Udder Antibodies

The cow's udder is the world's most prodigious factory of antibodies, and all might be used to give human beings protection (at least temporarily) against an almost infinite variety of infectious diseases, two University of Minnesota researchers reported hopefully in Manhattan last week.

This invitation to experts to change their beliefs about mechanisms of im munity was offered by Drs. William E. Petersen and Berry Campbell, who have been working on it (with a dozen colleagues off and on) for ten years. Paul ("Magic Bullet") Ehrlich had shown that antibodies, missing from the blood of calves at birth, can pass to the young in the dam's colostrum. It had been thought that the human species, whether babe or grown man, was unable to pick up these protective antibodies. Not so, say Petersen and Campbell: man and a slew of barnyard beasts and birds can benefit from them. A cow that is vaccinated in the dry phase with preparations of killed bacteria, will produce colostrum* with 120 times the antibody concentration found in blood. The level falls from these peaks within a few days, but stays on a relatively high plateau for months.

The researchers tried animals with many kinds of germs: the antibody factory worked full blast. They injected as many as eight kinds of bacteria into the udder at one time and got no evidence of interference among different antibody assemblies. Viruses seemed to work about as well; so did some bigger parasites and even plant pollens that might cause allergic reactions. Say Researchers Petersen and Campbell: "The range of antigenic material to which the cow's udder will respond seems limitless."

Hopefully they go on: "We may envisage the use of a standard packet of antigens . . . for the great bulk of the consumers. This would [represent] the various strains of the Group A streptococci, and the staphylococci, pneumococci, tubercle bacilli, typhoid, paratyphoid and diphtheria organisms, and eventually the virus antigens of poliomyelitis, rubella, measles and other diseases. Other packets of disease antigens for special regions, seasons or fractions of the population might be demanded."

So far, however, the protective power of milk antibodies has not been clearly proved in the case of normal diseases of animals, let alone humans. Unfortunately, also, the protection with which Petersen and Campbell hope to spike their milk is sharply limited. It depends on passive immunity--the kind conferred by shots of gamma globulin against measles and possibly polio. Only active immunity (from the disease itself or direct vaccination) is lasting; passive immunity will wear off in a few weeks at most, after the intake of bovine antibodies stops.

To keep it up, a man might have to drink a quart of milk every day of his life. It is no accident that the American Dairy Association has financed Researchers Campbell and Petersen.

-The first milk given after calving, which is especially rich in fats and proteins. One of the proteins is gamma globulin, which, in turn, contains antibodies.

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