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- When they infect horses, cows or other animals in order to subsequently extract antibiotic/antiviral substances, do they kill the animals used or preserve them? Does the process result in death, or are the animals destroyed outright later? If the animals aren’t killed, are they used for the same purpose again? If not that, what are they used for? - DougC
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DougC, The animals are usually kept alive for as long as possible since the antibodies are harvested from the blood. Therefore as long as the animal is around there will be a supply of that particular antiserum. I recall in Grad School we had some sheep that were immunized against various steroid hormones we were studying. The sheep were pretty old as sheep go, but we were still regularly collecting blood for the antibodies.
John