Is there any circumstance when animal experimentation or the use of animals in medical education would be warranted?
"No."
That brief, to the point, and definitive answer came from John J. Pippin, MD, a cardiologist and senior medical and research advisor for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). I was doing a phone interview with him after attending "The Art of Compassion," an event celebrating PCRM's 25th anniversary. They gave an award to Marilu Henner, a vegan who's been working to reform the Child Nutrition Act so kids at school can eat something other than chicken fingers. 
Good cause. But it was another issue - the use of animals in experimentation and education - that really got my attention. I figured that if a surgeon was going to cut me open, he or she better practice on a pig first, right? Actually, wrong. I thought if an experimental medication was to be proven safe and effective on people, it had better first be tested on animals, right? Also wrong.
Only three accredited medical schools in the whole country use animals to teach surgery. According to PCRM, the schools are Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Chattanooga campus. Dr. Pippin told me there's a good reason all the other 150-plus medical schools in the country don't use animals in surgical education: There are better ways to teach surgery. Surgical simulators and supervised operating room experience work just fine. Harvard and Yale don't see the need to use (or kill) animals, so why do those three schools still do it?
"They don't want to use the new methods because they're comfortable with the old methods. But we all have to change our beliefs when the science changes," Dr. Pippin told me. A paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine backs him up, asserting that simulators are effective training devices for medical residents.
What about animals who give their lives to test new medication? Bad for the animals, but good thing for people, right? Actually, no.
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, a former director of the National Cancer Institute
Dr. Pippin said that using animals to study human diseases is "an abject failure." Look at the track record for pharmaceuticals. The former vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline has said, "The vast majority of drugs -- more than 90 percent -- only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people."
If pharmaceuticals only work for half the population why do we still need to test them on animals? Bottom line: Money. "If funding is available to do research on animals, they do research on animals," Dr. Pippin pointed out. The money is there. According to a Freedom of Information Act request initiated by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Institutes of Health reported that 42 percent of its research grants involved animals. The NIH budget is $30 billion - 42 percent of that, some $12 billion, is a lot of animal research funded by taxpayers like you and me. Can you get your tax check to the IRS out of the mailbox? Hmm, too late.
I'd like to know why those three medical schools still use animals for surgical training - so I'm going to ask them and tell you what they say.
Photo credit: Lee Schneider
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Animal testing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tel Aviv University is bioengineering tissues as an alternative to animal testing
Funny thing is, I would agree with you if you actually wished to discuss doing animal research more judiciously, being sure there is less waste involved, or being sure cosmetics are not tested on animals, but you don't appear to be interested in such avenues of discussion. You continue to assert that animal model have no utility in toxicological testing (supported only by your stritchnine example) and that animal studies do not contribute to any basic understanding of biology that would be impossible to understand with humans (unless you know how to make a knock-out human) when, in fact, the evidence says otherwise. I would suggest reading the following articles:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/answering_scientific_arguments_of_an.php
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/answering_other_arguments_of_animal_righ.php
I do have one question. Would you be in favor of lobbying the FDA to allow human testing without any prior toxicology testing in animals? This would also have to come with a provision that would exempt any pharmaceutical company from any deaths or severe injuries that would occur in the process of testing said drugs or else no drugs would ever be tested in people again as the financial risk would be too great.
Don't believe me?
Go down to your local pound. Adopt a pet. Drive that pet to the vet. Pay the vet to put the pet to sleep.
Now...try that with a kid and see what happens.
It also used to be legal to keep slaves -- and kill them at will if that was deemed "necessary" .
(And here's a clue for you -- most Vets despise people who want to kill otherwise healthy animals and usually keep the animals alive to find better homes for them -- even when some states had laws mandating that a Vet had to kill an animal if directed/paid to do so. And for teh animals who are "ut down" when in irretrievable suffering... well humans should be so lucky. we can euthanize our beloved animals to free them from terminal agony, but we can't do that to humans.)
oh how you make me laugh!
most veterinarians will NOT put a perfectly adoptable pet to sleep simply because the "owner" demands it.
you say "try that with a kid."
behavioral studies of cats and dogs have shown that they develop to the same level as an 18 to 24 month old human child.
so actually, what you advocate is EXACTLY that. the killing of creatures you deem inferior, yet have the level of mental cognition and self-awareness as a human child you claim is more important. ergo, you have no problem with the killing of toddlers who happen to wear fur.
what a guy!
