Why I Take Animal-Tested Drugs

One of my doctors has told me to get my affairs in order, which is why I'm writing this column. I want to explain why someone who takes so many animal-tested drugs is opposed to animal research.

I have full-blown leukemia and the chemotherapy I'm taking doesn't seem to be working all that well. And even if it does kick into high gear soon, it's not a cure, only a brief delay of the disease's progression. One way or another, my odds aren't good.

Still, I keep popping pills each morning and night, sitting for many hours each week with an IV in my arm, dealing with all the side-effects of treatment, hoping for a miracle. Some people may call me a hypocrite -- to take advantage of the benefits of animal research. Let me explain.

The truth is that I don't feel I've ultimately benefited from our healthcare system, despite some truly exceptional care and many amazingly compassionate practitioners. Just the opposite.

I first developed myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in 2004 from the chemo I was prescribed for breast cancer. In 2006, I underwent a stem cell transplant, which gave me two years of remission (albeit with many horrible side effects). This past July, I relapsed -- this time with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). My prognosis is grim.

Throughout the past six years, I have felt terribly guilty about the drugs and procedures I've undergone because I know that so many animals have suffered in their development. I know about these conditions because of my former job -- working for a nonprofit that promotes alternatives to animal research. I know about the conditions from talking with former animal researchers and others who have witnessed the cruelty. In fact, one man I know from an Internet support group remembers hearing lab dogs yelping in pain at the hospital where we both had our transplants.

The truth -- mostly hidden from public view -- is that animal research is horribly cruel. Despite what the research community claims, federal regulations are extremely weak and poorly enforced, and some species -- mice, for example -- are completely excluded from any protection. Many investigations have shown just how bad conditions are.

But as someone who recently signed up for hospice, I have another major problem with animal research. I wonder if science would have found a cure for my leukemia by now if they weren't sidetracked by misleading animal tests. I wonder if the chemo that I took for breast cancer would have been safer it hadn't been tested in species that are so unlike our own.

The truth is that using animals to develop and test drugs is a system that doesn't work very well. It's an old paradigm, one that is fortunately beginning to change, however slowly. A growing number of scientists are developing some exciting (and more effective) non-animal alternatives. These changes have been inspired partly by concern over animal cruelty but also because animal research and testing have so often failed us. Some government agencies are even starting to call for more alternatives.

More than 90 percent of all new drugs which proved effective in animals end up not working for humans. It's because animals -- however similar they are to us -- have different physiological systems. What works in a mouse usually doesn't work in a human.

History is filled with stories of drugs that didn't work in animals -- Aspirin, for example -- that ended up working in humans. And the obituary pages are filled with stories of people who died from drugs that looked safe in animals. The painkiller Vioxx, for example, tested safe in mice and five other species but ended up killing many thousands of Americans.

If you wonder how I can justify taking the drugs, the truth is that like all living beings ("lab animals" included) I desperately want to live. And because of government regulations, I don't have a choice.

The current drug approval system doesn't yet acknowledge the superiority of human-focused, nonanimal research methods (such as microdosing) and all pharmaceutical companies must use animals to get their drugs approved. Hopefully, this situation will soon change. A coalition of animal protection groups and physicians has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to accept the results of alternative tests, when available.

If the chemo drugs I'm trying now don't work, I do have one last option. I could try a Phase One trial. That's when a drug looks promising in animals and is first tested in humans. My doctor started to tell me why so many participants die in Phase One trials -- but it turned out I already knew the answer. Drugs that work in animals, he explained, usually don't work in humans.

Comments

[EllenFL]

Hi Simon! Glad that you wrote this, and so glad I'm able to thank you. If we had had the knowledge and research earlier in our lives that PCRM has courageously and freely dispensed, no telling how many people could have avoided the diseases of affluence that animal-tested drugs are used for.

As a result of your encouragement and others at PCRM, I finally am writing a book about fighting genetic odds. I'm the only person in my adult family who hasn't had breast cancer, heart disease or diabetes. I didn't get all the good genes, and have worked very hard to follow recommendations of the doctors and registered dietitians at PCRM over many years.

There's no question that through the knowledge you helped disseminate, hundreds of thousands of people have avoided preventable diseases and conditions that destroy families daily. My teaching cooking classes gives me a whole new crop of students every 8 weeks who often experience life-altering results, coming off meds, losing weight without counting a calorie, and generally, just feeling much better.

Students' reactions are almost universal, "why aren't our doctors giving us the choice between a healthy diet and a pill/surgery?!" Given the choice between chemo, cracking their chest open for open heart surgery, insulin daily for diabetes, or losing a limb to diabetes, most say they'd be willing to change their diet for 3 weeks and see how that goes first.

Thanks again for all you have done!

