There are a lot of pictures showing factory grown pigs, and the environment looks clean and healthy. This first article had me convinced of the goodness of pork; but just for a moment. The last part or the article is scary as are the other writings.

While doing research for his book Pig Tales, author Barry Estabrook visited a farmer in Iowa who raised 150,000 pigs a year. What he saw at this factory farm -- the way 97 percent of pigs in the U.S. are raised -- is a far cry from Old MacDonald's.

"[The pigs] never see the light of day," he says. "They never set foot on anything but a bare, hard floor. They breathe that poisoned air 24/7."

What he saw is not only legal; it's state of the art. "This is the way pigs are raised," Estabrook says. [Find an excerpt from his book here.]

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: You brand the pig "the wonder animal." Why?

Barry Estabrook: On many counts.
First of all, the sheer intelligence of pigs. Before I'd started my research, I knew pigs were smart. But just what they're capable of intellectually is beyond anything I suspected. They're as smart as a 3-year-old human being; there's scientific research showing that.
The second thing is that pigs have really been with us throughout our entire cultural revolution. From the minute we first abandoned being nomads as human beings 10,000 years ago, the pigs were there. They were helping us along. They helped us become who we are.
When we set out to explore North and South America from Europe, we couldn't have done that without pigs. On his second voyage, Christopher Columbus brought along a bunch of pigs to let loose on the island of Hispaniola to feed his crew. Even during the American Revolution our soldiers were fed dried pork; that's what gave them the strength to fight the war.
Pigs have always been here. They helped us open up the West. Early pioneers probably couldn't have settled down, except they brought a couple of pigs along with 

them.

LRK: Why the pig? What is it about the pig that made it so important in these situations?

BE: Primarily, no large domestic animal that we eat reproduces at anything close to the rate of a pig. A modern pig, a sow, can have up to 30 piglets a year born in two litters. Even in the old days, the original pigs that we domesticated would have six or eight piglets about every 8 or 9 months.
Compare that to a sheep, where you get maybe one or two lambs, or a cow, where you're lucky to get one. That cow would take 2 years to become slaughter size. A pig is ready to be slaughtered in 6 months. You can see that they're an incredible source of protein.

LRK: Let's talk about where that supermarket pork chop comes from. You researched quite a few places that process pork. You talked to many people who had firsthand experience. What did you see and what did you learn?

BE: Perhaps my greatest education was one day in central Iowa, where I visited a single pig farmer who raised 150,000 pigs a year in 40 low-slung, warehouse-like confinement barns. We spent the day together.
Before we went into these barns, we both had to strip naked and take a thorough shampoo and shower, leaving our clothes behind. We passed through into this sterile zone to prevent disease from getting in.
The most memorable sight was when I went into a low, dark barn and saw 1,500 sows. These huge animals spent their entire lives inside metal cages that were so small the pigs couldn't even turn around. Their sides pressed out. They were like fat people on the middle seat of an airplane. Their sides pressed out through the bars. This is the way they lived their whole life, just producing piglets. They were like machines.
The smell hit me viscerally. It was like nothing I'd ever smelled. What I was breathing was ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Those are poison gases.

LRK: Coming from the waste?

BE: Coming from manure, which is held in vast pits directly below where the pigs live. It would be the equivalent of filling your basement with sewage from your toilet and emptying your basement once a year.
These gases would kill the pigs, except there are huge fans on the ends of these barns that look like jet engines blowing that air out.

LRK: How do they survive under these conditions?

BE: They're basically kept alive just long enough to reach slaughter weight. The fans keep them going, but much of it is because these pigs are fed constant, low-level antibiotics just to prevent them from getting sick. It'd be like you waking up every morning and taking an antibiotic even if you weren't sick. That enables them to live long enough to reach slaughter weight at 6 months of age.

LRK: This is the way commercial pork is produced?

BE: This is the way 97 percent of the pigs in this country today live. They never see the light of day. They never set foot on anything but a bare, hard floor. They breathe that poisoned air 24/7.

LRK: Aren't there laws against this?

BE: There would be laws against this if you did this to a dog. But no, there are no laws. This is all perfectly legal. In fact, it's state of the art. This is the way pigs are raised.

