the.com/warfarin
Rat poison that moonlights as a blood thinner, same molecule, opposite intentions.
means A medication that prevents blood clots by blocking the liver's ability to use vitamin K to make clotting factors.
from The name is a corporate acronym plus a chemical suffix: WARF, for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which funded the research after scientists traced a mysterious cattle-bleeding disease to spoiled sweet clover hay — the cows' blood wouldn't clot. The active compound, dicoumarol, led to a more potent synthetic cousin patented by WARF in the late 1940s, first marketed as rat poison; '-arin' was tacked on to echo 'coumarin,' the class of compound it belongs to. Only later, after a suicide attempt survivor recovered despite a massive dose, did doctors reconsider it as a human anticoagulant.
- origin
- Named after the foundation that funded its discovery, WARF
- first job
- Marketed as rat poison in 1948
- dosing
- Needs constant blood tests, everyone reacts differently
- antidote
- Vitamin K reverses it, the thing it blocks