Animals in medical research: To use or not to use?

[noratmedicine]

2005

Given that many of these investigational anticancer drugs eventually fail, the animal models on which clinical trials are predicated must at best be limited in power, and at worst wildly inaccurate. Dr Alexander Kamb, Global Head of the Oncology Disease Area at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 4, 161 - 165.

[Casshyr]

@noratmedicine Your quote on Dr. Alexander Kamb is taken out of context. The article you cited actually supports animal research. In the conclusion, Dr. Kamb highlights the need for ongoing research as well as more careful interpretations of animal models. He does NOT support the idea that we should stop using animal models in medical research.

[NEUHEITEN100]

we r not as different from animals as most people think.

In the racist question we realized it shouldnt be intellectual abilities that count but the ability to suffer and feel pain.

It will take us another hundert years till we realize we shouldnt apply that concept just for our but for all species.

...then people will look back on us as we look back on slave keepers and nazis -uncomprehending and full of digust

[kentuckyboychris]

gust yous niggers

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

That's easy. To use. Until we can synthesize medicine, which I don't see happening in the foreseeable future, it's a necessary evil.

[noratmedicine]

@NinjaGhostScorpion According to the US FDA 92% of new drugs fail in clinical trials, after they have passed all the safety tests in animals. US FDA (2004) "Innovation or Stagnation, Challenge and Opportunity on the Critical Path to new Medical Products" As it is wrong 925 fo the time even for toxicity let alone efficacy how can it be necessary?...answer..because it passes anythis as 'safe' and this provides legal protection to drug/chem/tobacco etc co's and harm to us

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

@noratmedicine Let me guess: College hippie?

[noratmedicine]

@NinjaGhostScorpion as the less tenable position here is the belief that human medicine can be based on rats, mice etc. and as the term "Hippie" is usually associated with believing that which is not true, in this resopect supporters of vivisection fit the bill better than opponents

[sciencenotrats]

Real scientists never support animal experiments, only those who profit or whose careers and titles are based on animal experiments or those who do not know enough about it. "The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse... We have cured mice of cancer for decades - and it simply didn't work in humans." Dr. Richard Klausner, as director of the US National Cancer Institute curedisease . net mrmcmed . org navs . org speakcampaigns . org vivisectionresearch . org

[daymyth]

@sciencenotrats And how exactly do you speak for "real scientists". Becoming a scientist, I personally can't stand animal experimentation, I can't stand the smell and i hated all the cutting and the probes, I'm just to squeamish. But i understand its importance and its validity.

[sciencenotrats]

@daymyth I don't speak for them but have referred to some sites where they give their views. I think Dr Richard Klausner would be qualified to speak(below) Also...“Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons. The predictive value of such studies for man is meaningless.”; - Dr James D. Gallagher; Director of Medical Research; Lederle Laboratories; Journal of the American Medical Association; March 14 1964. There are many more

[sciencenotrats]

@daymyth I hope you can get work in new technologies like micro dosing or DNA chips for tailor made pharmaceuticals. Pharmagene or Asterand are some good co's re that. curedisease. net has other info

[SleepySkeptic]

Animal torture for human benefit, wooooo!! Ends justify the means, just like we were always taught!!

[ohyearsh]

there are bloodyy alternatives u dick head

[Mashley310]

There aren't always alternatives. What about when researching brain disease? You can't use a computer, because you can't program it to perform functions that you don't understand. You have to use a living creature. But you can't perform brain surgery on a human. So that means that patients with ADHD and other more serious brain disabilities are left to handle on their own.

[sciencenotrats]

@Mashley310 MRI CAT etcTo quote well known French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot, "The only really decisive data touching the cerebral pathology of man are, in my opinion, those developed according to the anatomico-clinical method (i.e. humans)...To it, I may justly say we owe whatever definitive knowledge we have of brain pathology." continued next

[sciencenotrats]

@Mashley310 As for the localization of certain cerebral functions, this method is not only the best, but the only one that can  be employed. What light for instance could experimentation [on animals] have thrown on the question as to the seat of the function of speech?...

