Nuclear Beef

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Pork products processed and distributed from the farm of accused Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton may have contained human remains, police and health officials said on Wednesday.

Pickton raised and slaughtered pigs at the Port Coquitlam farm as a part-time occupation until his arrest at the property in February 2002, and police believe he gave or sold processed meat products to friends and acquaintances.

Pickton, 53, is awaiting trial in the killings of at least 22 of more than 60 missing Vancouver prostitutes who disappeared over the past decade and are feared to have been murdered at the dilapidated farm 20 miles east of Vancouver.
...
"Given the state of the farm, and what we know about the investigation, we cannot rule out the possibility that cross-contamination may have occurred," B.C. provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall told reporters in Victoria.

"Cross-contamination could mean that human remains did get into or contaminate some of the pork meat," Kendall said.

Officials stressed that the farm's pig slaughtering operation was not officially licensed and he did not sell processed meat to retail outlets.
...
The victims were among more than 60 drug-addicted prostitutes who disappeared from Vancouver's poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood. Families of the missing women expressed horror at the news, with one telling a Vancouver radio station bluntly. "I'm not eating dinner tonight."

I've changed the headline of this story to be more accurate and less alarmist.

This story is a case study in how incompetent reporting feeds hysteria.

I'm amazed at the "drug-addicted prostitutes" description. First, I thought Canada was a perfect paradise.. who knew they had prostitues, never mind "drug-addicted" ones! Second, how does this reporter know that all 60 of the missing prostitutes were drug addicts? Third, what does it matter whether they were drug-addicted or not? Boggle.

It appears based on various news stories that the "drug addicted prostitute" description originates somewhere official.

Mr Pickton, was charged with attempted murder in 1997, for the stabbing of a drug-addicted prostitute at his home, but the charges were later dropped.

So because he previously attacked a drug-addicted prostitute, all the missing prostitutes suddenly become drug-addicted? Does the Vancouver Police just refer to all prostitutes by the title "drug-addicted prostitute"? W T F ?