacterium bovis? Absolutely. Through milk and beef.

One interesting discovery, after unveiling the genomes of both bacterial villains, which share 99.95% identical gene sequences, was that M. bovis came from M. tuberculosis, and not the other way around. Humans infected their cows 10-15,000 years ago and are being infected right back by them.  Humans can get TB from milk in various ways: through drinking milk produced in unsanitary conditions; through infected, tubercular workers who get it from lesions in the udders of cows racked with bovine tuberculosis. A milk bucket is easily contaminated.

A tubercular worker coughing into even one bucket could contaminate thousands of gallons when his milk is poured into a larger batch. Milk is a nutrient rich liquid so it is easy for microbes to grow in it. Even if there is a “ modern” milk processing plant with cows hooked up to machines and milk being transferred for boiling by, and to, machines, there are still areas where “foot traffic” from employees brings in microbes Tuberculosis is passed from cows to humans even in the hyper-modernized dairies of the United States.

A fifteen month old child died recently in New York of TB caused by M. bovis infection. A multiagency investigation identified 35 more cases of M. bovis infection in New York City alone. The United States requires testing of all dairy cows for bovine TB. Any cow found infected is killed. But inspite of regularly killing thousands of animals, whole herds of 300,000 cows at a time are found infected every year. 

In a country like Mexico which has better standards than India in keeping cattle – but only just – 17% of cattle have been found with tuberculosis. Go and look at the average Indian dairy. It is filthy, unsanitary and overcrowded. It has to be a breeding ground for TB.  Neither the owner nor the useless animal husbandry inspector ever checks cows for any disease, much less tuberculosis. One inspection which took place at the sperm producing centre in Kerala found that all the bulls—whose sperm is injected into cows all over India —had TB. Not one bull was killed. No re-inspections took place, nor were any of the cows that had been injected with the bulls’ sperm inspected.

Do even Amul and Mother Dairy inspect the village cows, from which they take milk, for M. bovis infections? They don’t. Even if they did, would any villager agree to kill his milk producer? No.  Most cows and buffaloes in India are in filthy dung-filled sheds, standing in their own faeces for days. In cattle faeces M bovis will survive 1 – 8 weeks. Animals are probably more likely to be infected by M. bovis when they are poorly nourished or under stress. 

Once the Mycobacterium is ingested or inhaled, the disease may be “silent”, even to an experienced farmer or veterinarian, until the advanced stage. Infected people or animals that appear healthy are capable of transmitting the infection.  Tuberculosis lesions can affect any part of the body but generally affect the lungs and lymph nodes and the chest cavity.  The normally smooth internal lining of the chest cavity may be marred by lesions.

How do you make out a milch animal has TB?  A soft, chronic cough occurs once or twice at a time. In more advanced cases, there is a marked increase in the depth and rate of respiration as well as shortness of breath. In advanced stages, animals may show weakness, weight loss, and fluctuating fever. The complicated nature of TB transmission, the resistance of the agent to disinfection, and the long period of infection prior to development of signs of disease have made bovine TB impossible to control.

M. bovis is spread in a number of ways by infectious animals - in their breath, milk, discharging lesions, saliva, urine or droppings. Once in a herd, infection spreads from cow to cow by inhalation and from cows to calves via milk. People acquire TB by the same means as animals, by ingestion and inhalation. Is there any evidence that human TB comes from cow and buffalo meat and milk? 

The government has made a The Roadmap to Combat Zoonoses in India – a mission to combat diseases spread from humans to animals. Tuberculosis is No 1 on the list – even above rabies. This confirms that they know the danger in milk – but will not speak openly for fear of harming the industry. All the studies done in India show vast numbers of cattle infected with TB. Even worse, a study done by AIIMS called “Bovine tuberculosis in India: potential basis for zoonosis” did  TB tests of cattle and humans, 15.7 %  humans had M. tuberculosis, 26.8% of cattle had M. bovis. BUT 8.7% of humans had M. Bovis TB and 35.7% cattle had ‘mixed infections” as well.  The conclusion “The detection of mixed infection with the mycobacterial pathogenic duo in humans and bovines denotes the prospect of potential transmission of these pathogens from humans to cattle (zoonosis) and vice versa (reverse zoonosis).

