11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

[Niko]

[SIZE=+2]11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Minneapolis Star Tribune
Tuesday, December 4, 2007; A09
[/SIZE]
MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 3 -- Eleven workers at an Austin, Minn., pork-processing plant mysteriously fell ill between last December and July with a neurological disorder whose cause remains unknown, state health officials said Monday.

The condition afflicting five of the workers at Quality Pork Processors has been identified as a rare disease called chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), which normally strikes fewer than two people per 100,000. In this instance, it may have struck 11 out of about 100 people in a particular part of the plant, state officials said. It is most often a chronic disease that results in nerve damage and can lead to disability.

Never before have so many cases of this type occurred in a particular locale, specific type of work, or in association with a particular animal, experts said.

State health officials said there is no evidence to date of an increased risk to the public or that the food supply has been affected.

The 1,300-employee plant is a hog slaughtering and processing operation that makes meat products for Hormel Foods and other companies.

With CIDP, something -- perhaps a vaccine, virus or bacteria -- triggers the human immune system to attack the protective sheath that surrounds nerves, said Suraj Muley, an associate professor of neurology at the University of the Minnesota and an expert on the disease.

In the case of the affected workers, "the question is whether the animal might harbor bacteria or a virus that triggered it," Muley said.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120302503_pf.html

 

[Treyfish]

Brain-removal workers fall ill at Minnesota pork plant

Brain-removal workers fall ill at Minnesota pork plant

Dec. 4, 2007, 1:34AM
Brain-removal workers fall ill at Minnesota pork plant

By JOSHUA FREED
Associated Press
<!-- rbox goes here --><!-- end toolbox --><!-- Airport Code (Kayak) --><!-- end Airport Code (Kayak) -->
<!-- end rboxRail --><!-- <TM PL_VAR NAME="f.component.6"> -->
<!-- rbox ends here -->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.:tiphat: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5349213.html

<!-- end bodycopy -->

 

[fretti]

Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

Pig-brain mist suspected in workers' disease

[Warning: graphic post and even more so in the article.]

Grisly method of emptying skulls with compressed air halted at Minn. plant

ST. PAUL, Minn. - On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the "head table," but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.
But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from U.S. health authorities.

Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the Austin, Minn., plant ? all of them employed at the head table ? developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses....

Five of the workers ? including Kruse, who has been told she may never work again ? have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage...

Minnesota health officials said there is no evidence the public is at risk ? either from those afflicted or from any food leaving the plant, which supplies Hormel Foods Inc.

The working theory from two Mayo Clinic neurologists treating the workers: Exposure to pig brain tissue scattered by the compressed air triggered the illnesses. "As we've investigated these patients, we have information that suggests very strongly that the immune system is activated very strongly in a very compelling way," said Dr. Daniel Lachance...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22150940/

 

[fretti]

Re: Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

Re: Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

And if the pig is infected with influenza, then what might happen?

 

[Niko]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

Mayo diagnosis could classify new illness

12/9/2007 4:08:19 PM

<!-- <script type="text/javascript"> digg_url = 'http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=318598'; </script> <script src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
--> By Jeff Hansel
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN



Mayo Clinic physicians hope to find a diagnosis for a mysterious illness discovered at an Austin meat processing plant.

But their target might not exist in any medical text.

They've begun to realize the condition they're treating in at least 11 employees of Quality Pork Processing could instead end up classified as a new illness.

On Friday, for the first time, they gave the unexplained neurological symptoms a tentative new name: "Inflammatory peripheral neuropathy." The moniker, which describes symptoms like numbness, tingling and pain, isn't intended as permanent or even to suggest a classification of the illnesses.

But a term must be found that's accurate because the state agency that oversees wellness in the workplace, the Minnesota Department of Health, as late as Thursday had continued calling the illnesses Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, with a mix of Guillain-Barre syndrome and undetermined sicknesses.

But the Mayo physicians say none of the Austin workers actually have CIDP.

"We want to back away a bit from that diagnosis," said Dr. P. James B. Dyck, a Mayo neurologist.


The workers don't have classic CIDP symptoms, he said. But all 11 have unexplained neurological problems. One has spinal and one has muscular problems that seem a little different from the others.

Instead of CIDP or GBS, the illnesses together can probably be best classified as "inflammatory peripheral neuropathy," said Dr. Daniel Lachance, a consultant in Mayo's Department of Neurology and Neuroimmunology.

Investigators remain uncertain what triggers the illness, how the trigger reaches the body or how the illness takes hold.

Chief among potential causes would be exposure to something that causes the body's own immune system to attack itself, which Dyck and Lachance say is the most-likely scenario.

