Recall spurs research into replacements for animal-derived drugs

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NEW YORK: Chopped up pig pancreas may not sound appetizing. But mostcystic fibrosis patients eat a refined version of it every breakfast,lunch and dinner - five large capsules a meal - to supply enzymestheir own bodies do not produce.The pills are life-sustaining for people with cystic fibrosis, ahereditary disease that attacks the lungs and digestive tract andaffects 70,000 people worldwide.Some patients may object to the source of the drug on moral orreligious grounds. But there have also been longstanding concernsabout the health implications of obtaining enzymes from animalsources, according to Dr. Leslie Hendeles, a University of Floridaprofessor of pharmacy and pediatrics who has studied them."What would happen if there were a virus, a pig virus, somethinganalogous to Mad Cow disease?" Hendeles asked.The recent recall in the United States and Europe of the blood thinnerheparin, whose main

ingredient comes from pig intestines and which hasbeen linked to 19 deaths, has raised public awareness that even in theage of sophisticated bioengineering, certain crucial medicines arestill derived from animal parts - even if, as it turns out, theheparin problem has nothing to do with the pigs....History has shown that the risk of transmitting disease fromanimal-based drugs, while small, is not just theoretical, according toDr. Paul Brown, formerly a senior investigator at the U.S. NationalInstitutes of Health."Anytime you take a tissue or an extract process from a tissue fromone species and put it into a another species or even another animal,you run the risk of unwanted pathogens that you didn't know werethere; that's been responsible for repeated problems over the courseof time," Brown said. "If you can do something without taking tissueor a product from another being, you're ahead of the

game."...-- full story:http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/27/business/drugs.php http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join