[sciencenotrats]

@Mashley310 The study of the brain, if it is to bear fruit, must be made on man, i.e., at the bedside and at the post-mortem theatre; the discovery of the exact seat of aphasia was made in that  way and could nothave been made in any other... The utmost that can be learned from experiments on the brains of animals is the topography of the animals brain,

[sciencenotrats]

@Mashley310 and it must still remain for the science of human anatomy and clinical investigation to enlighten us in regard...of our own species; and in fact, it is from the department of clinical and post-mortem study that so far  all our best data for brain localizations have been secured." curedisease. net health. org . nz mrmcmed. org navs. org vivisectionresearch. ca

[SheepGo2Hell2]

my mom has multiple sclerosis, my grandpa is diabetic, my sister is asthmatic, and my neice was 2 months premature. THEY ALL OWE THEIR LIVES AND WELLBEING TO ANIMAL TESTING! there is NOTHING that will ever make me think its wrong!

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 None of them were saved by animal experiments, just the opposite. AE delayed all of these and other treatments. see curedisease. net then health . org . nz mrmcmed. org

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 I have no doubt that you have been told that all these (and every) advance was due to AnimalEx. see earlier today for quotes re insulin/diabetes. "Multiple sclerosis does not occur in animals. Ultimately, therefore, definitive research on multiple sclerosis must be done with humans."

(Proceedings of the Mayo Clinic, 1985, Outrage, No. 66, February/March 1990.)

[SheepGo2Hell2]

@sciencenotrats you can post all the comments you want, it still doesn't make me believe a word of what your saying. i know what i know and thats all that matters to my family and i.

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 Sorry you feel that way, i can see why you have an emotional response considering your family but you have been misled by others who have been misled. It would be a shame for you to contribute to counterproductive research. It is not what I am saying, I am providing quotes from experts whose careers would be better served by claiming that animal exp work.

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 "However, the damage caused by EAE* is different and different animal species appear to differ in susceptibility to the disease."

(D.A. Hafler, et al, Encyclopaedia of Human Biology, Vol. 5, Academic Press, 1991, pages 143-158.)*experimental allergic encephalomyelitis

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 An editorial comment in Scientific American pointed out in 1990:

"There are crucial differences between MS and EAE. MS is a naturally occurring human illness caused by as yet unidentified genetic and environmental factors. EAE is an artificial disorder that researchers induce in laboratory animals by injecting them with a major protein constituent of myelin."

(Scientific American, July 1990, page 12.) health. org . nz curedisease . net

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 "In the variable, chronic-progressive course of MS in the adult, it is very difficult to show that immunopathological features are the same as those in animal models. In childhood MS, an earlier and more rapid sequence of events may help to answer unsolved questions."

(H.J. Bauer, et al, Lancet, Vol. 336, 1990, page 1190.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 Asthma..."Isoprenalene doses, derived from animal data, were too high for humans and killed thousands of people, mainly children. An attempt to reproduce this on non human primates was completely unsuccessful.1"

1.Carson S Scheimbe J Mackars A Vogin E E (1971) Continuing Toxicologic reassessment of Isoprenalene Aerosols, Pharmacologist 13, 272. CUREDISEASE . net

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 Re. premature birth; neonatal units and their equipment, antibiotic therapies, special breathing apparatus, proper nutrition and hydration are all from clinical research and technical advance, not animal experiments. prem. births continue to rise, our knowledge of how to deal with them and their cause comes from clinical observation.

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 diabetes/insulin "... a wrongly conceived, wrongly conducted, and wrongly interpreted series of experiments."

(Dr F. Roberts, "Insulin", British Medical Journal, 1922.)

"The scientists Banting and Best were incorrectly credited with the discovery of insulin."