Other possibilities include the unlikely random chance or an infection workers get from being near hogs during processing. But those two explanations are unlikely, although the second is worth considering. For now, there's only one certainty.

"These people have peripheral neuropathy," Dyck said.

The official number sickened may soon grow to 13 because two more workers are undergoing tests to see if they, too, have the symptoms, the doctors said.

Everyone sickened worked with hog heads, Dyck said. No other commonality exists.

"We're struggling for a name, and I think that's one of the problems in trying to communicate this to the public," Lachance said. For now, the doctors have settled on "inflammatory peripheral neuropathy."

Eating pork is safe, Lachance emphasized. A large population eats the meat, with nobody exhibiting the symptoms experienced by the QPP workers, he said. At the plant, 13 of the 1,300 workers either have the symptoms or are being tested.

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=318598

 

[Niko]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td>Mysterious Illness Hits Another Worker</td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3">Chris Hrapsky
KTTC TV</td></tr></tbody></table>
Updated: December 12, 2007, 5:47 pm

AUSTIN, MN -- A mysterious illness at the Quality Pork Processing plant in Austin appears to be spreading.

Health officials say another person is showing symptoms of a neurological illness that has already effected eleven employees all working in the same area.

Susan Kruse is one of the workers effected by the illness. She says, "I don't go out a whole lot. My social life consists of going to doctors."

For the last year, Kruse has had limited strength and feeling in her arms and legs.

She says, "When I go to stand up, I have to stand there for a minute so I can get my balance."

Kruse is one of the now twelve Q.P.P. employees to have the same neurological symptoms.

All twelve people worked in the head table department at the plant.

This is where the meat and brains are removed from the pigs' heads.

Kruse quit her job last week after 15 years with the plant.

She says her health insurance and medical assistance is paying for her medications and treatments, but she hasn't received any disability or workers compensation, because it has yet to be proved where the illness came from.

Kruse says, "That's what makes it the hardest. I was one that went to work everyday, was faithful to my job, and this is what I get in the end."

Workers here are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 9. Their president says the union can't do anything until it's proven the illness is work related.

President Rich Morgan says, "Should it be deemed work related, their bills should be taken care of."

In the latest announcement from the Minnesota Health Department, officials are backing away from their initial diagnosis of the illness.

They say that it is not chronic nor is it terminal, but Kruse's doctor has told her otherwise.

Kruse says, " You'll have good days, you have bad days, but you won't have days where it's totally gone."

For now Kruse isn't working. She can't.

She's spending more time with her family hoping this investigation can bring her peace of mind.

The Minnesota Health Department is still investigating the head table area trying to find a possible cause.

One employee I spoke with said there have been talks of shutting the whole line down until they find an answer, but that has yet to be confirmed.



The Minnesota Health Department is still investigating the head table department trying to find a possible cause.
One employee I spoke with said there have been talks of shutting that whole line down until they find an answer, but that has yet to be confirmed.

 

[HenryN]

Re: Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

Re: Pig-Brain "Mist" causes immune disorder

And if the pig is infected with influenza, then what might happen?

H1N1 on the brain.

 

[HenryN]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is investigating a cluster of 11 cases of neurological illness in workers at Quality Pork Processors, Inc. (QPP) in Austin, Minn.
QPP staff and physicians in the Austin and Rochester area recently realized there had been a pattern of cases of neurological illnesses and they seemed to have a workplace in common. The first cases developed symptoms in December 2006, and the other cases developed symptoms over the following several months, up to July 2007. MDH was contacted a month ago about this cluster of cases, and immediately began reviewing clinical findings, interviewing workers for potential exposures and inspecting the plant. MDH learned of an additional affected person who was hospitalized.
The investigation includes interviewing affected and non-affected workers, reviewing clinical data, obtaining diagnostic samples and extensively reviewing potential exposures. To date, a specific cause has not been identified.
The symptoms of the illness are recognized over several weeks to months and are characterized by muscle weakness and abnormal sensation. Two individuals were hospitalized; one had an extended stay, including rehabilitation.
The illnesses appear to be an inflammatory neurological disease, and in five of the cases the diagnosis was consistent with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. There have been no fatalities. The 11 cases worked in an area where either swine heads or organs are processed. Thus far in the investigation, none of the cases had apparent associations outside of the workplace.

http://www.dl-online.com/articles/i...OKEN=20134469&jsessionid=88302a32d5ed4e754830

 

