New Vaccine Helps Pigs Beef Up, U. S. Says
The Agriculture Department said that scientists have invented a vaccine to make pigs piggier.
Pigs immunized with the experimental vaccine ate an average of 22.5 pounds more feed and gained 11 pounds more weight than pigs without the treatment, the department’s Agricultural Research Service reported.
“If a commercial product produced results from this venture and is approved by regulator agencies, it could mean more quality pork produced at lower cost and in less time,” said physiologist Jerome C. Pekas.
The USDA agency has signed a three-year cooperative agreement with Codon, a San Francisco biotechnology firm, for development and further testing of the vaccine.
Pekas, who works at the agency’s meat animal research center in Clay Center, Neb., said the vaccine is made partly from a fragment of cholecystokinin, a natural appetite-limiting hormone made in the upper intestinal tract of pigs and humans.
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