(Dr M. Barron, "The Relation of the Islets of Langerhans Diabetes with Special Reference to Cases of Pancreatic Lithiasis", Surgery, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, November 5 1920.) health. org . nz

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 # "Unfortunately, the condition of a dog with a small but healthy part of his pancreas left is essentially different from that of a person suffering from diabetes... in human diabetes two factors are present: 1. an essentially progressive lesion absent in experimental animals; and 2. the detrimental effect of improper diet."

(Hugh MacLean, M.D., D.Sc., Lancet, May 26 1923, page 1043.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 # "Arguments based on the insulin requirements of the depancreatised dog and cat applied to human diabetes are quantitatively dangerous."

(Dr F. G. Young, D.Sc., PhD., F.R.S., British Medical Journal, November 17 1951, pages 1167-1168.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 "There is no laboratory method of inducing diabetes... which is exactly comparable to the clinical condition. At best we can get only crude approximations. The dangers of arguing from one species to another, or even from one strain to another of the same species are certainly not to be neglected."

(Dr F.G. Young, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of London, Lancet, December 18 1948, pages 955-956.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 * "The causes of diabetes mellitus remains unknown in both man and animals. In spite of certain species similarities, there are a number of important differences - differences in clinical manifestation, in aetological factors and in the liability to certain long-term complications of the disease." (Dr Harry Keen, BSc, M.R.C.P., "Spontaneous Diabetes in Man and Animals", Veterinary Record, July 9 1960, page 557.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 * "Dr Banting, Canada's medical hero, who is popular and erroneously credited with the discovery of insulin by extirpating the pancreases of thousands of dogs, did not cause diabetes, but stress." (J.A. Pratt, "A Reappraisal of Research Leading to the Discovery of Insulin", Journal of the History of Medicine, Vol. 9, 1954, pages 281-289.) *

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 "Side effects of insulin treatment include an unusually high incidence of heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure and gangrene. This, some medical men believe is due to the foreign nature of animal insulin." (A.L. Notkins, "The Causes of Diabetes", Scientific American, Vol. 241, No. 5, November 1979, pages 62-73.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 "At the CIBA Foundation, London, on 3 July, Prof. Houssay reviewed his group's work on the influence of sex hormones on the incidence and severity of experimental diabetes in the rat: but first warned his audience not to accept the results for other animals or for humans."

(Lancet, July 14 1951, page 70.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 # "Many points of great interest emerge from their studies. Here is an example of how a technique adapted for a particular study may be usefully turned onto another. Here also is a striking example of species difference in tissue metabolism, and yet another warning against uncritically extending the conclusions of animal experiments to man."

(Leading article on "Insulin and the Heart", British Medical Journal, September 24 1955, page 780.)

[sciencenotrats]

@SheepGo2Hell2 # "No conclusion could therefore be drawn from experiments on animals about the duration of the decrease in blood-sugar in man."

(B. Brahn, PhD., Tubingen, from the Veterinary Faculty of the State University at Utrecht, Lancet, June 15 1940, page 1079.)

[osityan]

Welcome to 2008 where we are able to research things at the cellular level. Animal testing although cheap is bararic and unscientific. This is why it is used. It is the wrong way.

[Elvenass]

They cant be replaced. The worlds top scientists in alternative research have said this and you still wont listen.

[Ic3lime]

Yeah let's hope that cellular testing will be the only and mainstream method and that animal testing will be abolished everywhere.

[Elvenass]

We all hope that in the future we could have treatments that hurt none, but today thats imposible in several cases. The more science advance, the closer we get to a alternative.

[sciencenotrats]

@Elvenass Where is this impossible? The animal experiments do not work anyway, see quote from Prof Croce. Dr A. Sabin, creator of the vaccine of his name said, "It is time to end cancer research on animals because it is not related to humans." curedisease. net

[koan46]

The people who do animal testing are not benevolent. They are malevolent people who enjoy their job. They lie in a co-ordinated way to portray the things they do as beneficial.  Western medicine is for the most part, a pile of bullshit. I know there is karma. If you get ill, the solution is not to support three million animals per year being tortured to death in the uk. If you support animal testing, you are stupidly ignoring the real causes of suffering.

