Safety issues pose other hurdles. ``You will have to inactivate the cow immunoglobulin, or else you`ll get a mishmash of cow and human antibodies,`` says GTC`s Dr. Echelard. ``But I`m confident this can be done, giving us a very powerful weapon in five or 10 years.`` If more supplies were suddenly needed, more cows could be quickly immunized.
The immunoglobulin would be collected from the cows` blood or milk. It would be purified to prevent transmission of bovine viruses, but the screening wouldn`t be fine enough to block transmission of prions, the particles linked to mad-cow disease. The herd itself would have to be mad-cow free. ``Are there safety issues? Yes,`` says Dr. Echelard. ``But they are much easier to control in a herd of transgenic cows than in the 60,000 people from whom we now derive a batch of IV immunoglobulin.``
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