BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Some people who develop a rare and frightening allergy to red meat after being bitten by a tick can still eat pork from an unusual source: genetically modified pigs created for organ transplant research.
But don’t look for it in supermarkets. The company that raises these special pigs is sharing its rare supply for free with some allergy sufferers.
“We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of orders,” said David Ayres, president of Revivor Inc., as he opened a refrigerator filled with packages of ground pork, ham, ribs and pork chops.
The allergy is known as alpha-gal syndrome, named after the sugar found in the tissues of almost all mammals except humans and primates. It can also cause a strong reaction within a few hours of eating beef, pork or other red meat, or some mammalian products such as milk or gelatin.
But where do organ transplants fit in? There aren’t enough donated human organs to meet the need, so researchers are trying to use pig organs instead. And the alpha gel sugar itself is a major hurdle. It causes the human immune system to immediately destroy a transplanted organ from a normal pig. So the first gene that Revivicor disabled when it started genetically modifying pigs for organ transplants was the one that produces alpha gel.
While the transplants are still experimental, Revivicor pigs received FDA approval in 2020 for use as a food source and potential source for human therapy. The FDA determined that there was no detectable level of the alpha gene in several generations of these pigs.
Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, is not a food company — it investigates organ transplants — and has not found any agricultural companies interested in selling its pork.
Either way, “This is FDA-approved pork research, so we have to get it to patients,” Ayaris said when he began shipping a few years ago.
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