[HenryN]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

Pork-plant ailment a mystery again

By JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY, Star Tribune
Last update: December 12, 2007 - 7:09 AM
A 12th worker at a pork processing plant in Austin, Minn., appears to have the same mysterious neurological condition identified in 11 others by an ongoing state health department disease investigation.
But health officials have backed away from their earlier identification of the condition as chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP. Initially they said that five of the workers had CIDP. After additional testing, officials said that none of the workers fits the precise diagnosis of that extremely rare disease -- though the tingling and numbness they experience in their arms and legs are similar to it.
Officials believe the condition is causing the workers neurological problems but at this point it cannot be identified as a known or specific disease.
Last week the Minnesota Department of Health announced it had launched an investigation into a cluster of illnesses in 11 workers at Quality Pork Processors in Austin.
They all worked in the same area -- the head table, where workers cut the meat from pig heads and extruded the brain from the skulls with a compressed air system.
Though health officials are looking into all possible causes of the illness, they have focused on the compressed air system, which is used by only a few meat processing plants in the country. The system, which exposes workers to airborne particles of pig blood, tissue and fluids, was implemented around the same time that the workers first started reporting problems last December. The plant has stopped using it and now provides employees with more protective clothing and face masks.
Dr. Daniel Lachance, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic who is involved in screening the workers, said that preliminary tests conducted last week on the 12th worker indicate she has the same symptoms as the others. She worked in the area under investigation. The evaluation is not yet complete, "but I'm convinced that she has it," he said. "The preliminary testing is consistent" with the others.
Ruth Lynfield, the state epidemiologist, said that she is not surprised that an additional case turned up and that investigators may yet find even more at the Austin plant or at others. They spent last week talking to hundreds of plant workers and anyone who reported neurological symptoms was referred to the Mayo Clinic for screening. Lachance said that a 13th worker is also going through the evaluation process, but preliminary results are not yet available.
A less-specific diagnosis
Lachance and Lynfield also said that further testing has shown that the workers do not have CIDP, a disease in which the immune system for some unknown reason attacks the protective sheath that surrounds nerves. CIDP is very rare, occurring in about 2 out of 100,000 people, and can often be disabling.
Key to differentiating the condition from CIDP is a characteristic of CIDP involving an interruption or blockage of the electrical signaling in and between nerves, Lachance said. Tests now show that none of the 11 workers has that problem, he said.
They do have damage to the nerve system caused by their immune systems, he said. But at this point it can be categorized generically only as an inflammatory response that is damaging the nerve sheaths, he said.
Two of the 11 have symptoms that are different than the rest, Lachance said. One has problems in the spinal cord, and the other has problems in muscles. The others have symptoms that are more similar, characterized by tingling, numbness, discomfort in arms and legs, and variable amounts of weakness. They also described "a very abrupt sense of fatigue," he said.
For example, one worker was a regular soccer player until he started experiencing tingling and numbness in his legs. Now he can't play and even walking up stairs is exhausting, Lachance said.
Mayo doctors are developing a treatment regimen for the workers, he said. Most have not been completely evaluated for treatment, but he expects that with help most will improve.

"If we never exactly figure it out and patients stop getting sick, that's good," he said. "We're happy with that."
Josephine Marcotty ? 612-673-7394

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/12387856.html

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

New details presented in outbreak in pork processing plant workers

CHICAGO ? New details on the neurological illness that has affected workers at several pork processing plants will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology?s 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12?19, 2008. The information will be presented as part of the Late-Breaking Science program, designed for research of major scientific importance or interest that warrants expedited presentation.
Neurologists have identified the illness as a new disorder which causes symptoms ranging from a transverse myelitis syndrome, inflammation of the spinal cord, in one patient to mild weakness, fatigue, numbness and tingling in arms and legs. Researchers are classifying this condition as an immune polyradiculoneuropathy, (a disease of the peripheral nerves and spinal nerve roots) and it has been referred to as ?progressive inflammatory neuropathy.? Details about the initial epidemiology investigation were described in an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on February 8.
The current presentation focuses on the clinical description of patients who worked at a Minnesota pork processing plant. Other cases associated with working at a pork processing plant have been reported in Indiana and Nebraska. All of the Minnesota cases had evidence of nerve involvement, typically affecting the legs and likely caused by an inflammatory process.
Electrodiagnostic tests showed that the patients had damage to the nerves at the root level, adjacent to the spinal cord, and at the farthest reaches of motor nerves, near the connection with muscle. Thirteen out of 15 patients had elevated protein levels in their cerebrospinal (brain and spinal cord) fluid. Most patients had evidence of inflammation on spinal MRI examinations. All had evidence of activation of their immune systems. This was shown by a pattern of specific antibody production that has not been seen before.
?This appears to be a new syndrome of immune-mediated polyradiculoneuropathy, or more simply, a novel neurological disorder caused by an immune system response to something in the workplace environment shared by these individuals,? said study author Daniel Lachance, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and a Fellow member of the American Academy of Neurology.
Lachance said the researchers will present additional details at the AAN Annual Meeting.