LRK: You talked about someone you met who was actually arrested for reporting this kind of situation, reporting what went on in these confinement areas.

BE: Yes. It was a man [Kenny Hughs] who lived in north central Missouri and worked at a farm that raised 2 million pigs a year. Imagine that.
He was fine with it until one day he encountered a sow that had gotten too old and had reached the end of her life. The attendants had simply pulled her out of one of those stalls, put another sow in, and left her lying in an alleyway in the barn to die. She couldn't walk. She was being given no food or water.
This fellow came back a couple of days later. She was in the same place but weaker still. He finally went to the head of the barn and said, "Do something about the sow. You can't do that." The guy told him to mind his own business.
That just infuriated this fellow. He went out to Walmart and bought a couple of those disposable cameras. He took pictures inside the barn of piles of dead piglets left there rotting; sows with enormous tumors the size of soccer balls on their shoulders; sows with open, gaping sores. It was horrific. Then he quit.

LRK: Where did the arrest come in? How did that come about?

BE: It was about the time that he was going to testify in a court case against this farm. All of a sudden he found that he was under arrest, accused of stealing some animal drugs from the barns. It was a total surprise to him.
After a year and his entire life savings, he was cleared in about 10 minutes by a jury because there was really no evidence. He thinks the pork producer was behind it. But of course there's no proof of that.

LRK: Just going back to the environmental side of this, you hear about "lagoons" that are attached to these pig factories and the kind of pollution problems there are. But what about the people who live near these places? That stench must carry, right?

BE: Calling them "lagoons" has to be one of the greatest euphemisms of all times. These things are cesspits. They're full of feces and urine, occasionally dead pigs and whatever else gets dumped in there. They're quite often black in color -- no blue lagoon or clear lagoon here.
Eventually they fill up. The way that farmers dispose of the manure in these lagoons is by spraying it into the air, in many cases in these huge "manure cannons," which look like giant lawn sprinklers. They blast it up into the air over the fields. 

LRK: Is this to fertilize?

BE: It's far too much. It's much more fertilizer than any field needs. That's the problem. It provides too much fertility to the soil. A lot of it washes off into rivers and streams. But much of it, as they're spreading it and spraying it, blows in the wind and comes across neighboring properties.
I spoke to one woman in North Carolina named Elsie Herring. The first time it happened to her, 20-odd years ago, she thought it was raining. It wasn't raining rain; it was raining something entirely different. It's to the point now where she can't really hang laundry outside. She's never sure whether she can mow the lawn. On a summer's evening, she can't sit on her porch and enjoy the cool air.
It's just a constant rain of this manure. It's poisonous. It contains hydrogen sulfide, which has been proven to raise people's blood pressure just by breathing it. It's not just a whiff of country air; it's a poisonous gas that's spreading across the land.

LRK: But what about protection from local government? This kind of thing ruins people's properties, it lowers their property value, and it's an intrusion.

BE: This particular woman and many others like her have been to every branch of local, state, and federal government and have gotten the runaround, no help whatsoever.
This is all legal. The problem is the laws governing agriculture date back to the days of Old MacDonald's farm, when you'd have a few pigs rooting around the back of the barn, not tens of thousands. The same laws apply, so they can do this legally. There's really nothing illegal about what they're doing.

LRK: I imagine the power of the pork producers is pretty strong in those environs.

BE: Politically, wherever pork is produced in large quantities, Big Ag is king. You think of states such as North Carolina, Iowa and Minnesota. Big Ag is a very, very, very powerful political force. It doesn't matter whether the politicians are Democrats, Republicans or Libertarians; they dance to the tune of Big Agriculture.

LRK: What about the workers in these places?

BE: As you can imagine, the workers inside the barns suffer from a host of respiratory illnesses, diminished lung capacity and chronic coughing. If you have asthma to begin with, you can't work in one of those places, because you would have a seizure the minute you go in -- an attack. But you can develop asthma by working there. Even veterinarians who visit these places only occasionally have diminished lung capacity. Again, you're breathing poisonous gases.
The people who work inside hog confinement buildings are often exposed to deadly bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. They become resistant because these pigs are constantly fed a diet of low-level antibiotics. The germs that are resistant are the ones that survive and go on to breed.
A study done in Iowa a few years ago compared two groups of pig farmers. One group used antibiotics and another group didn't. Every one of the workers in the farms that used antibiotics were carrying something called MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus], a resistant staph bacteria that can be fatal. None of the farmers who didn't use antibiotics carried MRSA.

