Dr. Clarence Gibbs, the leading expert on TSEs at the National Institutes of Health, has said he believes all the pigs had the same disease, based on behavioral abnormalities evident in motion pictures taken while the pigs were alive. Therefore, if pigs were infected with a TSE, they still might end up in food products for humans and in animal feed. Even if a pig had the behavioral symptoms of a TSE disease, it might not be noticed by USDA inspectors. To see the symptoms of such disorders, one must observe an animal in motion. The way they walk, turn corners, and hold their tails and heads can all be important clues to their condition.
Most pigs are so jammed into pens with other pigs that they have no room to move.
Thus USDA's inspection program seems inadequate to detect symptoms of TSE diseases in pigs. And, as we have noted, even if a pig were identified with a TSE, FDA's rule would allow its infected carcass to be fed to all non-ruminant animals, including pets, chickens, fish, and pigs. Both were suggestive, though not definitive. The first study, in 1973, examined 38 patients with Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. The control group consisted of the nearest relatives of the CJD patients, often their spouses.