THAT GETS DONE
----------------------
Question: What happens to certain lines of medical research if animals cannot be used?
Answer: They don't get done.
If you want to persuade to the animal rights view those who value useful medical research for humans over the lives of animals, that's a very bad answer.
Medical research that alleviates the shortage of human hearts for transplantation is probably very popular. One alternative is to use transgenetic pig hearts. The pigs are genetically modified so their hearts are less likely to be rejected. Current research transplants these pig hearts into baboons as a stepping stone.
How do animals rights advocates reply? Peacemaker wrote: "[W]hat i don't understand is why argue for doing such an inherently questionable thing as interspecies transplants when the effort could be better used to avoid the inevitable rejections and immune system difficulties that would arise from such a thing?...[O]bviously this research involves animals. [M]y response is that such things were already proven failures. why continue to waste time, when the use of human cells seems to hold much greater possibilities for success?"
Yup, Peacekitten's judgment that this line of research WOULD NEVER succeed must be substituted from those of medical researchers and funding agencies who think it might. This substitution of judgment has to be done for every line of funded medical research. In a world where there is great competition for every funding dollar, I trust the experts over the amateurs.
they don't get don't because of MONEY. without the use of animals, there's nowhere near as much MONEY involved.
this line of research you talk about has ALREADY failed. we are continuing to bang our heads on a wall that already KILLED EVERY PATIENT UPON WHICH IT WAS TRIED. can you deny this? if they are HONEST the "researchers" you speak of would admit that it has already been a failure.
you really don't understand just how influential the chain of money is in the world of medical "research."
you can also find plenty of scientists that disagree with this waste of resources as well.
the fact that you and others here have felt the need to come back here and continue to shout while not offering any refutations WHATSOEVER of the examples of abject FAILURE i have cited here, tells me you are trying to convince yourself of the need to cling to a security blanket that if the truth be told, was never any such thing.
You're right that there is a lot of waste generated in resources though.. and that's true across all spectrums of life. However, that is something scientists strive to remove all the time, including the number of animals who have to be used in their experiments.
I'm not shouting. I'm not usually one to chat on forums anyhow and only signed up to be a HP commenter because this issue is extremely important to me.
There really is no better alternative right now as much as everyone wishes that were true. You mention vivsection a lot, but the most powerful outcome of using animal models isn't to dissect or operate on them.. we do know anatomy quite well, which is the reason people don't use animals to teach surgery anymore (the original mention in this article).
The models are definitely not perfect.. but I again stress the importance of saying that it is the best we have and EVERY single therapy that has been made has ONLY been possible with animal testing. There isn't one therapy out there that would ever be tested on any human being if the safety and efficacy isn't proven in animals first.
You're right that sometimes even when proven to be safe on lower animals, it is still unsafe for humans..however, with the reverse, what has been dangerous to humans have always been dangerous to animals as well.
1. Science is good as long as the facts support their opinions. If the facts say otherwise, then science doesn't know what it's talking about (i.e. a fervent supporter of climate change who denies that there is a vast amount of research showing no correlation between autism and vaccines).
2. There is always some conspiracy involved. On the right the government is becoming socialist and is going to take over businesses and ruin everything. On the left the corporations control everything and will take over government and ruin everything. How can both be true?
3. An ability to conveniently ignore any facts that don't support their opinions (i.e. cherry picking information that supports their ideas while ignoring the whole picture).
I just find it interesting that two groups that have such opposite beliefs and would be rather antagonistic to each other share so much in common. It would probably make quite an interesting sociological study.
NOT ONE of the defenders of vivisection has been able to refute ANYTHING presented to them to point out the failures of animal testing and the increasing evidence that it is dangerous to human wellbeing.
NOT ONE.
