Dec 3, 2007 11:11 pm US/Central
Ex-QPP Worker: 'The Pain Is Awful' From Illness
AUSTIN, Minn. (AP) ―
State health officials are investigating neurological illnesses among 11 workers at Quality Pork Processing in Austin.
On Monday night, WCCO-TV spoke with one of those workers who said she will have pain in her legs for the rest of her life.
"It's something you sure don't want to live with. The pain is awful. There's days when you don't want to move you are in so much pain," said Susan Kruse, an employee of 15 years.
Kruse said she can no longer work at QPP because of the illness she contracted. She is on three different medications and can no longer do things she enjoys because of weakness and fatigue.
"I used to love remodeling my home. I can't do that now. I can't pull the sheetrock off the wall because I don't have the strength," said Kruse.
Health Commissioner Dr. Sanne Magnan said on Monday there is no evidence that the general public is at risk, or that the food coming out of the plant has been contaminated.
The workers who became ill had symptoms such as numbness, and tingling in their arms and legs. Two were hospitalized but have been released. Some of the workers recovered completely, while others are still going through rehabilitation, she said. Five of the workers had symptoms consistent with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.
The patients included men and women from a range of ages and ethnicities, said State Epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield. But they all worked in the same part of the plant, removing hog brains with compressed air. None of the plant's other 1,300 workers reported similar symptoms, and there have been no similar reports at Minnesota's other large hog slaughterhouse in Worthington, officials said.
Quality Pork owner and CEO Kelly Wadding said workers who butcher the hog heads have been given more protective clothing and no longer use compressed air to remove brains. He said Quality Pork's production levels have not been reduced because of the illnesses.
Hormel Foods Corp., which is based in Austin, is Quality Pork's main customer.
Staff nurses at Quality Pork noticed the first symptoms in December 2006, and a total of 10 cases had come in through July, Magnan said. Doctors in Austin and at Mayo Clinic in Rochester were all involved in trying to figure out what was making the workers sick. Mayo reported the matter to the state Health Department in late October, Lynfield said.
She said the symptoms are not consistent with a repetitive stress injury or with the family of diseases that include mad cow disease or scrapie in sheep, which are linked to proteins called prions. But while those diseases cause irreversible brain deterioration, most of the workers in Austin have recovered.
"That's not something you expect with a prion disease," said Lynfield.
Magnan said they shared details of the investigation even though they don't understand what made the workers sick because they want to be transparent.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty named Magnan has health commissioner on Sept. 27. Her predecessor left after being criticized for delaying the release of data about a rare cancer among Iron Range miners.
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