Outbreak

Outbreak refers to episode 11 of the first season of the television series Forensic Files which was broadcast for the first time on December 5, 1996.

Plot summary
In 1985, alarmingly high levels of thyroid hormones pump through the systems of over 100 residents of South Dakota and Minnesota. A similar case had occurred in Iowa in April 1984. Investigators study one family who all got sick, except their 12-year-old son who is a vegetarian.

It seems that when drug companies started manufacturing synthetic thyroid hormones, they stopped buying thyroid tissue from butchers who did not trim these parts, but rather sold them as 'extra lean beef.' The outcome: the USDA bans meat plants from using meat in or near the gullet for beef and pork products.