How Mayo doctors identified a Brand New Disease quickly named Progressive Inflammatory Neuropathy (PIN) instead of another grotesquerie of factory farming. And how the workers are fine and the pigs, meat and even brains safe if you just don't inhale the latter.
"It's an exposure issue, it's not a contagious disease," assures Nebraska's chief medical officer Dr. Joanne Schaefer.
But others say not so fast.
"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."
"I got to the point where my son would put my walker in front of me, and he'd hold down on the walker so I could use that to pull myself out of the chair," says Susan Kruse, 37, who worked for 15 years at Quality Pork Processors in Austin.
In his whistle blowing article in Rolling Stone Jeff Tietz observes that, "the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems" so that diseases, "once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population."
Maybe that should read "populations."
"It's an exposure issue, it's not a contagious disease," assures Nebraska's chief medical officer Dr. Joanne Schaefer.
But others say not so fast.
"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."
"I got to the point where my son would put my walker in front of me, and he'd hold down on the walker so I could use that to pull myself out of the chair," says Susan Kruse, 37, who worked for 15 years at Quality Pork Processors in Austin.
In his whistle blowing article in Rolling Stone Jeff Tietz observes that, "the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems" so that diseases, "once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population."
Maybe that should read "populations."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
