Animal-Derived Prescriptions

Concerned by the animal-derived gelatin encapsulating your prescription medication? Then swallow this. Pharmaceutical company GTC Biotherapeutics has genetically modified 200 goats to produce milk enriched with a human blood protein. Once extracted, this protein can be used to create a blood clot-prevention drug—a drug now approved by the FDA. While the pharmaceutical industry argues that deriving medication from animal milk, rather than human plasma and cell cultures, will lower costs and prevent shortages, animal advocates fear that the approval will open the floodgates to a host of other transgenic mammal-produced products.