###​

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 21,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer?s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson?s disease, and stroke.
For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit www.aan.com.
Editor?s Note: Dr. Lachance will present this research during a scientific platform session at 5:30 p.m. CT/6:30 p.m. ET, on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, in Room 185 AB of the McCormick Place West Convention Center.
Dr. Lachance will be available for media questions during a press briefing at 11:00 a.m. CT/12:00 p.m. ET, on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, in the on-site Press Interview Room, room 182. Dr. Jim Sejvar, a neurologist and epidemiologist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will also be available.
If you are a member of the media interested in listening to the press briefing via conference call, please call the AAN Press Room (April 12 ? 18) at (312) 791-7053.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/aaon-ndp041408.php

 

[Shiloh]

Re: 11 Pork Plant Workers Get Rare Illness (Minn, USA)

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqaebpM28dOdHO2Fop0x-o06mxqQD9037NQG2

Illnesses rise among plant workers who handled pig brains

By STEVE KARNOWSKI ? 4 hours ago

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? The number of mysterious neurological illnesses among workers who processed pig brains at pork plants in three states has grown to as many as 24, and other possible cases are being evaluated, researchers said Wednesday.

Dr. Daniel Lachance, a Mayo Clinic neurologist, said there are now 18 confirmed cases among people who have worked at the Quality Pork Processors plant in Austin, Minn. That's up from 13 cases reported as of February.

Lachance also said there are now about five cases among workers at a pork plant in Indiana, compared with two confirmed earlier, and one recently identified case at a plant in Nebraska. Officials have not publicly named the Indiana and Nebraska plants.

Lachance spoke in a teleconference from Chicago, where he and other researchers presented details about the ongoing investigation at a neurology conference hosted by the St. Paul-based American Academy of Neurology.

The common thread among the affected workers is that they all worked in a part of the plants that used compressed air to blow pig brains out of skulls, Lachance said. All the plants have discontinued the practice.

The working hypothesis, he told reporters, is still that some of the brain tissue was turned into a fine mist during the process, and that the workers became exposed to it and somehow developed an autoimmune response that caused nerve damage.

"The precise mechanism by which that is occurring, we do not yet understand," Lachance said.

Common symptoms include pain, weakness, fatigue and numbness. A unique pattern of antibodies has been found in all the patients, Lachance said.

A Spanish-language interpreter at an Austin clinic and plant nurses realized last year they were seeing a pattern of similar illnesses among the workers. The Mayo Clinic reported 12 cases to the state Health Department in November. In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the condition a name ? progressive inflammatory neuropathy, or PIN.

The 18 patients identified by the Mayo Clinic developed their symptoms from the end of November 2006 through the first week of this month.

But the illness might have appeared earlier. Lachance said that he evaluated a 22-year-old woman in Austin in 2004 with some similar symptoms, but that she refused to have a spinal tap, has since returned home to Mexico and is not being studied. He said another patient he first saw in November 2005 is still being evaluated.

Researchers don't think the general public is at risk.

"It doesn't appear that the slaughtered pigs have been ill," said Dr. James Sejvar, a neurologist and epidemiologist at the CDC. "It doesn't appear that this is in any way a foodborne illness. And it doesn't appear as if this particular illness can be transmitted person to person."

Lachance said none of the patients have recovered completely, though all have improved or stabilized to a degree. He also said some have had relapses. Some of the patients have required only pain medication, while the most seriously ill have undergone drug treatments to suppress their immune systems.

The three plants are the only ones investigators have found in the U.S. that used compressed air to harvest pig brains, which are considered a delicacy in some Asian countries.

Sejvar said the CDC has been working with the World Health Organization to see whether the procedure has been used in any plants abroad. So far, they haven't heard of any.

Even if the illness turns out to be an isolated problem, Lachance said he hopes researchers will be able to apply what they've learned to other autoimmune illnesses. Scientists still don't know what triggers many of them, he said.

The Quality Pork Processors plant on Wednesday won a workplace safety award from the American Meat Institute. It was one of 41 winners of the Award of Honor, the highest category among the institute's three levels of worker safety recognition awards. The industry group honored 121 plants in all.