A Minnesota Medical Mystery
There is a disease detective mystery unfolding right here in Minnesota. Two of the project advisors for the Disease Detectives exhibition (Dr. Ruth Lynfield and Dr. Mike Osterholm) are working to discover what causes a strange neurological illness. The medical mystery was recently highlighted in the New York Times and you can find more information on the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) website as well.
The MDH is investigating a cluster of neurological illnesses in workers at a pork slaughtering facility in Austin, Minnesota. To date Minnesota has identified 12 people that share similar symptoms and workplace exposures. The illnesses are characterized by changes in sensation and weakness in the limbs. MDH is working closely with clinicians to identify other possible cases.
It's good to know that Minnesota has one of the strongest health departments and best-equipped laboratories in the country!
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Another meat packer may have the same mysterious illness as his colleagues. Unlike the others he was not stationed near the high-powered air compressor system used to remove pig brain tissue at Quality Pork Processors, but he is still exposed to brain tissue. For a more extensive report see this Star Tribune article.
Unfortunately for those infected, the symptoms of the illness and the suspected vector point to a prion disease being a likely culprit. Prion diseases, caused by an infectious, abnormally folded protein are currently incurable and are only positively identified by post mortem dissection. Other prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) & Kuru in humans, chronic wasting syndrome in Deer & Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease).
Hi Matthew--
I hadn't heard about prions being suspected as a cause in these cases. It is an interesting hypothesis and I can understand the thought process. Is this your correlation or is there evidence out there supporting a prion disease?
make sure you cook your food gooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So the illness wouldn't effect us as long as you cook your pork throughly? The workers who were exposed to the illness they're doing alright now? Did they find out why or how the illness started?
LEE--
I don't think you have to worry about getting this mysterious disease from eating pork. Those who are sick all worked at the pork processing plant. A report from the MN Department of Health website states:
a medical mystery ...that really creepy..imean we as humans are supposed to trust medical issues, and the sound of a "medical mystery" is really scary!
weird!!!!
Odd.Odd.
Mayo Clinic doctors identified this disease as progressive inflammatory neuropathy (PIN). They presented their findings at the national American Academy of Neurology conference on Wednesday. A total of 17 cases have met the precise definition investigators are using for the disease, said Ruth Lynfield, Minnesota's state epidemiologist, who is heading the investigation.
After ruling out toxins and infectious agents, investigators are focusing on whether the workers' immune systems reacted to pig protein they inhaled from bits of brain tissue floating in the air around them.
For more information about this medical mystery and the theories researchers are looking into, go to this StarTribune article.
I think this is very interesting of how pork is a cause of a new illness that approximately 25 people have had and are going through an operation.
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