LRK: Is there any possibility that this also passes to the consumer who eats meat from such facilities?

BE: Yes, numerous studies of pork in supermarkets in the U.S. show that the meat is carrying not only MRSA, but several other resistant bacteria.

LRK: But would they disappear with cooking?

BE: If they're properly cooked, they would disappear.
But on the other hand, they're also carried in the environment. There has been much research done showing that MRSA and other resistant bacteria can be carried on the wind, they can be carried on dust, they can be carried on workers' clothes.
The other side of the coin is the people who work in the slaughterhouses where pigs are processed. Working in a slaughterhouse used to be a very good job. It used to be every bit as good, high-paying, as any manufacturing job and no more dangerous. But over the past 30 years, it's become one of the most dangerous jobs. The wages have fallen by about 40 percent. Working in a processing plant is also very dangerous.

That article was from Splendidtable.org, now an article from nhes.org

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Pigs are highly social, intelligent, and sentient animals. They are curious, playful, and affectionate creatures who form small family groups of usually one boar and a couple sows along with juveniles from earlier litters. They are considered as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than dogs. Factory farmed pigs suffer extreme physical and psychological trauma and depravation.

How Life Begins for Factory-Farmed Pig

• Approximately 105 million pigs raised yearly for slaughter on factory farms.
• Breeding sows (female pigs who produce multiple litters a year) are either artificially inseminated or confined to racks to breed with a male pig.
• Once impregnated, the sows are confined to gestation crates, typically 2’x7’, for up to four months until their offspring are born.
• The floors of these crates are slatted so that urine and feces can fall through. There is no bedding, even straw, for the animals to rest on.

Farrowing Crates

• Sows and their piglets are moved to farrowing crates, similar to gestation crates only smaller.
• The sow remains on her side and cannot nuzzle her babies.
• There is no bedding, even straw, for the animals to rest on.
• Piglets get trapped in the floor slats and between the sow’s body and crate bars and cannot properly nurse.

Slaughter

• After several weeks in the farrowing crates, the piglets are removed to what is called the nursery, then a finishing crate
• Breeding sows return to the racks and are again impregnated. They are slaughtered after approximately three to four years.
• Factory-farmed pigs are slaughtered typically between six and ten months, depending on what the flesh will be used for (bacon, sausages, pork, etc.).
• Slaughtered pigs are stunned by an electrical gun or other devise prior to having their throats slit.

Effects of Life on a Factory Farm

• To avoid the behavior known as tail-biting, newborn piglets have their tails docked near the base without the use of anesthesia.
• Newborn piglets often have their ears notched and teeth removed, again without anesthesia.
• Animals confined in small spaces will engage in bar-biting, and sham chewing, which is the repetitive chewing of nothing.
• Due to close-quarter confinement and unsanitary living conditions, pigs suffer from a variety of diseases.
• One disease is porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), another is swine influenza virus (SIV), and yet another is salmonellosis. The latter two diseases are zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted to humans.

How You Can Help Factory Farmed Pigs

• Substitute veggie and soy-based products for bacon, sausage, hotdogs, etc.
• Find a vegetarian group in your area and attend a meeting.
• Visit a farm sanctuary and get know the sentient creature the pig truly is.
• Learn more about factory farming and educate others.
• Support legislation to require stricter regulation and enforcement of animal farming welfare and treatment laws.
• Download and print or mail order NHES’ Factory Farms brochure to distribute in your community.

.

This article is from Healthline.com

Among foods that inspire a cult-like following, pork often leads the pack, as evidenced by the 65% of Americans eager to name bacon the country’s national food.

Unfortunately, that popularity comes at a cost. Along with being the most commonly consumed meat in the world, pork may also be one of the most dangerous, carrying some important and under-discussed risks that any consumer should be aware of (1).

Thanks to the revival of nose-to-tail eating, offal has redeemed itself among health enthusiasts, especially liver, which is prized for its vitamin A content and massive mineral lineup.

