I can imagine some very plausible pathways whereby some amount of lunch meat ends up eaten by pigs.

I would also wager you are far too confident that central nerves aren't ending up in the chubs.

Pork is not implicated in prion disease, according to NIAID. [0] It might make sense to suspect any particular bologna could contain other meats, but as TFA explains Mexican bologna tastes better because it doesn't contain beef (or presumably, venison.)

[0] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/prion-research

My understanding is that Bologna is a bit like hotdogs, pretty much made out of whatever left over scraps they can find.

still pork meat, not related to prion.

coppa di testa [1] is made with srcaps from pork head, it was never involved in the ban regarding the "mad cow" disease

[1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppa_di_testa

once it goes through one of those machines that fully strips the bones you have no idea what its made out of.

once you start assuming that anything can end up in anything, everything can be depicted as dangerous.

do you really know what's inside fruit, vegetable, salad, juices, sodas etc?

do you really know what's inside domestic bologna sold and produced inside USA?

why imported one (main topic of the discussion) should be more dangerous, given that US are one of the worst places in the west for food handling?

I would assume the contrary, when in the US imported food is of better quality in general. And I am willing to spend to 2x or 3x cap to buy real Italian prosciutto from real Italian people than eat cheap, but US made ham.

p.s. my family home made cured meats for generations, we know exactly what they are made out of, what we put in it. Simple as that.

I mean I mostly agree with you, Guanciale is always going to be pork jowl. But cured sausages... a little less specific generally in terms of what primals/cuts you might source from... and at least in america where the primary touchpoint for bologna is oscar myer .. at that point it's more 'big hotdog' than anything.