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 The PETA International Science Consortium conceived the deal, signed
last week, to try to get horses out of the antitoxin business. Many
live on farms in India, where veterinarians last year found them
neglected, mistreated and in pain, some blind, lame, anemic,
standing in their own waste and so malnourished that their ribs
poked through their coats, according to a report from People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, India.
The worldwide consortium of PETA groups awarded 134,000 euros (about
$142,000) to Technical University Braunschweig in Germany to pioneer
a new treatment for diphtheria, a bacterial infection. The human
antitoxin would be grown with human cells in a test tube, instead of
being drawn from the blood of horses.
“It’s better for the people and also for the horses,” Professor
Michael Hust of Technical University said in a telephone interview.
He will lead the research to replace equine serum with human serum.
Stocks of the equine antitoxin have become increasingly difficult to
locate, and those who receive it sometimes experience reactions
similar to anaphylactic shock, Hust said.
He expects a serum made from recombinant human antibodies will
provide a higher quality, more uniform product with fewer side
effects and a longer shelf life.
Dr. Stephen Hadler, deputy director of the division of bacterial
diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, welcomed
news of the PETA deal. He is not involved in it.
“A product that’s made with human antibody, as opposed to horse
antibody, would be a good idea, assuming it’s been appropriately
tested and it’s as effective,” he said by phone. “It’s good to hear
this group is willing to support it.”
Human antitoxin is less likely to produce allergic reactions than
horse antitoxin, Hadler said.
“This is an area where the human health interest is completely
interwoven with horse welfare,” Jeffrey Brown, a biologist and
advisor to the PETA consortium, said in a telephone interview.
“Antitoxins made from horses aren’t the best for humans,” Brown
said. “We have a shortage of a bad product. We need a better product
that we can produce more reliably.”
“Antitoxins are lifesavings drugs, but the way they’re manufactured
hasn’t kept pace with science,” Brown said.
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Treatment for diphtheria has remained the same for more than 100 years, since
the late 1890s, when Dr. Emil von Behring conceived the approach of using
immunized animal blood to treat the disease – work for which he won the first
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
To make the equine antitoxin, horses are repeatedly injected with
diphtheria toxins, their immune systems develop antibodies against
the bacteria, and the antibodies are extracted from their blood.
Diphtheria once was one of the most common killers of children. In
1921, the U.S. recorded 206,000 cases and 15,520 deaths, according
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since then, mass
vaccination has largely eradicated diphtheria, though outbreaks
persist, including a recent one in Venezuela.
The World Health Organization reported 4,778 cases last year.
Public health authorities have been calling for a better supply of
antitoxin for years, Brown said. But pharmaceutical companies have
not been investing in diphtheria antitoxin research because affected
regions generally can ill afford to pay for the cost of developing
drugs.
The PETA consortium’s grant to Hust will last for three years. Hust
believes it will take at least another 10 years of clinical trials
before a human antitoxin is available for people with diphtheria.
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