Can Medical Research on Animals be Justified?

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Non-animal methods have more predictive value and specificity for the human condition than do animal methods, which rely on different species with different anatomies and physiologies. In one head-to-head comparison, the Multicentre Evaluation of In-Vitro Cytotoxicity (MEIC) evaluated 68 different methods to predict toxicity for 50 different chemicals. The animal tests were at best 65 percent predictive of human toxicity, while human tests were predictive more than 80 percent of the time.

Non-animal tests include:

• In vitro (test-tube) research

Cell and tissue cultures are powerful investigative tools. Cell and tissue cultures can be used to screen new therapies and to test for product safety. In fact, human tissues could have predicted the catastrophic reaction to the drug TGN1412 in a clinical trial in London in 2006.

• Microfluidic circuits

Microfluidic circuits provide the nearest thing to a human body on a chip. They comprise tiny channels with cells from various human organs and are linked by a circulating blood substitute. Using these circuits, new drugs can be tested on a “whole system” where they encounter human cells in the same order as they would encounter them in the human body. Sensors in the chip then feed back information for computer analysis.

• In silicon or computer modeling

Computer modeling is so sophisticated that scientists can simulate in silico in minutes or hours experiments that would take months or years in animals. Drugs can be designed on computers and then tested on virtual organs or in virtual clinical trails.

• Microdosing

This exciting new field is based on the principle that the best model for a man is man. Human microdosing relies on ultra-sensitive analytical techniques and permits the safe introduction of miniscule doses of new drugs into subjects in order to evaluate drug activity in the human body.

• Epidemiology studies

Epidemiological studies of human populations contribute greatly to our understanding of human health and medicine. Such studies have shown the links between tobacco and lung cancer, between cholesterol and heart disease, between high blood pressure and stroke, and between toxins and birth defects.

• Clinical studies

Clinical research is the direct study of human disease through the close monitoring of human patients. For example, clinical studies have shown how a low-fat vegetarian diet can treat heart disease and diabetes. Sophisticated scanning technologies, such as MRI and PET scans, have allowed scientists to “see” abnormalities—and track treatment progress—in the brains of people with epilepsy, schizophrenia, and other diseases.

Why do researchers still use animals with so many excellent alternatives available? Although there is a growing use of replacements in some fields, it’s clear that inertia, tradition, and a lack of will plague many U.S. scientists and the regulatory agencies that oversee them. Most important, current U.S. regulatory practices often require the use of animals for drug, chemical, and device approvals. (Animal tests are not required for basic research.) An international coalition of organizations is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to mandate alternatives when available.