Poultry workers exhibit an excess of a wide range of diseases, from thyroid conditions to schizophrenia, and autoimmune neurological disorders, such as myasthenia gravis. This may be due to exposure to viruses present in chickens and turkeys.
Poultry Exposure and Neurological Disease
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Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
More cancer mortality associated with poultry exposure. What about non-cancer mortality?
“The root cause of many chronic diseases in humans is [after all] still unknown. Chickens and turkeys destined for human consumption and their products are infected with a plethora of transmissible agents that cause a variety of diseases in the animals, including cancer, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, etc.”
That’s in the animals, but they “are a potential source of infection for humans. Humans can be infected by direct contact with live or killed birds, their blood and secretions [the so-called ‘chicken juice’ in the package of raw meat], consumption of raw or inadequately cooked poultry meat, or other products, such as eggs and vaccinations…”
“We already have serologic evidence [testing for antibodies] that humans are commonly infected with chicken viruses, avian leukosis/sarcoma viruses, reticuloendotheliosis viruses and Marek’s disease virus, that cause a wide variety of cancers, neurologic, and other diseases in chickens and turkeys…The question therefore arises as to whether these agents also cause similar diseases in humans—especially those human diseases whose [cause] is currently undetermined.”
They figured, look, if it’s going to affect anyone, it would be the poultry workers first. And indeed, they found that compared to the control group, “an excess of deaths was observed for disorders of the thyroid gland, senile and pre-senile psychotic conditions [like schizophrenia], anterior horn cell disease [which is a degenerative spinal cord condition], myasthenia gravis [an autoimmune nerve disease], hypertension, heart disease, diseases of the esophagus, peritonitis [which is inflammation of the abdominal lining], and other diseases of the kidney…” They conclude that this apparent “excess occurrence of disease affecting several organs and systems, [is] probably originating from widespread infection with a variety of microorganisms.”
So, this notion that “the present findings may perhaps be providing the first clues that cases of some of the neurologic diseases that occur in the general human population may owe their origin to the presence of transmissible agents present in animals and animal products used for food, such as poultry, is plausible…”
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
Image thanks to Julia Manzerova via flickr
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
More cancer mortality associated with poultry exposure. What about non-cancer mortality?
“The root cause of many chronic diseases in humans is [after all] still unknown. Chickens and turkeys destined for human consumption and their products are infected with a plethora of transmissible agents that cause a variety of diseases in the animals, including cancer, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, etc.”
That’s in the animals, but they “are a potential source of infection for humans. Humans can be infected by direct contact with live or killed birds, their blood and secretions [the so-called ‘chicken juice’ in the package of raw meat], consumption of raw or inadequately cooked poultry meat, or other products, such as eggs and vaccinations…”
“We already have serologic evidence [testing for antibodies] that humans are commonly infected with chicken viruses, avian leukosis/sarcoma viruses, reticuloendotheliosis viruses and Marek’s disease virus, that cause a wide variety of cancers, neurologic, and other diseases in chickens and turkeys…The question therefore arises as to whether these agents also cause similar diseases in humans—especially those human diseases whose [cause] is currently undetermined.”
They figured, look, if it’s going to affect anyone, it would be the poultry workers first. And indeed, they found that compared to the control group, “an excess of deaths was observed for disorders of the thyroid gland, senile and pre-senile psychotic conditions [like schizophrenia], anterior horn cell disease [which is a degenerative spinal cord condition], myasthenia gravis [an autoimmune nerve disease], hypertension, heart disease, diseases of the esophagus, peritonitis [which is inflammation of the abdominal lining], and other diseases of the kidney…” They conclude that this apparent “excess occurrence of disease affecting several organs and systems, [is] probably originating from widespread infection with a variety of microorganisms.”
So, this notion that “the present findings may perhaps be providing the first clues that cases of some of the neurologic diseases that occur in the general human population may owe their origin to the presence of transmissible agents present in animals and animal products used for food, such as poultry, is plausible…”
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
Image thanks to Julia Manzerova via flickr
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Title
Poultry Exposure and Neurological Disease
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
For the cancer mortality studies I refer to at the beginning, see Chicken Dioxins, Viruses, or Antibiotics?; Poultry & Penis Cancer; and Wart Cancer Viruses in Food. And for more on the viruses specifically mentioned, see Carcinogenic Retrovirus Found in Eggs. And if anyone’s thinking, “What about Guillain-BarrĂ© syndrome?”, stay tuned—Poultry & Paralysis is coming up next!
For more context, check out my associated blog post: Treating an Enlarged Prostate With Diet.
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