Preventing another pork-borne disease.

Preventing another pork-borne disease

Cysticercosis is a disease caused by eating the eggs or larvae of the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). Though rare in the United States, globally it is the most common parasitic disease affecting the central nervous system, according to Julio Sotelo and his colleagues at the Instituto Nacional de Neurologia y Neurocirugia in Mexico City. Able to cause extensive nerve damage, the disease can even induce a form of epilepsy. But in the Aug. 15 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, the Mexico City researchers report a simple method for killing any T. solium present in commercial cuts of pork: storage of the meat for four days at -5|C, for three days at -15|C, or for a single day at -24|C. The authors recommend requiring this freezing treatment at the slaughterhouse.