Animals infected with M tuberculosis potentially constitute a grave public health hazard as virulent bacilli can be transmitted to humans”. Similar studies have shown the same results. As recently as last year, seeing the increase in TB in Mumbaikars, doctors of the preventive social medicine department of Jalgaon's Ulhas Patil Medical College have asked the civic authorities to look at the cattle sheds as a source of human TB. The head of the department Dr Ashok Kale was recently called by the Maharashtra Gazetted Veterinary Association to talk about the threat of zoonotic TB.

"Animals are a source of TB virus. Milk, their excreta and breath of a TB-affected animal can spread the disease. And most of us are unaware of this," he said. India is the largest consumer of milk in the world. And the country with the largest number of tuberculosis patients. Do you want your milk drinking child to be a TB statistic?

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Whether an ingredient has been derived from an animal is not always clear. Many companies remove the word "animal" from their ingredient labels in order to avoid putting off consumers. Animal ingredients are used not because they are better than vegetable-derived or synthetic ingredients but because they are cheaper. Today's slaughterhouses must dispose of the by-products of the slaughter of billions of animals every year and have found a profitable solution in selling them to food, cosmetics and medicine manufacturers. Animal ingredients come from every industry that uses animals: meat, dairy, egg, fishing, fur, wool as well as others such as the horse-racing which send unwanted animals to slaughter. The bodies of dogs, cats, donkeys wind up at rendering plants too along with cows and buffaloes. Manufacturing processes use animals as well: for example, in the production of some refined sugars, bone char is used to whiten the sugar; in some wines and beers, isinglass (from the swim bladders of fish) is used as a "clearing" agent.

Take vaccines for instance. The vaccine lobby grows stronger by the day. From smallpox and polio, it has gone to hepatitis, yellow fever, kala azar, pneumonia, rabies…this is a growing multi billion dollar industry that is dependant on a few bureaucrats and politicians in each country to give the orders.  There is a strong debate on whether you should vaccinate at all. But I am not taking sides on it. However you should know the ingredients of what you inject in yourself. Most of the ingredients in vaccines are hazardous and toxic to our bodies, even in small quantities. Many contain live viruses. Trace of the mediums in which vaccines are cultured can be found in them as well, such as chicken eggs, monkey kidney cells and aborted human foetal tissue. Common ingredients in vaccines are animal parts such as gelatine (animal bones and tissue), serums (blood), guinea pig embryo cells, or residual proteins, chicken embryo and embryonic fluid and human diploid cells from aborted foetal tissue.

Vaccines and their Ingredients:

•Polio - DPT - Produced using washed sheep red blood cells - Medium: porcine (PIG) pancreatic hydrolsate of casein.

•Attenuvax Measles Virus Vaccine - Produced using hydrolized gelatin - Medium: chick embryo.

•DPT Diptheria and Tetanus Toxoids and Pertussis Vaccine - Produced using washed sheep red blood cells - Medium: porcine (pig) pancreatic hydrolsate of casein.

•Hepatitis B - Produced using the Medium: yeast

•IPOL Inactivated Polio Vaccine - Produced using 3 types of polio virus - Medium: a continuous line of Monkey kidney cells.

•MMR Measles Mumps Rubella Live Virus Vaccine - Produced using hydrolized gelatine – Mediums: chick embryo, Human diploid cells (originating from human aborted fetal tissue).

•Orimune Poliovirus Vaccine Live Oral - Produced using 3 types of attenuated polioviruses, calf serum - Meduim: monkey kidney cell culture,

•Varivax Varicella Virus Vaccine Live (chicken pox Vaccine) - Produced using processed gelatin - Medium: Human Diploid Cells (originating from human aborted fetal tissue).

