A Medical Mystery Unfolds in Minnesota

By DENISE GRADY - Published: February 5, 2008 - New York Times

AUSTIN, Minn. — If you have to come down with a strange disease, this town of 23,000 on the wide-open prairie in southeastern Minnesota is a pretty good place to be. The Mayo Clinic, famous for diagnosing exotic ailments, owns the local medical center and shares some staff with it. Mayo itself is just 40 miles east in Rochester. And when it comes to investigating mysterious outbreaks, Minnesota has one of the strongest health departments and best-equipped laboratories in the country.

And the disease that confronted doctors at the Austin Medical Center here last fall was strange indeed. Three patients had the same highly unusual set of symptoms: fatigue, pain, weakness, numbness and tingling in the legs and feet.

The patients had something else in common, too: all worked at Quality Pork Processors, a local meatpacking plant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/he...pagewanted=all

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--and would have posted it, but you beat me to it, CayoKay.

The article is particularly interesting to those of us who have conditions that may have involved an autoimmune molecular mimicry cascade--which includes conditions such as lupus, MS, ADEM, and a number of peripheral neuropathies.

It's been said before that the swine family shares certain genetic similarities with humans--indeed, swine tissues are often used to make medications or for transplants--and the possibility of something in these pigs tripping human immune systems to attack self-tissues that have molecular components that are similar is very intriguing.

part of the reason I found the article so fascinating is that right now I'm raising two pigs (Kevin Bacon, and Honey Ham)

the transmission of disease cross-species is unsettling, as if we don't *already* have enough to deal with.

I have SPMS, Glen... and yeah, that's also why I found it interesting, the similarity of symptoms.

I've heard about this quite often in the news lately..Mad Pig disease?
I don't know..I'm PPMS, but never worked at Hormel or any of its supportive companies around those parts. Only rarely eat pork..It's a very interesting story. I hope Mayo (or anyone) can some up with some answers. I wonder how much of it has to do with the plant itself, and specifically the area the affected people work in? I know we'll be watching it here!

I read about this on the Drudge Report a day or two ago.

It's infuriating that they think that human beings should even be doing this kind of work. Aerosolization is one of the most efficient ways of transmitting disease. G-d to think that these poor people were breathing aerosolized pig brains And, who knows what kinds of impacts there will be on these people and their health in the future. If they eat a pork chop, will they have an asthmatic attack or a severe allergic reaction?? Will this be passed on through the reproductive organs to their children??

Man, this makes me so mad

Thanks for highlighting this.

Barb

Here is another article with extra details...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com:80/articles/96117.php

A new different definition of a neuropathy? Humm - j

The way I understand this incident, is that it is similar to the way Diabetes type I develops.

In diabetes, children who inherit the tendency to autoimmune responses, make antibodies to the fragments of cow insulin that appear in dairy products. Then these same antibodies attack the child's own pancreas were similar sequences occur. Diabetes is considered an autoimmune disease.

This reaction to pig brain material is similar. It is inhaled (which is a very allergenic site anyway) and the myelin sequences set off the immune response in the people. This may be more global than with diabetes, because of the inhalation aspect. Also it is similar to the egg/chicken allergies that can develop from flu vaccines.

Whether eating pork will be an issue, probably is not known yet. Like with many medical discoveries, there are often subsets of victims who serve as examples for later.

To absorb things from the GI tract that requires leaky gut, or open Zonulin channels. Some people have these and leak peptides into the blood more easily than others. If these workers do not leak GI wise, then eating pork will most likely not affect them. However, with leaky gut, who knows? Typically nervous tissue is not included with most meats. But using pigs feet or other whole parts of the pig (sausage) may be problematic.

What this episode does show, is the potential for autoimmune issues involving nervous tissue peptides being introduced into humans and resulting in neuropathies. This may be diagnostic in the future for some idiopathic PNers.