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WorldWeird: New Details Presented In Outbreak In Pork Processing Plant Workers

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    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.

    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.

    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.

    "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.


    Link.
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      CommentAuthorAriana
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2008
     (1839.2)
    I will not tolerate this sort of anti-bacon propaganda!
  3.  (1839.3)
    I love the bacon, Ariana. ;)
  4.  (1839.4)
    Is this the thing about workers inhaling pig brain mist?
  5.  (1839.5)
    @above,
    I think so. I saw something about this awhile ago, crazy shit.
    Do not want pig brain mist.
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      CommentAuthorVespers
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     (1839.6)
    @JonCarpenter
    Yup. Isn't it awesome? In a really weird way...
  7.  (1839.7)
    Are we eating pig brains? No. Wash your bacon, chops and loin tenderly and with due affection, and hold the line against this kind of threat. If we stop eating pork, the terrorists win!
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      CommentAuthorLinsterg
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     (1839.8)
    They've been vaporkized.
  9.  (1839.9)
  10.  (1839.10)
    Somehow pig-powers seem so much more mundane than spider ones.
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      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2008
     (1839.11)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    Islam for the win!
  12.  (1839.12)
    So when do we get to see a madcow/CJD-variant originated from pigbrains?
  13.  (1839.13)
    If this came about through poor production methods and shoddy inspection, it will be the last possibility they will examine. Pretty scary. That's pretty much how mad cow disease became such a huge problem...
  14.  (1839.14)
    From the second article I posted:
    But they did rule out infectious pathogens such as viruses or prion proteins as a cause. It does not appear to be food-borne or related to any illness in the pigs.

    It's not a virus or prion. It's not some new mad pig disease that's shown up.

    The workers developed an immune reaction to something the pigs carried, and that has given them a very serious allergic episode.
  15.  (1839.15)
    Hrm.
    Still sounds zoonotic.
    I'm curious as to what it'll turn out to be.
  16.  (1839.16)
    Did I ever mention the six years I worked in a Sausage Factory? Not a euphemism, actually. We packed / processed all manner of meat products (which you would think would have turned me off meats...and I'll not lie, I'm still not so fond of breakfast sausage...) , many of which did include pork. So blame that, if you like.

    Meat on the brain, indeed. And brand new! Not prions! Fascinating, though for my money the sheer ice-nine-style weirdness of how prions do their thing is still one of the biggest "we have only the thinnest sliver of an idea how much weirdness the universe could throw at us".

    I'll be honest, though; I just wanted to post a lolprion:
    lolprion
  17.  (1839.17)
    lolprion! That made me smile. Good find, Aleph.
  18.  (1839.18)
    @Spiraltwist

    Yeah, I was afraid that what I said might be interpreted that way shortly after I posted.
  19.  (1839.19)
    @Val A Lindsay II

    N/p
  20.  (1839.20)


    Mmm...bacon - now with music!

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