Use of an Animal Model to Identify a Human Form of Occupational Neuropathy

In 2007 Indiana and Minnesota pork plant workers came down with unidentified in neuropathic symptoms consisting of pain, prickling and numbness, weakness, headache and difficulty walking.  It turns out that they had been exposed to pork brains working in the brain removal section of the pork plant and using pressurized air to force the brain tissue out.  This result study replicating the situation with animals demonstrated that the neuropathy symptoms were the result of particles of pig brain tissue that lingered in the air.  The company changed their procedures and stopped exposing people to the brain tissue.  Meanwhile scientists demonstrated that voltage gated potassium channels were a significant target of the antibodies and that the worker’s illness was the result of an autoimmune response initiated by nervous system antigens in healthy brain tissue.  Neurology Today 1-19-2012.