[piecesofwinter]

Don't put yourself on a higher pedestal because you don't support animal testing. I'm sure you've taken medicine at one time to get better? Almost all of that has been tested on animals. The shampoo you use? Unless you specifically looked, probably tested on animals. All United States drugs are required by the FDA to be tested on animals for our safety. Don't make assumptions with nothing to back them up with. Have you even talked to someone who had a job as an animal tester?Get educated please

[koan46]

The reality is that modern medicine generally does more harm than good. Animal testing is of no benefit to society and the fact that we can't buy products that have not been tested on animals harms us all. Just because bad legislation exists, doesn't mean that animal testing is right. The drugs industry is there to make money and hurt us all, not to benefit us. Bother to research, and you find the decisions made by drugs companies aren't just incompetent they are malevolent.

[piecesofwinter]

So who would we test on? The reality is, testing has to be done. So if not animals, whom? Should we take a little child and start injecting things into his body?

[Elvenass]

Yeah, say that to diabetics who live thanks to western science or to those who survived cancer thanks to Chemotherapy.

[Ic3lime]

All the products I use are not tested on animals theres a simple little word: checking.

[StopanimaltestingNOW]

This presents moral conflicts of which I think we shouldn't test on animals as there are alternative methods.

[pityubacsi]

exactly, and don't forget the two bodies are not the same.

[Elvenass]

But there isent. The top scientists in alternative medicin have said so themselves!

[Ic3lime]

But animal testing has no way nearly a 100% track record. Phylidimide for example, despite being tested on animals, and was meant to reduce pain at childbirth left many of the children with very short arms and small hands and other deformities who suffer as a result through their life, animal testing is NOT the way.

[Elvenass]

Yeah, and that where in the 60´is, you dont think that it has changed a bit since then? Im sorry to say that it is a necessary evil. Alternativ methods are more accurate in some cases but they are slower paced, doesent work with every experiment and expensiv. The last one i choose because the frontline in medicin work is made by dedicaded groups of scientists with limited founds trying to make the world better, and not like global super companys who does it for money.

[Ic3lime]

What?! Existing pharmaceutical companies don't help the world at all, they only manufacture existing palliative treatments so that THEY can make a profit; if they invented a cure that would be the end of that. And also you only know about the drugs that come out and not the hundreds of failures that prelude these, you only see them as accurate. These drugs cause unnecessary pain to animals through animal testing as opposed to alternative methods, not because of accuracy but solely for profit.

[Elvenass]

Do you read bad? I just said that money where a argument for smaler research groups dedicaded to cures for decises, not to multi bilion companies that produse hairdying gel. And do you think that every alternitiv method works better? Its slower and everyday people die. Time cant be played with because the longer it takes the more people dies.

[Ic3lime]

You obviously can't read what I said, existing palliative PHARMACEUTICALS (drugs)are sold and not developed into better drugs so those companies can make profit, it is not in any way their interest to help anyone, only to make money, if superdrugs were developed, then everyone would be immune to diseases and the pharceutical industry would no longer be needed.

[Elvenass]

And you still dont understand that there are scientists outside companies! Universitys, smaler labratorys and government funded project. They all try to create a cure not for profit, not for fame but for the good of humanity. They need the animal research so they can find cures for those in dire nead of it. And the most efficient way for that is animal testing combined with alternative testing methods.

[Ic3lime]

Yeah how do you think they get the money they need? They themselves are smaller practises of larger pharmaceutical companies, just as massive parent companies such as Unilever have smaller companies, such as Marmite.

[Elvenass]

They get money from contributions and from the government? But the government only pays out what they think is the exact amount they nead.

And if you try to throw theories about milions of men and people you nead facts. All you have done is presume that every scientist on the planet is pure evil without seeing from their point of view. Without seeing it from the sick and diseased peoples point of view.

[Ic3lime]

You got to see it from the animals point of view and from other points of view, there ARE alternatives, how do you think big companies such as the Co-operative Group have been apporoved with BUAV and have a policy of not testing on animals.