* "Synthetic skin," called Corrositex
* Computer modeling
* Improved statistical design
* The Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA)
http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html
Circadian rhythm research being done using mice:
http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Animal%20Behavior/circadian_rhythms.htm
Here is only 2 cites which show how valuable animal research is. The argument of whether it is necessary or not is moot, as the information being gathered from the research is crucial, and no one else is getting the information by any other means. If you don't like it, start your own lab, and start finding cures to sleeping disorders not using animals or go fly a kite.
vioxx.
levaquin.
30 years of failure to find cures for cancer.
85 FAILED AIDS vaccines, some of which actually made it WORSE.
the European Union is currently considering a ban on the use of wild-caught great apes due to the abject failure of their use in AIDS research.
animal tests FAILED to find or establish the link between cancer and cigarette smoke, or between cancer and asbestos.
penicillin killed guinea pigs, setting back the use of antibiotics for years.
the fact that human cancer metastacizes in HUMANS but does not when cancerous human tumors have been transplanted into mice was missed for DECADES. this characteristic of cancer in humans is the leading cause of DEATH in them.
incidentally, one of the most effective, NON-ADDICTIVE and nearly infallible sleeping aids is the use of high quality valerian root, known as a sure-fire cure for insomnia by the arabs for over a thousand years.
for every esoteric "success" in animal research, there are at least that many failures that have cost human lives, irreversibly devastated others, and set back the progress of medicine for decades.
"hit or miss" is just not a high enough standard for medical research.
TO BE DONE IN ANIMALS
---------------------------
In these comments, the argument is that animals are NEVER necessary for medical research. Like most arguments that are of the all or none (never) type, they are easy to disprove. You just need one example.
In the course of some research, I found one case where animals absolutely have to be used in current medical research. That research is part of a program to transplant animal hearts into humans. One of the problems is rejection. The research program uses transgenic pigs that may be less likely to lead to rejection when implanting their organs into baboons. You may not like the research, but you certainly can't do research that may lead to transplanting pig hearts into humans without using primates, let alone without using pigs.
is "less likely" good enough for someone needing a heart? not really.
much more promising research is taking place with human stem cells that hold the promise of being able to generate necessary tissue from the patient's own body, and eliminating the possibility of rejection entirely. so far, entire human ears have been grown in petri dishes.
In your reply, I noticed that you neglect to explain how this research could be done with the use of animals. Perhaps you could care to try again?
What I do not see being written about in this thread are the so-called "living conditions" of the captive primates, dogs, cats, rabbits and mice used for research. How many suffer agonizing pain, filthy living conditions, insanity inducing stress and absolutely none of the comforts however simple that they might expect to have existing almost anywhere else? We simply do not have the right to exploit and experiment on other species because we claim superiority.
I oppose ALL animal use in medical research. It is unnecessary, cruel, exploitative, many times redundant, and $$$ driven.
what would we do if the shoe were on the other foot? would we patiently deal with being used against our will as test subjects?
However, as a species, we have an innate desire to live, just like any other organism, even lab mice. Unfortunately, we use our resources the best we can and everything we do, in the lab or not, is at the benefit to us and at the detriment to something else.
The apartment you live in displaced many animals of their natural habitat. We take away fresh water from lakes that many animals use as their habitat so that we can drink and bathe on a daily basis.
Everytime you use hand sanitizer, you are killing millions of microorganisms.
It may not seem like it, but I do agree with you that we should limit the testing of animals as much as possible. But no matter what the claims are, in vitro testing does not come close to in vivo testing. And using model organisms to understand our own biology gives us a lot of information we cannot get from human studies.
Are you against only the use of mammals as research subjects? What about flies? Worms? Fish? Yeast? Bacteria?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/answering_other_arguments_of_animal_righ.php
Also, very few companies will be willing to spend the millions of dollars on toxicological testing or on human trials without some level of study in animals to determine drug pharmacokinetics (how long drugs stay around), pharmacodynamics (do drug affect their targets), and if drugs have efficacy in animal models of disease.
