Minn. Probing Pork Plant Illnesses
Pastor Dale Morgan
Minn. Probing Pork Plant Illnesses*
By JOSHUA FREED,
Associated Press Writer
MINNEAPOLIS - State health officials said Monday they were investigating
neurological illnesses among 11 workers at a pork processing plant, but
that there was no evidence that the public was at risk.
Health Commissioner Dr. Sanne Magnan also said there was no evidence
that the food coming out of Quality Pork Processing in Austin has been
contaminated.
The workers who became ill had symptoms such as numbness, and tingling
in their arms and legs.
Two were hospitalized for a time. Some of the workers recovered
completely, while others are still going through rehabilitation, she said.
Five of the workers had symptoms consistent with chronic inflammatory
demyelinating polyneuropathy, a condition characterized by progressive
weakness and impaired sensory functions in legs and arms. It is treated
with steroids and immunosuppressant drugs, according to the National
Institutes of Health.
The patients included men and women from a range of ages and
ethnicities, said State Epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield. But they all
worked in the same part of the plant, removing hog brains with
compressed air.
None of the plant's other 1,300 workers reported similar symptoms, and
there have been no similar reports at Minnesota's other large hog
slaughterhouse in Worthington, officials said.
Quality Pork owner and CEO Kelly Wadding said workers who butcher the
hog heads have been given more protective clothing and no longer use
compressed air to remove brains.
He said Quality Pork's production levels have not been reduced because
of the illnesses.
Hormel Foods Corp., which is based in Austin, is Quality Pork's main
customer.
Staff nurses at Quality Pork noticed the first symptoms in December
2006, and a total of 10 cases had come in through July, Magnan said.
Doctors in Austin, about 90 miles south of Minneapolis, and at Mayo
Clinic in Rochester tried to determine what was making the workers sick.
Mayo reported the matter to the state Health Department in late October,
Lynfield said.
She said the symptoms are not consistent with a repetitive stress injury
or with the family of diseases that include mad cow disease or scrapie
in sheep, which are linked to proteins called prions.
But while those diseases cause irreversible brain deterioration, most of
the workers in Austin have recovered. "That's not something you expect
with a prion disease," she said.
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On the Net:
NIH page on demyelinating polyneuropathy:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/cidp/cidp.htm