The Paradigms of Causation for Crohn’s Disease

For almost two decades, the paradigms of autoimmunity and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection have unsuccessfully attempted to establish one or the other as the etiology of Crohn’s disease. The data that defines and excludes both these paradigms are resynthesized by a third paradigm in which Crohn’s disease is projected as an immune-mediated disease whose antigen triggers reside with the antigenic array of MAP.