Posted on 02/09/2008 8:27:24 PM PST by blam
Is pig-brain 'mist' linked to mystery ailment?
09 February 2008
NewScientist.com news service
WORKERS at two pork-processing plants in the US have developed a mysterious nervous ailment after using compressed air to blast brain tissue from severed pig heads. The end product is a pink food paste that is canned and exported, but the process also generates an aerosol of brain matter that workers may inhale.
Since 2006, 12 workers at a Minnesota slaughterhouse have developed symptoms ranging from weakness, tingling and numbness to acute paralysis, US health authorities reported on 31 January (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol 57, p 1). Other workers have developed similar symptoms at a slaughterhouse in Indiana.
"In some, the weakness has improved, but no one is completely better," says neurologist Daniel Lachance of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. All those affected have similar patterns of inflammation in their spinal and peripheral nerves, and Lachance suspects that this is the result of autoimmune damage triggered by immune reactions to proteins from the pig brains.
Only three US plants use the blasting process and they have all stopped as a result of the investigation.
From issue 2642 of New Scientist magazine, 09 February 2008, page 7
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
“Pig Brain Mist”
Band name!
I don’t know if there is a connection between pork and MS. Somehow I think it a bit of a stretch.
Ralph!!!, the patron saint of toilets, wouldn’t eat that.
Haven’t seen it.
Ya know, this story reminds me of reading many years ago about a possible connection between simian brain matter and the Aids Virus. Also, about many world religions offense to consuming brain matter. Perhaps a warning from God that had best obeyed.
Not a job I'd apply for.
From the New York Slimes:
Quality Pork is the second biggest employer, with 1,300 employees. Most work eight-hour shifts along a conveyor belt — a disassembly line, basically — carving up a specific part of each carcass. Pay for these line jobs starts at about $11 to $12 an hour. The work is grueling, but the plant is exceptionally clean and the benefits are good, said Richard Morgan, president of the union local. Many of the workers are Hispanic immigrants. Quality Pork’s owner does not allow reporters to enter the plant.
I think these are some of those famous "jobs which Americans won't do"...
Cheers!
Give it to Mikey. He’ll eat it. He’ll try anything.
I agree, I thought the same thing when I read it.
sounds like the roots of a good future weapon against radical islam!
bump for later
The photo on that can brought back ancient memories. Two of the first meals we had after butchering hogs were the liver and the brains. Liver is no problem for me. Brains? Yuck!!!!!
Great album! I can listen to it from beginning to end without skipping a track!
“WORKERS at two pork-processing plants in the US have developed a mysterious nervous ailment after using compressed air to blast brain tissue from severed pig heads. The end product is a pink food paste that is canned and exported, but the process also generates an aerosol of brain matter that workers may inhale.”
I bet the ole highschool guidance counselor doesn’t bring up this career path very often. And one must also ask, exported, where, to whom, why, what else is served with brain food paste? Couldn’t we just smear the stuff about as a kind of anti islamofascists wonder paste?
lol
Beat me to it.
i read that last week in the nyt.
disgusting.
Pig + brains is not recommended reading before Sunday morning breakfast
story i was speaking about last week
Illegal Immigration Coming to Small Town America
Three guesses why no-one was on the horn to OSHA before this. Yeah, let's hear it for illegal immigration.
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