The potential for an anticoagulant drug “harvested” from the milk of goats is apparently showing great promise for the treatment of rare clotting disorders. Patients who lack the antithrombin protein (a clot-busting, endogenously produced entity in humans) have the potential for life-threatening clots to form, manifesting as possible strokes, or even worse, pulmonary emboli — a specialized clot which can cause sudden death.

The FDA has approved the use of human DNA in goats milk as a vector for the production of this specialized drug, which would be given in hospital settings to patients with this rare antithrombin deficiency. Scientists assure that the animals are never harmed in this process, but they do acknowledge that the rush to use animals in this way may pose a bioethical issue if the demand for the agent remains high. These are interesting research times, indeed. | LINK

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