Finally, a great deal of the information that we have about basic biology begins with studying animals. Are animal models perfect copies of humans? Of course not, otherwise they'd be people. But animal models of disease provide a great deal of information on potential drug targets and can be especially helpful in cases of very rare diseases (i.e. those that there are not many opportunities to study in people). Not many people are willing to give up their spleens for immunology research or their hearts for cardiac research. Are you?
most of the "safety testing" done on animals is required by insurance companies, as a fallback in case of lawsuits. it has nothing to do with furthering good science.
one of the biggest reasons that animals make such poor study subjects for things like cardiac disease is because it has to be falsely induced in them. it's something that is just not a common ailment.
resources are just too scarce to continue chasing figments of our imagination down the wrong path.
does it ever occur to those forcing toxic substances down the throats of helpless animals, that if it is so toxic that the LD50 test has been ordered for it, that perhaps it's not something that should be sold to a careless public with small children who every day are rushed to emergency rooms for drinking deadly, corrosive household cleaners?
the argument for animal testing, aside from the irrefutable fact of its utter immorality, decreases in validity every day.
are we so dense as a species that we haven't learned anything from hundreds of years of pursuing a flawed model? how many times should we bang our heads on the wall before we figure out that it feels much better to stop?
Have you considered that without this approach to research we would barely understand anything about our physiology, nor be able to save lives and improve the quality of life for vast numbers of both human and animal patients?
"most of the "safety testing" done on animals is required by insurance companies, as a fallback in case of lawsuits. it has nothing to do with furthering good science."
How often have you worked in a toxicology lab doing research to make this statement? Do you have any evidence to back it up or is it simply opinion. The facts are that the FDA requires toxicology testing in order reduce risk of phase I trials. I will ask the question again, are you willing to test drugs on human beings in order to determine toxic dose levels?
"one of the biggest reasons that animals make such poor study subjects for things like cardiac disease is because it has to be falsely induced in them."
I said above that animals are not perfect models. That is why one uses the word model. It is an approximation what you are trying to study. Without such models we wouldn't understand a great deal of physiology. Our immune system alone is made up of huge numbers of proteins, the functions of which would have been very difficult to ascertain without animal model research.
LD50s are not only performed on substances known to be toxic. They may be performed on any new pharmaceutical in order to determine the appropriate safety window within which those drugs can be dosed in people. Would you prefer to volunteer for the tests?
"are we so dense as a species that we haven't learned anything from hundreds of years of pursuing a flawed model? how many times should we bang our heads on the wall before we figure out that it feels much better to stop?"
Dense is a relative term. I would consider an individual who makes opinions without the benefit of factual support to be quite dense. Under that definition I would consider many posting on this thread to be "dense". I see a great deal of rhetoric, but not many facts. Would you like to provide some evidence showing that animal models have been useless in the development of our understanding of physiology? I'll even narrow it down. Provide evidence that animal models have not been at all useful in the understanding of the function of the immune system....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6YyCkMq_KM
But, they do not.
For some reason, they themselves are more important (to themselves) than those animals but the rest of humanity, whom they deem no more important than an animal, is not.
there is something very wrong about someone that the only time i ever see you around, is hanging around on animal related threads to spew about how much you hate animals, and think they are worthless. not only that, you extend that hatred to people who believe in compassion. the anger and snarling hate that comes through your posts is disturbing, and contributes less than nothing to the issue at hand.
By that logic, you are no more important than a lab rat either, right?
So, I bet you could save at least 2 lab rats lives by giving your own.
2 lives for one...
Kim Crawford,M.D./Anti-Aging Mind,Body,Skin Care
http://kimcrawfordmd.com
I disagree with that statement. What I like about it is how clear and concise. It avoids all that ridiculous pretending that animals are not needed for medical research.
i think we have moved too far in the direction of accurate, humane alternatives to continue clinging to the flawed and inhumane security blanket of the past.
I believe I was asking my specialist about a new drug that had just come on the market. He told me that his hospital was one of the sites testing a different drug that was similar and was I interested in learning more.
I met with the clinical researcher and the investigator doctor at this hospital. We carefully went through an informed consent form that included the drug trial results from the other drug, as it was similar. The form was about 8 pages long. It was signed by me and witnessed.
I'm having a hard time understanding how we get proper informed consent from a rat or monkey. Could you please explain how to go about doing this?
**CDP 571