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Animal Person

Mary Martin, Ph.D., deconstructs the language, ethics and economics of our relationship with nonhuman animals.
February 05, 2008
On Medical Mysteries and Feeling Like an Alien

05pork1906

In "A Medical Mystery Unfolds in Minnesota," in today's New York Times, Denise Grady reports that 12 slaughterhouse workers at Quality Pork Processors in Austin, Minnesota have become ill with a mysterious disorder that causes damage to their nerves.

Let's deconstruct:

* Here's why I feel like an alien: The slaughterhouse in question kills and butchers 19,000 hogs a day. Nineteen thousand hogs are brutally killed each day, and the story is about 12 people who have become ill, most of whom have recovered, and some of whom returned to work. Nineteen thousand hogs a day. And there's not a shred of concern for them.

* Those humans afflicted all worked at at or near the "head table," where they were involved in "blowing brains," which is exactly what it sounds like:

"As each head reached the end of the table, a worker would insert a metal hose into the foramen magnum, the opening that the spinal cord passes through. High-pressure blasts of compressed air then turned the brain into a slurry that squirted out through the same hole in the skull, often spraying brain tissue around and splattering the hose operator in the process.

The brains were pooled, poured into 10-pound containers and shipped to be sold as food - mostly in China and Korea, where cooks stir-fry them, but also in some parts of the American South, where people like them scrambled up with eggs."

* One woman who fell ill and whose job was "backing heads," which is the scraping of the meat from between the vertebrae, was constantly covered in brains, so the origin of the illness is definitely hog brains. Epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield hopes to find the cause of the illnesses and calls the situation "[A] great detective story." How exciting! I love a good mystery!

When I look at the photo above, which has the caption: "Pigs at another company's plant," I am nauseated and distressed. What if they were dogs? Why is it that we can slaughter 19,000 hogs in one day, at just one plant, and the reporter doesn't find anything wrong with that? What has become of our sense of right and wrong when the story is about the 12 people, most of whom have recovered and none of whom had their brains blown out, rather than about what we do as a matter of course to sentient beings? Why isn't the story about the "distinctive scent" of the plant that makes it "easy to find from just about anywhere in town?" Do you think that stench is harmless? And why do we think we wouldn't have problems (other than the obvious karmic ones) when we blow animals to smithereens?

When I look at the hogs above, the mantra vegan education rings hollow. We have so much more to do than that. We have to change the way our entire society views sentient beings. Any ideas about how we can expedite the education of the masses? Billions of hogs just like those looking at you in the photo above are counting on us to turn this machine around. For them, "sorry, but not during our lifetime" doesn't help.