SC - bacteria

[Jeff Gedney]

FWIW, Puck, Trichinosis, AKA Trichinellosis, is not a "Bacterial" infection.
Trichinella Spirella is a member of the Nematoda, or Roundworm family. 
Trichinella organisms come out of dormancy in the intestine when contaminated meat is digested, and burrow trough the intestinal wall, and migrate through the blood and lymphatic systems to the heart and other muscle tissue, where they burrow in, make cysctic little homes and reproduce, eventually going dormant.  They are picked up by eating contaminated food, and Little Wilbur the Pig gets it through the practice of eating slop to which raw pork byproducts are added (a surprisingly common practice!), or the ingestion of food contaminated with mud wallow in which other pigs have done their "business".  In a particularly serious case, or many repeated cases of infestation, the muscle tissue, especially of the heart, can be severly weakened, possibly resulting in death, but that is extremely rare. 

Cooking kills the dormant worms and eggs, but only at a temperature slightly higher than the ~140 degrees required to kill most food contaminating bacteria, hence the usual warnings to cook potentially trichinella contaminated foods to at least medium well (165 - 170 degrees).

Brandu

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
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