What's it like on the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors in Minnesota? Well, there's an area known as the "head table," where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.Woot woot!
But since last December, 11 workers at the plant — all of them employed at the head table — developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms. Some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.
The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week as authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Five of the workers have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage. State health officials said there is no evidence the public is at risk, either from those afflicted or from any food leaving the plant, which supplies Hormel Foods, and scientists have yet to figure out if there is something in the brain matter that could be causing the symptoms.
Quality Pork has not said what it does with the pork brains. Sold fresh and in cans, pork brains are fried and eaten in sandwiches or gravy in some parts of the country.
Exactly how many of the plant's 1,300 employees worked at the head table is unclear. In a rapid-fire process that is noisy, smelly and bloody, severed pigs' heads are cut up at the head table at a rate of more than 1,100 an hour. Workers slice off the cheek and snout meat, then insert a nozzle in the head and blast air inside until the light pink mush that is the brain tissue squirts out from the base of the skull. The head-table workers were protected by safety glasses, helmets, gloves and belly guards, but none wore anything over their mouths or noses.
Head-table workers are now required to wear plastic face shields and protective plastic or rubber sleeves, the Health Department said.
The use of compressed air to remove hog brains is relatively uncommon, according to industry officials. Many plants don't even remove them, and some of the processors that do extract brains simply split the hogs' skulls open. Companies like Tyson Foods, JBS Swift, and Cargill say they don't handle brains because the market isn't big enough, and none of their workers have reported symptoms similar to those of the Quality Pork employees.
The moral of the story - blasting pig brains is a shitty job.
But since last December, 11 workers at the plant — all of them employed at the head table — developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms. Some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.
The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week as authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Five of the workers have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage. State health officials said there is no evidence the public is at risk, either from those afflicted or from any food leaving the plant, which supplies Hormel Foods, and scientists have yet to figure out if there is something in the brain matter that could be causing the symptoms.
Quality Pork has not said what it does with the pork brains. Sold fresh and in cans, pork brains are fried and eaten in sandwiches or gravy in some parts of the country.
Exactly how many of the plant's 1,300 employees worked at the head table is unclear. In a rapid-fire process that is noisy, smelly and bloody, severed pigs' heads are cut up at the head table at a rate of more than 1,100 an hour. Workers slice off the cheek and snout meat, then insert a nozzle in the head and blast air inside until the light pink mush that is the brain tissue squirts out from the base of the skull. The head-table workers were protected by safety glasses, helmets, gloves and belly guards, but none wore anything over their mouths or noses.
Head-table workers are now required to wear plastic face shields and protective plastic or rubber sleeves, the Health Department said.
The use of compressed air to remove hog brains is relatively uncommon, according to industry officials. Many plants don't even remove them, and some of the processors that do extract brains simply split the hogs' skulls open. Companies like Tyson Foods, JBS Swift, and Cargill say they don't handle brains because the market isn't big enough, and none of their workers have reported symptoms similar to those of the Quality Pork employees.
The moral of the story - blasting pig brains is a shitty job.
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