Vaccines Grown In Aborted Foetal Cell Cultures:

•Chickenpox, VARIVAX

•Hepatitis A, VAQTA

•Polio (oral), Poliovac , Canada

•Polio, IMOVAX

•Rabies, Imovax: Pasteur Merieux

•Rubella, MERUVAX

Vaccines With Live Virus:

 •Chickenpox, VARIVAX

•Measles, ATTENUVAX

•Measles and Mumps, M-M-Vax

•Measles, Mumps and Rubella, M-M-RII

•Measles and Rubella, M-R-VaxII

•Mumps, MUMPSVAX

•Rubella, MERUVAX

•Rubella and Mumps: BIAVAX

Vaccines With Animal Parts:

•Chickenpox, VARIVAX -- foetal bovine serum

•Diphtheria, Tetanus, accelular Pertusssis, Acel-Immune -- beef heart infusion

•Infanrix -- bovine extract

•Flu, FLUSHIELD -- chick embryos

•Measles, ATTENUVAX -- hydrolyzed gelatin

•Mumps, MuMPSVAX -- hydrolyzed gelatin

•Polio, IPOL -- calf serum, monkey kidney cells

•Polio (oral), ORIMUNE -- kidney cells, calf serum

•Rubella, MERUVAX -- hydrolyzed gelatin

•Rubella and Mumps, BIAVAX -- hydrolyzed gelatin

Vaccines Using Cattle Material - (blood, fetal calf serum, meat broth):

•Anthrax: *BioPort DPT Certiva

•DPT: Infanrix, diptheria, pertussis, tetanus

•Hep A: *Havrix, hepatitis A

•Hib *ActHIB, haemophilus influenza Type B

•Hib: *OmniHIB: haemophilus influenza Type B

•Polio IPOL: Aventis Pasteur

How many vaccines are necessary? How many are created for profits and the diseases greatly exaggerated in order to scare people into compliance. Bird Flu vaccines, SARS Vaccines.... these have proved to be fake. On the other hand, some vaccines have wiped out traditional diseases.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

My favourite author Borges wrote: A king goes to the kingdom of another king. The host puts him in a maze and it takes him many days to find his way out. But he says nothing, though seething inside, and issues an invitation for his host to visit him. When his host returns the visit, this king takes him to the middle of a desert and leaves him there saying that the previous maze was manmade. Now he needs to find his way out of God’s maze. 

As someone who has absolutely no sense of direction, I envy the abilities of animals to find their way through the alien landscape of the earth. How do the Siberian birds get here year after year when the landscape below them changes so rapidly? How do the Monarch butterflies find their way from North to South Africa and to the exact place, often made unrecognisable by woodcutters?

The Earth has a magnetic field. Every child who has been taught how to use a compass knows that. The ability to perceive Earth's magnetic field, which at one time was dismissed as a physical impossibility, is now known to exist in many animals. Laboratory tests show that animals as diverse as the European robin, the loggerhead sea turtle, the brown bat, the Caribbean spiny lobster and the red-spotted newt have magnetic compasses. How do they work? How do birds navigate between nesting areas separated by thousands of miles with pinpoint accuracy?

Different theories have emerged from thousands of experiments. Some experiments show that some animals navigate by "seeing" Earth's magnetic field. A study from the University of Oxford says that sunlight absorbed by molecules called Cryptochromes in the eyes of animals such as birds and bats triggers a chemical reaction making the molecules sensitive to the local magnetic field. This is known as chemical magnetoreception. Some scientists believe a second theory: that a mineral called magnetite, an iron-rich crystal with magnetic properties, in their bodies helps animals orient themselves in Earth's magnetic field. 

Animals have internal stores of the mineral magnetite, which acts like little magnetic needles in the animals' cells. Scientists believe the mineral may explain the strong directional sense found in aquatic migrants such as whales, sharks, tuna, trout, and sea turtles. Homing pigeons can locate their roosts from several thousand miles away. Because of this ability, people have used the birds to carry messages since the days of ancient Egypt. According to biologists at the University of North Carolina magnetite is found inside the homing pigeons' beaks.

There is evidence to suggest that some birds may detect Earth's magnetic field with receptors associated with their sense of smell. Are the cues visual or magnetic? Over the years laboratory experiments have shown that birds orient themselves based on cues from the sun, stars, Earth's magnetic field, and by memorizing landmarks while migrating. Biologists at Princeton University teamed up with wildlife biologists of the Illinois Natural History Survey and University of Oldenburg in Germany to research on songbird navigation. They captured songbirds during their natural northward migration, exposed them to an altered magnetic field at sunset, and then tracked them for several nights. The night the birds were exposed at sunset to the altered magnetic field, which was pointed east (instead of magnetic north), they flew in the wrong direction—to the west. The next night the songbirds flew off in the right direction—northward. This led the researchers to conclude that the thrushes used cues from the setting sun to update their internal magnetic compass and get back on the right track. The experiments suggest that the songbirds' magnetic compass is calibrated on a daily basis, by visual cues.