But when it comes to pork, liver might be risky business.

In developed nations, pork liver is the top food-based transmitter of hepatitis E, a virus that infects 20 million people each year and can lead to acute illness (fever, fatigue, jaundice, vomiting, joint pain and stomach pain), enlarged liver and sometimes liver failure and death (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source).

Most hepatitis E cases are stealthily symptom-free, but pregnant women can experience violent reactions to the virus, including fulminant hepatitis (rapid-onset liver failure) and a high risk of both maternal and fetal mortality (4Trusted Source). In fact, mothers who get infected during their third trimester face a death rate of up to 25% (5Trusted Source).

In rare cases, hepatitis E infection can lead to myocarditis (an inflammatory heart disease), acute pancreatitis (painful inflammation of the pancreas), neurological problems (including Guillain-Barré syndrome and neuralgic amyotrophy), blood disorders and musculoskeletal problems, such as elevated creatine phosphokinase, indicating muscle damage, and multi-joint pain (in the form of polyarthralgia) (6, 7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source).

People with compromised immune systems, including organ transplant recipients on immunosuppressive therapy and people with HIV, are more likely to suffer from these severe hepatitis E complications (9Trusted Source).

So, just how alarming are pork’s contamination stats? In America, about 1 out of every 10 store-bought pig livers tests positive for hepatitis E, which is slightly higher than the 1 in 15 rate in the Netherlands and 1 in 20 rate in the Czech Republic (10Trusted Source, 11Trusted Source). One study in Germany found that about 1 in 5 pork sausages were contaminated (12Trusted Source

Trusted Source

France’s traditional figatellu, a pig liver sausage that’s often consumed raw, is a confirmed hepatitis E carrier (13Trusted Source). In fact, in regions of France where raw or rare pork is a common delicacy, over half the local population shows evidence of hepatitis E infection (14Trusted Source).

Japan, too, is facing rising hepatitis E concerns as pork gains popularity (15Trusted Source). And in the UK? Hepatitis E shows up in pork sausages, in pork liver and at pork slaughterhouses, indicating the potential for widespread exposure among pork consumers (16Trusted Source).

It might be tempting to blame the hepatitis E epidemic on commercial farming practices, but in the case of the pig, wilder doesn’t mean safer. Hunted boars, too, are frequent hepatitis E carriers, capable of passing on the virus to game-eating humans (17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source).

Apart from total pork abstinence, the best way to slash hepatitis E risk is in the kitchen. This stubborn virus can survive the temperatures of rare-cooked meat, making high heat the best weapon against infection (19Trusted Source). For virus deactivation, cooking pork products for at least 20 minutes to an internal temperature of 71°C (160°F) seems to do the trick (20).

However, fat can protect hepatitis viruses from heat destruction, so fattier cuts of pork might need extra time or toastier temperatures (21Trusted Source).

SUMMARY:Pork products, particularly liver, frequently carry hepatitis E, which can cause severe complications and even death in vulnerable populations. Thorough cooking is necessary to deactivate the virus.

One of the most surprising risks associated with pork — one that’s received remarkably little airtime — is multiple sclerosis (MS), a devastating autoimmune condition involving the central nervous system

 The robust link between pork and MS has been known at least since the 1980s, when researchers analyzed the relationship between per capita pork consumption and MS across dozens of countries (22Trusted Source). 

While pork-averse nations like Israel and India were nearly spared from MS’s degenerative grips, more liberal consumers, such as West Germany and Denmark, faced sky-high rates.

In fact, when all countries were considered, pork intake and MS showed a whopping correlation of 0.87 (p<0.001), which is much higher and more significant than the relationship between MS and fat intake (0.63, p<0.01), MS and total meat intake (0.61, p<0.01) and MS and beef consumption (no significant relationship).

For perspective, a similar study of diabetes and per capita sugar intake found a correlation of just under 0.60 (p<0.001) when analyzing 165 countries (23Trusted Source).

As with all epidemiological findings, the correlation between pork consumption and MS can’t prove that one causes the other (or even that, within MS-stricken countries, the most enthusiastic pork consumers were the most diseased). But as it turns out, the evidence vault goes much deeper.

