Ill workers at an Indiana slaughterhouse where compressed air was used to remove pig brains have symptoms similar to those involved in an earlier outbreak in Minnesota, federal health officials said.
The employees who became ill worked on the "head tables," where the animals' heads are processed, on the killing floors, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) spokeswoman Lola Russell said on Wednesday. Both plants shoot compressed air into the skulls until the pigs' brains come spilling out.
"It may be associated with this particular technique of using high-pressure air to remove the pig's brain," Russell said.
The Indiana workers' symptoms included changes in sensation and weakness in their limbs, Russell said. Those symptoms are similar to a mysterious cluster of neurological symptoms reported last month among 12 workers at a pork slaughterhouse in Austin, Minnesota.
The number of sick workers in Indiana, details of their conditions, the name of the company and the company's location were not disclosed.
Elizabeth Hart, a spokeswoman for the Indiana State Department of Health, said she could not comment until a meeting with a state epidemiologist set for yesterday morning.
In the Minnesota case, health officials suspect the workers were exposed to something in the brain tissue that triggered the illness. Officials are continuing to investigate, but so far they have not identified any viruses or bacteria that could be causing the disease.
Five of the 12 workers afflicted 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.
Kenneth Gorson, a neurologist at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston, has said that victims can recover fairly quickly if the illness is caught early. However, at least one of the Minnesota workers was told she may never work again. In advanced cases, Gorson said treatment arrests the disease but does not reverse its effects.
Minnesota state epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield said the discovery of the Indiana illness could help her investigation.
"That may help us figure out why these workers are getting sick," she said.
After the Minnesota slaughterhouse illness was reported, the CDC looked into slaughtering practices in 25 large pork processing plants in 13 states and found only two other plants -- one in Indiana, the other in Nebraska -- that used compressed air to remove pigs' brains.
Minnesota health officials said the pork plants in all three states have voluntarily stopped that practice.
Pork brains are sometimes fried and eaten in sandwiches or with gravy in some areas. But the market is small and the American Meat Institute, which represents many pork processors, does not track sales.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing