Pigs causing illness in humans even before they’re eaten

[ensho]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3139.shtml


The bad news just doesn't end for the hog industry.

It was just recovering from Hurricane Floyd, which flushed 120 million
gallons of its liquid manure into floodwaters and drowned 20,000 hogs in their cages, when New York Times reporter Charlie LeDuff went undercover at the Smithfield Packing Co. slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC.

Even as readers digested LeDuff's behind the scenes images of black women "assigned to the chitterlings room, where they would scrape feces and worms from intestines" and workers throwing "a piece of shoulder at a friend across the conveyor" just to get his attention, the Chicago Tribune took up the baton.

-snip-

And now there's a hog-to-humans disease.

It's hard to write a story about the 13 workers at the Quality Pork Processing slaughterhouse in Austin, Minn., who came down with a strange neurological disease in December without mentioning the head table.

The head table is the station where compressed air is shot into the hog's head cavity with a hose to "blow its brains" out through the base of the skull or the snout. A Plexiglas shield protects the hose operator from blowback but not other table workers who have "exposed arms" and no "face shields to prevent them from swallowing or inhaling sprayed brain tissue," say news reports.

The pulverized brains are "then collected and poured into containers to be shipped to China, Korea, and even parts of the United States, where cooks like to stir fry them and some people like to add them to their scrambled eggs."

-snip-

"Several people diagnosed locally with PIN said their symptoms were so severe that they awoke unable to move; had to use wheelchairs; or lost sensation in their arms, legs, feet or hands," writes the Post-Bulletin's Jeff Hansel. "Although steroid and other treatments have helped, the term 'recovered' can't be used because they continue to experience the effects of spine and nerve inflammation."
-snip-
------------------------------------


may the pork barons fall down and never get up

pigs are smart. they know they are being tortured.

but then, america is a country that tortures. in more ways then one.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Mad Pig Disease

The Pork Plague

Porky's Revenge

[bryant69]

2. So you are pleased to see this development?

Is this what we deserve?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ensho]

3. whyever would you think that?

nt

[Richard Steele]

4. Ignore him- he just tries to stir up shit here, and everyone knows it. nm

[bryant69]

5. By which you mean I sometimes disagree with the prevailing wisdom at DU. n/t

[Richard Steele]

12. No, I mean you seldom "discuss" & prefer to drop hit-n-run questions designed to create controversy.

With your post above being a typical example.

[bryant69]

15. That's a blatent lie

I rarely hit and run, and if I do it's because circumstances force my hand. On the contrary I have the problem of spending too long discussing an issue, unwilling to let it drop.

Bryant

[bryant69]

6. THe last bit of your article

The bit about the pork barons and then "pigs are smart. they know they are being tortured.

but then, america is a country that tortures. in more ways then one."

It has a note of implied justice about it - like we torture humans and pigs and now pigs are striking back? Perhaps I'm reading you wrong.

Bryant

[ensho]

7. well it would be justified if pigs fought back, but you read it wrong

but then you did that on purpose.

[bryant69]

14. Ah - you can read my mind now?

I think I read you right, which is why you are acting all defensive.

Bryant

[RadiationTherapy]

16. Ok. I'll bite.

I am displeased. I do not believe the word 'deserve' to have any meaning.

Also, we need to change what we eat dramatically. We need to change how we produce it dramatically. Too few people consume too many of the calories and nutrients in our global food supply. These 'too few people' tend to be american and western european meat eaters. They also tend to be selfish, short sighted and resistant to any real change.

Have at it.

[aquart]

8. You seem to think women should never do disgusting jobs?

Is that your thesis? Or do you hope to stir "liberal guilt" by making sure we know that the women doing the job are BLACK women?

There's a neurological disease that comes from pork? Therefore we need to be MUCH more careful in how we handle it? You know the Republicans cut regulation and inspection to the bone.

But to use this as a case to not eat pork? Quick! Tell me how many people this nation has to feed?

[ensho]

9. that was a piss poor try - you get money from the meat barons?

nt

[ensho]

10. disregarding the disruptors on this thread, the problem of unhealthy

meat, is a serious one. if you'd rather not get sick.

[marmar]

11. Vegetarianism is becoming all the more appealing to me these days....

..... I can let the pesticides kill me instead.

[RadiationTherapy]

17. Pesticides or no

At least take a pause from the meat and give your digestive tract a break. Also, by eating more vegetables, you help reduce the demand and thus the damage that most meat producers are responsible for.

[leftchick]

13. anyone on the fence about eating pigs

should read this book. In addition to the horrible inhumane conditions these animals living and dying in, there is this.....

These animals are highly intelligent and deserve to live without terror....

http://www.goodgoodpig.com/