[Elvenass]

Don´t you think i have tried to? There is not enought alternatives to cover all types of experiment. If one could be used then it should, but on subjects such as field that we know nothing about like regenerative medicin we nead it. This is comfirmed by most alternative scientist on the planet? Why? Because they nead more money to find a standing alternative! And when day comes, i will work towards no animal experiments. But that day is not now, and we have to se too hummanity first.

[InsaneJuggling]

There are alternatives; the fact of the matter is that companies want profit, they are not trying to make the world a better place they want to make money, as most typical capitalist groups do.

[Elvenass]

Wow, i have been tryng to explane but it doesent seem to stick. When the top alternative researchers say " no, we cant exange all animal experiments and thats why this research neads more funding" do you just cover your eyes and mumble so you dont hear?

[InsaneJuggling]

No what needs more funding is alternatives to give it a push and make it mainstream, companies that have enough money are the greedy pharmaceutical companies that don't care about animal testing, thats wha you dont understand.

[Elvenass]

As i said, when the ALERNATIV SCIETISTS says that they nead more funding to MAKE a universal alternative method, they mean it. Those are the ones against animal research and they still say whe nead it. Stop thinking that pharmaceutical companies are made from pure evil and embrace the fact that sciense has not come as far as we would wish.

[SleepySkeptic]

Pharmaceuticals?? Who do you work for?? Or are you just a stuck up, self-absorbed fashion whore??

[sciencenotrats]

@Elvenass “Are there alternatives to vivisection? Of course not. There are no alternatives to vivisection because any method intended to replace it should have the same qualities; but it is hard to find anything in biomedical research that is, and always was, more deceptive and misleading than vivisection." cont above

[sciencenotrats]

@Elvenass "...So the methods we propose for medical research should be called ‘scientific methods’… they are not ‘alternatives’."

- Prof. Pietro Croce M.D, Fulbright Scholar, Vivisection or Science: A Choice to Make, page 21. There are many real scientific methods, ie ones which are valid for humans (unlike animal experiments) curedisease. net navs. org mrmcmed. org speakcampaigns. org pcrm. org etc have them

[sciencenotrats]

@Elvenass When the animal experimenters say animal experiments do not work for humans (and their careers, statuus, qualifications and income depend on animal experiments), believe it..."The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse... We have cured mice of cancer for decades - and it simply didn't work in humans." Dr. Richard Klausner, as director of the US National Cancer Institute curedisease. net health. org . nz

[daymyth]

@sciencenotrats We've been curing cancer in humans for decades to...

[sciencenotrats]

@Elvenass “Are there alternatives to vivisection? Of course not. There are no alternatives to vivisection because any method intended to replace it should have the same qualities; but it is hard to find anything in biomedical research that is, and always was, more deceptive and misleading than vivisection. So the methods we propose for medical research should be called ‘scientific methods’

- Prof. Pietro Croce M.D, Fulbright Scholar, Vivisection or Science: A Choice to Make, page 21.

[noratmedicine]

@Elvenass Okay, 60 million animals are killed in 'research' each year with the claimed purpose of curing human disease. We have 30,000 diseases now. What has been cured? They can have honourable motives butthey will never fulfill them via animal exp. curedisease. net

[Axon36]

@noratmedicine

You will live almost 20 more years that you should because of that research. You welcome!.

[noratmedicine]

@Elvenass Alsdo universitys are usually funded by drug companies, smaller labs must still produced desired data if they want ongoing work and government funded projects whice they may are less likely to be intentionally deceptive still do animals tests for other reasons...history inertia familiarity legal reasons etc

[SunWooz]

wow what a bunch of hippies. Of course we should use animals for research.. duh..

[pityubacsi]

You know what? Let us start with you. What kind of test you want me to do on you?

[osity]

I agree. let's.

[piecesofwinter]

The reason we have animal testing is so that we don't have to test on animals. I'm sure you'd like to die from the Flu, right? Or maybe chicken pox?

[piecesofwinter]

*humans I meant