Oh my god please tell me this is not true!!!!!

[NaeNae]

I think that insulin used by diabetics was for a long time based on pig products (is now fully synthetic I think), and I think also heart valves have also been used from pigs for human transplants...from thinking back to my ag uni days (long time ago), pig organs (and so I'm guessing hormones) are not that far removed from humans...at one stage there was investigation of using pig organs (eg hearts/lungs) for transplant into humans due to the low number of organ donors. Of course we are talking about pigs bred specifically for the purpose under very specialised conditions etc. Not sure it ever went far due to the ethical considerations. So a lot of people (maybe more than we thought ) owe their lives to little piggies! ...oh and I think that there is a horse hormone used for some treatment of some other human illness...pregnant mare syrum I think it is called...and we use a by-product from milk in some toothpastes to strenghten teeth...as for the disease risk, animal by-products prob would have to face stronger disease testing and are specifically harvested under very controled conditions than say, your average backyard vegie patch where mice/snails/birds etc etc (oh add more to the list if you use animal manure to fertilise) have been...

Of course this is all from memory so take with the grain of salt it prob needs

Yeah what she said x

[Eng]

Im laughing and crying all at the same time!!

Ive only read phynna post Im not sure if I want to read the rest..

[farmgirl77]

...oh and diseases generally spread much better within a species than across species, eg. you are far more likely to catch a disease from another human than from a different species of animal as diseases generally are made to infect one particular host as it is a more efficent way of surviving... BUT it does happen eg swine flu, avian flu are ones that spring to mind, and when it does it is panic stations as it indicates that it is a disease that is able to adapt/change more rapidly than other diseases and so there is reasons to be worried (although often these diseases dont then develop the ability to transfer from human to human, just from animal to human IYKWIM). It is predicted that with climate change (eg through the development of/spread of methods of transfer are estabilished eg mozzies that carry blood born diseases moving into areas that they dont currently live in), and more human/animal contact (as global populations rise and the human population lives closer with animals) more of these diseases will emerge, but in general they are few and far between when compared to the number of dieases that will be spread/and mutate through human to human contact.

Again, take with a grain of salt as I'm stretching my baby brain
FG

[briggsy's girl]

my thought process was the same as FG's on the reason i'd prefer animal products!

[Muppity]

I'm almost positive that I read somewhere recently (oh to not have a placenta brain right now) that although formerly derived from pigs it is now all synthetic and causes no problems for people who for religious or other reasons don't like pig products.

As an aside - my Granny has 4 pig valves in her heart - I kind of like them - they have kept her alive another 30 years.

and yes - FG is right - until about 15 years ago all insulin for diabetics was simply refined pig insulin. And it is still available because there is a small percentage of people who can't use the snythetic type for whatever reason.

In short - don't stress