Old McDonald had a pharm
To clone for better health or not?
June 11, 2008 | CHARLTON, Mass. -- Encompassed by pastoral green fields, the headquarters of GTC Biotherapeutics looks like any other New England farmstead. But its serenity is deceiving. Behind barn doors, the farm's most valuable employees -- a herd of pygmy goats from New Zealand -- are working round the clock, their milk glands churning out hundreds of gallons of high-grade pharmaceutical compounds.
The white gold extracted from the goats' udders will someday command big bucks in the American healthcare marketplace -- or so GTC hopes. The company's genetically modified animals possess a human gene that allows them to produce milk rich with a protein called antithrombin, which helps prevent blood clots from forming and staves off related conditions like heart attacks and strokes.
By Elizabeth Svoboda
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/11/transgenic_goats/index.html
The side effects for medication are sometimes worse than the illness.
mmm interesting and I wonder what other goodies are in the milk? If you don't die of a blood clot/heart attack the cancer will get to you quicker.......