Regarding BSA in IGF-1..

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Originally Posted by liftsiron

For those thay know me, I think that the majority will say that I'm a pretty trusworthy guy. I have used some lion products in the past and thought that they worked OK. I also have posted negative opinon in regard to some of his customer service issues.
This morning I did some research on BSA and found that medical products that contain BSA run a very small risk of being contaminated with pirons. But since the 1980's extreme care has been taken to ensure safe BSA. The reason being that 60% of all biological meds, includeing IGF-1, hcg, vaccines, immune drugs, cancer drugs etc. contain BSA. This was quite a surprise to me. Those of us who had our childhood measles shot etc. have already been expoused to BSA. I doubt that if any legit IGF-1 can be found that doesn't contain BSA???? I have no vested interest in lion or any other company, I just thought it worthwhile to pass on this info.

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http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...highlight=lion

I thought I should include the above post in a whole new thread. I too did some searching on your basic everyday google when I first heard all this hoopla a couldn't find anything on the negative claims. i found that BSA is found is so many current medication, both oral (like HCG!!!!!) and injectables. I'm still waiting for a response from certain key people on other boards to clue me in on what the big deal is with IGF-1 containing BSA.

The word is, that the FDA has stopped the use of said types of medicine, but no one has produced the list from the FDA, so it's hear say for now.

JohnnyB

Okay ... here are just a couple of snippets to give you a small idea about what the hubbubb is all about. I have no horse to race either way in this discussion, and certainly have no desire to argue with those that don't understand what they are de****g with.

It is true that in the past some vaccines and medications were manufactured with using BSA in the cell culture portion of the process. It is also true that many of them are looking back at these processes and now worrying about their safety.

The other issue is that you are talking about apples and oranges ... there is a big difference in spawning a cell in a culture using a small amount of BSA, afterwhich you extract your cells to use in your medications and taking a vial of a peptide, hitting it with an amount of BSA and injecting it.

Here are a couple of snippets. There are many out there if you look from the perspective of knowing what you are looking for -

"A new potential threat for blood and blood prouducts, cell culture, cell
and tissue banking and biotechnology has been discovered: Nanobacterium
sanguineum gen. et sp. nov.. These self-replicating ultrafilterable
bacteria were isolated from over 80% of commercial ÔsterileÕ fetal and
newborn bovine sera and are thus the most common contaminant present in
cell cultures. Growth occured in vitro under cell culture conditions (with
or without mammalian cells) but not under anaerobic conditions. Their
doubling time was 1-5 days. They were culturable also in protein and
lipid-free medium beyond three years with monthly passages. Colony
formation on solid media was poor. The agent multiplied in culture with
serum in a logarithmic mode that could be prevented with aminoglycoside
antibiotics, EDTA, cytosine arabinoside and gamma irradiation. They showed
procaryotic structure with specific antigens detectable by monoclonal
antibodies, were generally mobile, coccoid with a diameter of 200 to 300 nm
in serum, stained poorly with bacteriological stains, were very resistant
to antibiotics and passed through 100 but not 50 nm filters. Their
aminoterminal protein sequences were novel and reproducible. Considerable
evidence suggested presence of nontraditional DNA. They incorporated
radiolabelled uridine into DNA. 16S rRNA gene sequence results place them
in alpha-2 subgroup of Proteobacteria which includes Brucella, also
pathogens of mammalians with preference to the fetus. This new agent causes
cytotoxicity and senescence in many cultured cell lines by apoptotic cell
death and growth arrest."

"Nanobacteria can cause a chronic infection in laboratory animals and in
humans. The agent could be isolated from blood of one peron for 5 years
despite the presence of antibody. When nanobacteria were injected into
rabbits, the agent was initially isolated from urine and then from
cerebrospinal fluid after one year. Nanobacteria multiply very slowly and,
if pathogenic in humans, might cause slow chronic autoimmune-like disorders
(compare with leprosy or brucellosis). Sofar, there are no chronic
bacteraemia known that would not be harmful. Thus, the posibility that
nanobacteria may be present in vaccines made with cell culture, or in
gammaglobulin or other antibody preparations, must be controlled."

"The potential presence of of extraneous agents in bovine serum represents a risk to the safety of the boilogical medicinal product and in this Note for Guidance emphasis is made on the control of viral contaminants. Nonetheless, the quality of the seum used has to be considered in terms of other deleterious effects, in particular on the growth of the cells used for production."

"Dec 1997, I went to give blood and they had added a new question- have you taken bovine insulin since 1980 ( this was under the CJD section-mad cow disease). I felt relief that my son had never been on bovine insulin, but something kept nagging at me. Finally, I remembered Bernstein's mentioning that 'N' has animal protein. I called Eli Lilly and asked what kind- they refused to tell me. I called Bernstein's practice. His people were very helpful ( I figured he had the answer in his research notes for the book). He passed along that the animal protein in 'N' varied by where it was manufactured and it could be beef, pork, or whale- you'd only know by Lilly's records of lot numbers ( and who keeps all the old insulin boxes with lot numbers over the years?).
A recent Molly Ivins political column talked about recent liability protection Congress gave Lilly and other Phar. companies, and I wonder if it's because the whole CJD thing is going to hit the fan? William Campbell Douglass, MD says that people who got growth hormone or pituatary extract) for shortness 30 and 40 years ago are just now presenting with CJD.What does that say about vaccines that have used animal protein all these years and people who took bovine insulin between 1980 and 1997, when the blood banks started asking about it. Type 1's can't give blood, but type 2's sometimes take insulin and they can give blood. Schizophrenics were treated with insulin therapy for a while and they could've given blood- so was the blood supply from 1980 to 1997 contaminated with cjd from former bovine insulin users and other drugs that haven't been mentioned at the blood bank yet- insulin can't be the only one that had beef. "

The list goes on and on with regards to finding out the world's concern with there past practices of using animal products such as BSA. You can certainly do whatever you wish, and it is certainly a personal choice. I will say that at this point in time knowing the issues that the medical and pharmaceutical companies are facing with respect to things like this, that I wouldn't be really quick to utilize BSA ... and if I HAD to use BSA, you can bet that their would be unbelievable control on its origin and purity ... not something bought from a lab supply outfit .... which by the way do indeed have stamped on most of their BSA products *Not for use in Humans or Human products*.

This will be the last I will say on this issue. As stated above, it is a personal choice to be sure. For me the risks outweigh the benefit. There are animal-free options ... I choose those given the current headlines of CJD, BSE, Nanobacteria and the like. Things like russian roulette have a pretty good set of odds that you will come out safe as well ... but I have no interest in putting that to the test.

Gropep has said they put no bsa in there IGF. We certanly didn't so they must not be any. We don't have the ability to. We don't manufacture this product. The claim that there was is unfounded.

That is great to hear. The lyophilized powder certainly shouldn't have any BSA worthy of speaking of. The part of the process where BSA would be added would be during reconstitution.

If someone were to follow Gropep's instructions to the tee, they would add 100mM Acetic Acid solution to a volume of 1mg / 1ml, then would add a carrier protein such as bovine serum albumin at a concentration of 0.1 - 1 mg/ml to prevent the loss of peptide activity due to non-specific absorption to glass and other surfaces. The only problem with their reconstitution instructions is they are geared toward their primary use which is cell culture, not live injection.

If no BSA was adding in the reconstitution of the product, then there indeed shouldn't be any worthy of note. The process up to that point should be similar to any other peptide-type supplement.

RB as always grat post

JohnnyB

Yes, thank you for the info RedBaron. Great Post.