Earlier, a study of inhabitants of the Orkney and Shetland Islands of Scotland, a region teeming with unusual delicacies, including seabird eggs, raw milk and undercooked meat, found only one dietary association with MS — consumption of “potted head,” a dish made from boiled pig’s brain (24Trusted Source).

Among Shetland residents, a significantly higher proportion of MS patients had consumed potted head in their youth, compared to healthy, age and sex-matched controls (25).

This is particularly relevant because — per other research — MS that strikes in adulthood might stem from environmental exposures during adolescence (26).

The potential for pig brain to trigger nerve-related autoimmunity isn’t just an observational hunch, either. Between 2007 and 2009, a cluster of 24 pork plant workers mysteriously fell ill with progressive inflammatory neuropathy, which is characterized by MS-like symptoms such as fatigue, numbness, tingling and pain (27Trusted Source, 28Trusted Source).

The source of the outbreak? So-called “pig brain mist” — tiny particles of brain tissue blasted into the air during carcass processing (29Trusted Source).

When workers inhaled these tissue particles, their immune systems, per standard protocol, formed antibodies against the foreign porcine antigens.

But those antigens happened to bear an uncanny resemblance to certain neural proteins in humans. And the result was a biological calamity: confused about who to fight, the workers’ immune systems launched a guns-blazing attack on their own nerve tissue (30Trusted Source, 31Trusted Source).

Although the resulting autoimmunity wasn’t identical to multiple sclerosis, that same process of molecular mimicry, where foreign antigens and self-antigens are similar enough to trigger an autoimmune response, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of MS (32Trusted Source, 33Trusted Source).

Of course, unlike pig brain mist, hot dogs and ham aren’t literally inhaled (teenage boys notwithstanding). Could pork still transmit problematic substances through ingestion? The answer is a speculative yes. For one, certain bacteria, particularly Acinetobacter, are involved in molecular mimicry with myelin, the nerve-sheathing substance that becomes damaged in MS (34, 35Trusted Source).

Although the role of pigs as Acinetobacter carriers hasn’t been exhaustively studied, the bacteria has been found in pig feces, on pig farms and in bacon, pork salami and ham, where it serves as a spoilage organism (36Trusted Source, 37Trusted Source, 38, 39). If pork acts as a vehicle for Acinetobacter transmission (or in any way increases the risk of human infection), a link with MS would make sense.

Two, pigs may be silent and under-studied carriers of prions, misfolded proteins that drive neurodegenerative disorders like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human version of mad cow) and Kuru (found among cannibal societies) (40Trusted Source).

Some researchers suggest MS itself could be a prion disease, one that targets oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce myelin (41Trusted Source). And since prions — and their associated diseases— are transmitted by consuming infected nerve tissue, it’s possible that prion-harboring pork products could be one link in the MS chain (42Trusted Source).

 SUMMARY:

A causative role of pork in MS is far from a closed case, but the unusually strong epidemiological patterns, biological plausibility and documented experiences make further research imperative.

Liver problems tend to trail closely on the heels of some predictable risk factors, namely hepatitis B and C infection, exposure to aflatoxin (a carcinogen produced by mold) and excessive alcohol intake (43, 44, 45).

But buried in the scientific literature is another potential scourge of liver health — pork.

For decades, pork consumption has faithfully echoed liver cancer and cirrhosis rates around the world. In multi-country analyses, the correlation between pork and cirrhosis mortality clocked in at 0.40 (p<0.05) using 1965 data, 0.89 (p<0.01) using mid-1970s data, 0.68 (p=0.003) using 1996 data and 0.83 (p=0.000) using 2003 data (46Trusted Source, 47Trusted Source).

In those same analyses, among the 10 Canadian provinces, pork bore a correlation of 0.60 (p<0.01) with death from liver cirrhosis, while alcohol, perhaps due to an overall low intake, showed no significant link.

And in statistical models incorporating known perils for the liver (alcohol consumption, hepatitis B infection and hepatitis C infection), pork remained independently associated with liver disease, suggesting the association isn’t just due to pork piggybacking, as the case may be, on a different causative agent (48Trusted Source).