How do crocodiles do it? Captured and relocated saltwater crocodiles swim hundreds of miles to return to their home rivers. A team of crocodile researchers took three crocodiles near bays in Queensland, Australia, and flew them by helicopter to coastal spots 52 and 130 kilometres away. Researchers kept tabs on the reptiles with a transmitter attached to the back of their heads. The data revealed that once in ocean waters, the animals covered 10-30 kilometres each day to reach home. One crocodile was transported 400 kilometres away. He took 20 days to reach home. No one knows how.

Caribbean spiny lobsters are among the animal kingdom's top navigators, able to determine their location on Earth even when transported to an unfamiliar area. To test the lobsters' navigation abilities, researchers used measures to disorient and confuse the animals. Lobsters were displaced 12 to 37 kilometres from their point of capture. Divers gathered the lobsters and placed them in containers with seawater. The containers were covered and transported to testing sites via circuitous routes by truck and boat. Further disorienting tricks were employed, such as suspending the containers by ropes so that they swung erratically, and lining them with magnets strong enough to alter the directional functions of compasses. Once at the test site, the lobsters, even with their eyes covered, invariably determined the direction of their capture site and began moving homeward.

Hammerhead sharks gather in large groups around underwater mountains, or seamounts, during the day. They leave the area at night and spread out through the ocean for miles to feed, returning to the seamount every morning. They find their way through magnetic fields, made possible by the presence of electro-receptors at the bottom of their uniquely shaped heads. Seamounts, made of basalt, create magnetic bands of varying intensity. 

Loggerhead turtles are less than two inches long when they emerge from underground nests on the coasts. They crawl straight from their shells and plunge into the waters and follow a circular route that goes round the Atlantic and back toward their birthplace on the same shore. The entire journey of 8,000 miles made by solitary defenceless sea turtles is done without any companions or parental education and takes five to ten years to complete. Scientists say they are born with a specific magnetic map.

Blind mole rats live most of their lives underground in pitch-black, complex tunnel systems. They have to dig over great distances when foraging for bulbs and roots, and then have to find their way home again. Research done by the Tel Aviv University in Israel reveals that blind mole rats use the Earth's magnetic field to continuously monitor and maintain their course and use it to correct errors as they travel. Blind mole rats have additional radar-like abilities to detect obstacles before they come into contact with them. Scientists found that when they blocked wild mole rats' tunnels, the animals carefully dug out the shortest route around the obstacles to reconnect them. Furthermore, they left a safe margin of 10 to 20 centimetres around the obstacle. How amazing animals are. Instead of destroying them we should learn from them.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

My attitude to life is: anything that makes the world happy makes you happy (in the actual sky- touching, heart- leaping sense of being one with the world). Anything that is bad for any species is bad for humans as well. Anything that kills a mosquito kills a human as easily. Conversely anything that is good is good for all. 

In the list of bad I put dams, plastic, pesticides, uncontrolled building, meat eating, milk drinking, zoos, leather, any form of animal based food or industry, cutting of trees…. I could add illiteracy, arrogance, intellectual laziness, and greed to this as attitudes. As you destroy so shall you be destroyed. By sickness, bad weather, poverty, bad governance, calamities. Anything that is gentle, joyful and truly scientifically attuned to nature is good. You will be rewarded with good weather, good crops, lack of hunger, much less sickness, clean water, good governance.

Which one do you choose? Because I am always in search of the better alternative, I come across amazing people and inventions that, should we adopt them, would make us so much better and happier.

Yesterday, looking for homeopathic medicines for animals on the Net, I came across someone who does homeopathic medicines for plants. What fun! This week I am going to give you some ways on how to use agro-homeopathy, the word and system invented by Shri V.D.Kaviraj. Kaviraj is a Dutch homeopath (though he looks Indian) and one of the foremost pioneers of Agro-homeopathy and author of the book, Homeopathy for Farm and Garden.

