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Pork Plant Halts Procedure After Workers Become Ill

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By MARTIGA LOHN, The Associated Press

Published: December 8, 2007

ST. PAUL, Minn. - On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors 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 spill out.

Now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from health authorities.

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

The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork this week while authorities try to unravel the mystery.

"I'm still in shock, I guess," said 37-year-old Susan Kruse, who worked at the plant for 15 years until she got too weak to do her job in February. "But it was very surprising to hear that there was that many other people that have gotten this."

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

New cases of the disorder occur at the rate of one or two per 100,000 people each year, according to P. James B. Dyck of the Mayo Clinic.
State 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.

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," Daniel Lachance said.

Compressed air could turn some brain matter into a mist that could be inhaled by workers, said Mike Doyle, a microbiologist who heads the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety. The workers also may have come into contact with something dangerous and then touched their noses or mouths, he said.

Scientists haven't figured out whether something in the brain matter could be causing the symptoms.

"The hard part will be identifying the causative agent and associating that with the animal, showing that the animal carries it," Doyle said.

Minnesota Health Department spokesman Doug Schultz said the agency is looking into the theory but has not ruled out other causes.
Quality Pork has not said what it does with the pork brains. Sold fresh and in cans, pork brains are fried and eaten in sandwiches or gravy in some parts of the country. It is a small market, though, and the American Meat Institute, which represents most of the nation's pork processors, does not even track sales.

The disorder attacks the lining around the nerves, slowing or blocking the brain's signals to the muscles. What exactly triggers the attack is unknown.

Victims can recover fairly quickly if the illness is caught early, said Kenneth Gorson, a neurologist at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston.

In advanced cases, treatment arrests the disease but doesn't reverse its effects, he said. Treatment involves infusions of immune globulin or a plasma-exchange technique that removes antibodies from the patient's blood. Another option is a steroid called prednisone.

American Meat Institute spokeswoman Janet Riley said: "We are watching the situation very closely, and we've offered any help that the state health department would need. But certainly if facts came to light that justified the change in practices, you could imagine protecting the workers is critical."

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