- Hello Jeff - This is extremely serious. This worker
did not use or work near the high-powered air compressor system used to
remove pig brain tissue but worked in the rendering operation in the basement
of the plant.
-
- This makes me wonder if, indeed, there is something amiss
in the pig brain itself. Is this a type of mad pig disease?
-
- I think these pig processing plants linked to the Indiana
and MN cases should cease all operations.
-
- Patty
-
-
- Duluth (MN) News Tribune
-
- Another meatpacker appears to have developed the neurological
symptoms identified in 12 other workers that sparked a nationwide investigation.
Unlike the others, however, the worker was not stationed near the high-powered
air compressor system used to remove pig brain tissue at Quality Pork Processors
(QPP). Rather, the worker was exposed to brain tissue in the rendering
operation in the basement of the plant QPP shares with Hormel Foods.
-
- State epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield said, "We are
investigating a likely additional case."
-
- QPP employs 1300 workers and slaughters pigs on one side
of the plant. On the other side, an estimated 1400 Hormel workers process
the meat into bacon and other products. Hormel owns the rendering operation.
-
- The 1st 12 cases of the disease involved employees working
at the "head table" of QPP, which was spun off from Hormel in
1989. QPP halted the process of blowing out brains with the air compression
system as soon as the December 2007 investigation began.
-
- As a result of the most recent suspected case, health
officials are expanding the investigation to include Hormel workers in
and around the rendering operation, according to a notice to employees
posted in the plant Tuesday [4 Feb 2008].
-
- The meatpackers in Austin and 2 at a plant in Indiana
have reported fatigue, numbness and tingling in their arms and legs, with
a wide range in severity. A few are severely disabled, while others have
been treated and returned to work.
-
- State and federal health officials are looking into whether
pig brain tissue, liquefied during removal by the air-compression system
and sprayed into the air as droplets, somehow caused nerve damage in workers
who were exposed to it. Investigators theorize that a protein or other
substance from the animal brains triggered the workers' immune systems
into mistakenly attacking their own nerve tissue.
-
- The brains are frozen in boxes and shipped to the southern
USA and Asia, where they are sold as food.
-
- Last week, state officials said they were broadening
the investigation of the QPP section of the plant to thousands of former
meat packers going back a decade, to when the powerful air-compression
system was 1st installed.
-
- http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/ap/index.c
fm?page=view&id=D8UKL3301
-
- Communicated by
- ProMED-mail <mailto:promed@promedmail.org>promed@promedmail.org
-
- This case in a totally different part of the plant, if
verified, may change aspects of the hypotheses generated so far. For readers'
interest, longer articles on the event can be found in the Washington Post.
-
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2008/02/03/AR2008020302580.html?sub=new
-
- and New York Times
-
- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.
html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin
-
- - Mod.LL
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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