Operating Rooms (ORs) are supposedly super-sterile.

Abattoirs (Slaughter Houses) are most definitely not.

Before entering the hospital for an elective surgical procedure, patients are advised to shower using soap from head to toe.

Before entering the abattoir, only a very few animals get hosed off, instead bringing in “environmental residues” from wherever they last ate and slept.

Before entering the OR, the health care professionals who will be operating or assisting wash their hands and forearms up to the elbow and scrub with antibiotic solutions for ten minutes.

In the Abattoir, the employees may briefly wash their hands before starting work and before lunch.

In the OR, the patient’s incision site will be prepped with a ten minute iodine scrub followed by an alcohol rinse.

Before the abattoir, if we are lucky, the animal may get a hide rinse with a bacteriophage and will probably get a hot water scalding or a steam rinse.

In the OR, the surgeon and her assistant will wear sterile scrubs and gloves.

In the abattoir, the on-line person may be wearing gloves, but they are not sterile and they touch one animal after another.

In the OR, the patient may be given an IV antibiotic as a prevention to reduce the chances of a surgical site infection.

Weeks prior to entering the abattoir, the animals may have been given antibiotics to prevent disease, but the industry is roundly criticized for this practice as unnecessary and contributing to antibiotic resistance.

In the OR, all the equipment used for the procedure, including knives, have been sterilized at high heat for long periods of time in an autoclave.

In the abattoir, the knives are occasionally dunked in an acid solution for a few seconds between animals.

In the operating room there is no blood, mud, urine or feces on the floor.

In the abattoir; well, you get the picture.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that 1 one of 25 hospital inpatients (4 percent) will acquire at least one infection during their stay. That is a total of 2 million infected patients per year and 90,000 deaths.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that of those Hospital Acquired Infections (HIAs), 20 percent are Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) and 15 percent are blood stream infections following a procedure that penetrates veins or arteries (under sterile conditions, again).

A 4 percent infection rate, acquired under the most carefully controlled environment possible, seems to be the price one pays for needing hospitalization and also seems to be fairly well accepted.

Back in the day, I saw my share of post-op wound infections, but never did I see a malpractice lawsuit associated with the same.

But our abattoirs are expected to also be sterile with a “zero tolerance” being advocated by some at FSIS, and zero tolerance being unrealistically forced upon the establishments.

And if a group of individuals become foodborne illness victims, heaven help the plant that is forced to deal with the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

This Fourth of July, I slow-grilled some St. Louis style pork ribs, accompanied by watermelon, baked beans and sweet corn. Is this a great country or what?

Thank you to our forefathers for what they did in 1776, and to those who followed with heroic actions to keep our country free and the best place to raise grandkids.

And thank you to those in the meat industry who work hard every day to make those ribs as safe as possible.

ORs vs. Abattoirs

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