Note: When treating plants with homeopathic remedies, this is the standard dosing procedure: Put 20 drops of a 6X potency in a litre of water. Succuss the bottle 50 times. Put this litre in the watering can, fill it up with 19 litres of tap water and stir. If the watering can is smaller, the amount of remedy put in must be proportionally smaller. Thus a 10 litre can needs only ½ litre and just 10 drops of the remedy. Apply the contents of the watering can to the roots of the plants to be treated. Succussing, it means shaking it by pounding it against the palm of your hand or a hard bound book 50 times.

I am taking this straight off his site on the Net so if you use the remedies, let me know if they work. * to perk up a transplanted rose put Aconite* When plants flower, they use up a lot of phosphor, because they need it.  So if the flowers start drooping and the leaves turn yellow use Ferrum phosphoricum.

*To make tomatoes and pepper seeds germinate better and make the young plants strong. Do not put them too close to each other, because they may infect each other with blight, both late and early. Use Ocimum basilicum for the tomatoes, single dose and with the peppers, use Chamomilla. *To stop a fungus disease called stemrot  in soya bean Silicea is the best remedy.  Soak the seeds in Silicea to prevent it and use Equisetum and Chamomilla in the compost. Keep Carbo veg at hand, just in case Silicea fails.

Q: A year back I used Silicea for fungal disease of the Moringa olefera (drumstick) plant. It flowered thrice, but not a single pod has grown. Is there a remedy for this problem? A: Silicea should be used only once. You may try Phosphorus to see if any fruits may still develop.

Q: My mango tree is flowering after 20 years of being barren but the fruits are falling when pea size. There are thousands of insects who move sideways very fast which are sapping all the florets so that they dry out and fall. A: If the insects move sideways, they are mites. They also cause very fine and not extensive webbing between branches and leaves. Amblyseius mckenzii is the remedy, available from www.considera.co.uk or from www.narayanaverlag.de. As to your mango tree, this is a matter of feeding the tree. Get a bunch of old cowdung cakes and spread around the base of the tree. Water the tree every day and the nutrients in the dung will feed the tree. You can also give a dose of Phosphorus.

Q: I bought a dumb cane plant. The leaves have started to wither; brown and yellow in colour and with some spotting. I sprayed this plant once, two weeks ago with a herbicide, but haven’t noticed any improvement. What I have noticed is similar degeneration on a healthy, long-established plant I already owned. Is there any way to save them? A: NEVER use an herbicide (plant killer) on a plant you want to keep. The best solution now is to give a dose of Carbo vegetabilis or perhaps Cantharis, but DON’T USE BOTH ON THE SAME PLANT. Treat one plant with Carbo and the other with Cantharis and see which works better.

Q: My potted plant is inside the house. The leaves are turning yellow and indeed it looks like it is dying.  I have the heater on as it is winter. A: Use Kali carbonicum 6C. Put a bowl of water on the heater/radiator and make sure the plants are well away from the radiator.

Q: I have a bunch of bamboo plants in the house in a glass pot and I change the water after 5-7 days. One of the plants was yellowing, so I checked and found that the 1st layer was rotten. I removed it with a knife . Almost all leaves of all plants are yellowing during winter.  During summer, the tips of the leaves get dry. Please suggest medicine for yellowing and drying. I have kept them for the past 04 years. A: First, re-plant them in larger pots. If the pots are too small, the earth is all gone and thus they dry out faster. Then, also give Ferrum phos.  In the Chikku plant during rainy season, Phytopthera really creates havoc. Can you please suggest the remedy? A: The best remedy is Silicea. If that does not work, try Carbo veg.

Q: In spite of much hard work, we developed blossom end rot on our tomatoes. Is there a way to prevent that? A: These symptoms indicate there is not enough calcium, so that the fruit cannot properly form. The best remedy is Calcarea carbonica.

Q: Last year, the peaches on our trees developed soft brown spots which got powdery later on, and then the fruit rotted. This is something called brown rot. Is there a solution to this? A: There are several options for brown rot. Manganum aceticum is one. The disease may be caused by a lack of manganese. Molybdenum is another element that may be deficient and Molybdenum as a remedy can also help. Allium cepa can also do it, when there are no nutrient deficiencies. You can send in your queries at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.