injuryupdate
07-04-2005, 05:04 PM
Just tossing this up in the Forum, as I've heard a few people have been freaked out by it. Don't really want to put warnings all over the Aprotinin page on the website or on consent forms, because if there really was a chance of getting mad cow disease from an Aprotinin injection then you would just take the drug off the market rather than get people to consent to it.
However, it has been written that there are concerns about picking up animal diseases from animal products.
Bayer, who make Trasylol, don't list transmission of BSE or CJD as a possible side effect in their Product Information. I think this is because of the safety process, which includes:
(1) Using bovines sourced from New Zealand, where BSE has never been seen.
(2) Taking Aprotinin from the lung, rather than neural tissue.
(3) Putting it through a purification process that should theoretically kill the prions even if they existed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9119148
(can be used to reference this process)
(4) Zero reports of possible transmission in the 40-50 years that Trasylol has been on the market, with ?1,000,000s of cases.
The big realistic concern for Aprotinin is allergy, and whether someone could die from an anaphylactic reaction. Answer is that they could, but in the doses from tendon injections and observation afterwards, it is very unlikely. Not sure if it is more or less of a risk than driving their car to the surgery for an appointment. Probably less.
However, someone has told me that one or more of the European countries have "banned" the use of Aprotinin because of the fear of mad cow transmission. As far as I can see from the internet, if this has been done anywhere, it is from a blanket paranoid reaction (i.e. ban ALL pharmaceuticals derived from animals) rather than new evidence that specific transmission from Aprotinin is possible.
I would appreciate any extra evidence that anyone has.
BTW, I have had Aprotinin injection myself and would happily do it again wrt risk of BSE transmission. Estimate the chance of getting it to be in the order of 1 in 10,000,000 to 1 in 100,000,000. Less likely than if I ate a cheeseburger from McDonald's. BTW a cheeseburger from McDonald's is far more likely to give you a heart attack than it is BSE.
However, it has been written that there are concerns about picking up animal diseases from animal products.
Bayer, who make Trasylol, don't list transmission of BSE or CJD as a possible side effect in their Product Information. I think this is because of the safety process, which includes:
(1) Using bovines sourced from New Zealand, where BSE has never been seen.
(2) Taking Aprotinin from the lung, rather than neural tissue.
(3) Putting it through a purification process that should theoretically kill the prions even if they existed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9119148
(can be used to reference this process)
(4) Zero reports of possible transmission in the 40-50 years that Trasylol has been on the market, with ?1,000,000s of cases.
The big realistic concern for Aprotinin is allergy, and whether someone could die from an anaphylactic reaction. Answer is that they could, but in the doses from tendon injections and observation afterwards, it is very unlikely. Not sure if it is more or less of a risk than driving their car to the surgery for an appointment. Probably less.
However, someone has told me that one or more of the European countries have "banned" the use of Aprotinin because of the fear of mad cow transmission. As far as I can see from the internet, if this has been done anywhere, it is from a blanket paranoid reaction (i.e. ban ALL pharmaceuticals derived from animals) rather than new evidence that specific transmission from Aprotinin is possible.
I would appreciate any extra evidence that anyone has.
BTW, I have had Aprotinin injection myself and would happily do it again wrt risk of BSE transmission. Estimate the chance of getting it to be in the order of 1 in 10,000,000 to 1 in 100,000,000. Less likely than if I ate a cheeseburger from McDonald's. BTW a cheeseburger from McDonald's is far more likely to give you a heart attack than it is BSE.