Beef, by contrast, remained liver-neutral or protective in these studies.

One of the biggest dietary sources of nitrosamines is processed pork, which, along with being a frequent visitor to the frying pan, typically contains nitrites and nitrates as curing agents. (Vegetables are also rich in naturally occurring nitrates, but their antioxidant content and dearth of protein help thwart the process of N-nitrosation, preventing them from becoming cancer-causing agents (62Trusted Source).

Significant levels of nitrosamines have been found in pork liver pâté, bacon, sausage, ham and other cured meats (63, 64Trusted Source, 65Trusted Source). The fatty portion of pork products, in particular, tends to accumulate much higher levels of nitrosamines than the lean bits, making bacon a particularly abundant source (66Trusted Source).

The presence of fat can also turn vitamin C into a nitrosamine promoter instead of a nitrosamine inhibitor, so pairing pork with veggies might not confer much protection (67Trusted Source).

Although much of the nitrosamine-liver cancer research has focused on rodents, where certain nitrosamines produce liver injury with remarkable ease, the effect appears in humans as well (68Trusted Source, 69Trusted Source). In fact, some researchers suggest humans may be even more sensitive to nitrosamines than mice and rats (70Trusted Source).

In Thailand, for instance, nitrosamines have been strongly linked to liver cancer in areas where other risk factors are low (71). A 2010 analysis of the NIH-AARP cohort found red meat (including pork), processed meat (including processed pork), nitrates and nitrites to be positively associated with chronic liver disease. Rubber workers, occupationally exposed to nitrosamines, have faced extremely high rates of non-alcohol-related liver disease and cancer (72Trusted Source).

Do nitrosamines prove a chain of causation between pork, liver-harming compounds and liver disease? The evidence is currently too patchy to make that claim, but the risk is plausible enough to justify limiting nitrosamine-containing (or nitrosamine-producing) pork products, including bacon, ham, hot dogs and sausages made with sodium nitrite or potassium nitrate.

 SUMMARY:

Strong epidemiological links exist between pork consumption and liver disease. If these links reflect cause and effect, one culprit might be N-nitroso compounds, which are found abundantly in processed pork products cooked at high temperatures.

For years, pork’s precautionary motto was “well-done or bust,” a consequence of fears about trichinosis, a type of roundworm infection that ravaged pork consumers throughout much of the 20th century (73).

Thanks to changes in feeding practices, farm hygiene and quality control, pig-borne trichinosis has dropped off the radar, inviting pink pork back onto the menu.

But pork’s relaxed heat rules may have opened the doors for a different type of infection — yersiniosis, which is caused by Yersinia bacteria. In the US alone, Yersinia causes 35 deaths and almost 117,000 cases of food poisoning each year (74Trusted Source). Its chief entry route for humans? Undercooked pork.

Yersiniosis’s acute symptoms are rough enough — fever, pain, bloody diarrhea — but its long-term consequences are what should really ring alarm bells. Victims of Yersinia poisoning face a 47-times higher risk of reactive arthritis, a type of inflammatory joint disease triggered by infection (75).

Even children become post-Yersinia arthritis targets, sometimes requiring chemical synovectomy (the injection of osmic acid into a troubled joint) to relieve persistent pain (76, 77).

And in the less-common instances where Yersinia doesn’t bring the typical feverish, diarrheic unpleasantries? Reactive arthritis can develop even when the original infection was asymptomatic, leaving some victims unaware that their arthritis is a consequence of food-borne illness (78).

Although reactive arthritis usually subsides on its own over time, Yersinia victims remain at higher risk of chronic joint problems, including ankylosing spondylitis, sacroiliitis, tenosynovitis and rheumatoid arthritis, for years on end (79Trusted Source, 80Trusted Source, 81).

Some evidence suggests that Yersinia can lead to neurological complications (82). Infected individuals with iron overload may be at higher risk of multiple liver abscesses, potentially leading to death (83Trusted Source, 84Trusted Source, 85Trusted Source). And among people who are genetically susceptible, anterior uveitis, inflammation of the eye’s iris, is also more likely following a bout of Yersinia (86Trusted Source, 87Trusted Source).

