Why I Won't Be Eating a Hot Dog Today

An early release of the MMWR provides additional information regarding the CDC’s investigation into cases of progressive inflammatory neuropathy (what the CDC is now abbreviating “PIN”) in pig-slaughterhouse workers in Minnesota and Indiana. The association between the development of PIN and “blowing brains” at the “head table” is confirmed, with an explicit description of employment that can otherwise be found in the Journal of You Think Your Job Sucks?

 

A compressed air device…was placed into the skull of the pig through the foramen magnum, and the force of the air disrupted the brain material into a liquefied form that made it easier to remove…This technique caused generation of small droplets and splatter, possibly including aerosolized brain material, to which workers operating the device and others nearby might have been exposed.

It is currently speculated that exposure to aerosolized neural protein from the pig may have induced an autoimmune inflammatory response in workers, resulting in the condition. According to the MMWR, blood and throat-swab samples to date have not identified any associated infectious agents (eg, Campylobacter), as was previously suggested at the Pathophilia blog.