Lastly, via molecular mimicry, Yersinia infection could also raise the risk of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition characterized by excessive thyroid hormone production (88Trusted Source, 89Trusted Source).

The solution? Bring on the heat. The majority of pork products (69% of tested samples, according to a Consumer Reports analysis) are contaminated with Yersinia bacteria, and the only way to safeguard against infection is through proper cooking. An internal temperature of at least 145°F for whole pork and 160°F for ground pork is necessary to decimate any lingering pathogen.

 SUMMARY:

Undercooked pork can transmit Yersinia bacteria, causing short-term illness and raising the risk of reactive arthritis, chronic joint conditions, Graves’ disease and other complications.

So, should health-savvy omnivores scrap pork from the menu?

The jury’s still out. For two of pork’s problems — hepatitis E and Yersinia — aggressive cooking and safe handling are enough to minimize the risk. And due to a shortage of controlled, pork-centric research capable of establishing causation, pork’s other red flags spring from epidemiology — a field rife with confounders and unjustified confidence.

Worse, many diet-and-disease studies lump pork together with other types of red meat, diluting whatever associations might exist with pork alone.

These issues make it hard to isolate the health effects of pig-derived products and determine the safety of their consumption.

That being said, caution is probably warranted. The sheer magnitude, consistency and mechanistic plausibility of pork’s connection with several serious diseases make the chances of a true risk more likely.

Until further research is available, you might want to think twice about going hog-wild on pork.

Liver cancer, too, tends to follow in the hoof steps of the pig. A 1985 analysis showed that pork intake correlated with hepatocellular carcinoma deaths as strongly as alcohol did (0.40, p<0.05 for both) (49Trusted Source). (Considering liver cirrhosis is often a prelude to cancer, this connection shouldn’t be surprising (50).)

So, what’s behind these eerie associations?

At first glance, the most likely explanations don’t pan out. Although pork-transmitted hepatitis E can lead to liver cirrhosis, this happens almost exclusively in immunosuppressed people, a subset of the population that’s too small to account for the global correlation (51Trusted Source).

Relative to other meat, pork tends to be high in omega-6 fatty acids, including linoleic acid and arachidonic acid, which may play a role in liver disease (52Trusted Source, 53Trusted Source, 54Trusted Source). But vegetable oils, whose polyunsaturated fatty acid content blows pork out of the water, don’t dance the same liver disease tango that pork does, calling into question whether fat is really to blame (55Trusted Source, 56).

Heterocyclic amines, a class of carcinogens formed by cooking meat (including pork) at high temperatures, contribute to liver cancer in a variety of animals (57Trusted Source). But these compounds are also readily formed in beef, according to the same studies that indicated pork has no positive relationship with liver disease (58Trusted Source, 59Trusted Source).

With all that in mind, it’d be easy to dismiss the pork-liver disease link as an epidemiological fluke. However, some plausible mechanisms do exist.

The most likely contender involves nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic compounds created when nitrites and nitrates react with certain amines (from protein), particularly in high heat (60Trusted Source). These compounds have been linked to damage and cancer in a variety of organs, including the liver (61).

One of the biggest dietary sources of nitrosamines is processed pork, which, along with being a frequent visitor to the frying pan, typically contains nitrites and nitrates as curing agents. (Vegetables are also rich in naturally occurring nitrates, but their antioxidant content and dearth of protein help thwart the process of N-nitrosation, preventing them from becoming cancer-causing agents (62Trusted Source).

Significant levels of nitrosamines have been found in pork liver pâté, bacon, sausage, ham and other cured meats (63, 64Trusted Source, 65Trusted Source). The fatty portion of pork products, in particular, tends to accumulate much higher levels of nitrosamines than the lean bits, making bacon a particularly abundant source (66Trusted Source).

The presence of fat can also turn vitamin C into a nitrosamine promoter instead of a nitrosamine inhibitor, so pairing pork with veggies might not confer much protection (67Trusted Source).

Although much of the nitrosamine-liver cancer research has focused on rodents, where certain nitrosamines produce liver injury with remarkable ease, the effect appears in humans as well (68Trusted Source, 69Trusted Source). In fact, some researchers suggest humans may be even more sensitive to nitrosamines than mice and rats (70Trusted Source)  .