Ellen Jaffe Jones

[Gerald Ardigliano]

What Simon does not mention is that the MEDS she takes were not created due to animal trials. The animal trial phase is of course a regulatory procedure that does not create the actual drug. The drug is created before the trial phase. If the animals were deleted and the human trials expanded in quantity we would automatically have safer and more effective drugs. From a pure scientific standpoint the animal phase does harm to people not help. It eliminates obvious potential cures from being discovered due to the animal-model yielding a total failure rate at a staggering 96%.

[Yana Mikhaylova]

Dear Simon,
Hi, thank you for sharing this with us. I cannot even begin to imagine how trying these times are for you. My name is Yana and I am a medical student and an animal rights activist. I had to stop numerous times while reading your letter as my eyes flooded and I could barely see the screen. Your writing is poignant and important. It will move mountains.

I wrote in my living will, that upon my death: brain-death should be induced or assured, that I be put on a ventilator, and that my body be used for experimentation of cutting edge treatments for cancer…for the sake of the animals and people like you who deserve better, more advanced medicine.

You are an amazing, dedicated, and brave person. You are a hero for me and for so many others. You are always in my heart and I wish you the best. You should not have to go through this alone, please let me know how I can help.

Warmest wishes and in solidarity,
Yana

[e-mail]

[Olivvy]

The pro-vivisection claim that we can thank animal testing for various medical advances is disingenuous, since all pharmaceutical products are required by law to be tested on animals. In some places, the municipal water supplies are still tested on animals. Even fruit juices have been tested on animals in recent years. They didn't need to be, but they were. If you're buying toothpaste, hairspray, deodorant, laundry detergent, etc., you have a choice between products that are and are not tested on animals. That is not the case with pharmaceuticals.

I'd be reluctant to hurl accusations of hypocrisy at animal rights activists, since there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around. We live in a country where people who eat pigs and cows have passed laws making it a crime to eat dog meat and horse meat. And vivisectors who are so quick to take the credit for medical breakthroughs that were tested on animals by default, refuse to take the blame when things go wrong (Thalidomide, Rezulin, Vioxx). I think we're slowly becoming more humane as a society, and that's better than being consistently wrong.

[JohnFranklin]

Thank you for your thoughtful column, Simon. I hope that even those who disagree with your opposition to animal experiments can find the courage and self-respect to present their objections in a civil manner. Your concerns about the cruelty involved in animal experiments are underscored by the recent Humane Society of the United States investigation of the abuse of primates at the New Iberia Research Center. New Iberia's abuse of chimps, which has been deplored by Jane Goodall, has received substantial media coverage and promoted reflection on how laboratories treat nonhuman primates. The HSUS investigator at New Iberia obtained video footage showing primates engaged in self-mutilation, dart guns and squeeze cages being used for sedation, and infants removed from their mothers before tubes were inserted in their throats. A high-profile, government-funded facility like New Iberia is routinely abusing charismatic animals like chimpanzees--and that abuse was not caught by government inspectors, the facility's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, the National Institutes of Health, or any of the regulatory bodies that supposedly protect animals in laboratories. Instead, it took an undercover animal welfare investigator to reveal these abuses. Whistleblowers and undercover investigations by animal organizations have caught extreme abuse at institutions ranging from the City of Hope to Columbia University to Covance Laboratories. Is it possible to create a system in which animal experiments are done in a humane manner? Maybe--but we're nowhere near that.

[support-animal-research]

Just like vegans reduce the number of animals in captivity by not buying meat, the honest thing to do would be to refuse treatments that have been devolped with the help of animals. You would be giving less money to drug companies and in that way reduce the money they can invest in research involving animals. Please also acknowledge the fact that Simon is probably alive today because of animals being used in experiments. Isn't it unfair to the animals that died in these experiments to deny this?

[ChristopherP]

Interesting comment, "support-a­nimal-rese­arch": You back animal experiments because you care so much about saving sick people, and you're also pushing a terminally ill woman to stop taking medication that might be saving her life. Better watch out: I've heard that cognitive dissonance can cause brain cancer.

[support-animal-research]

"I've heard that cognitive dissonance can cause brain cancer." You've probably heard a lot of things that are not true. I just think that it would be more honest if she'd acknowledge that she probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for research that involved animals. Also if you'd bother to really find out about animals in medical research you'd know that a lot of steps are taken to reduce suffering to the absolute minimum.If you are still not fine with that then boycott pharma by not taking their drugs. It's just more honest and it would show some integrity. The other way of course is to accept that some research on animals is necessary and live with it.

[support-animal-research]

While I read through this thread I am a bit concerned that no one is annoyed by all the lies in this article. Simons story is sad but someone still has to point to the truth. Animal research is heavily regulated in the US (including research involving mice and rats). Secondly, it is not true that this kind of research is extremely cruel for the animals. There are a lot of rules of what can be done and what not and in most cases experiments have to be stopped if the mice suffer even the slightest bit. If experiments are continued (that's the exeption) there has to be a pretty good justification to do so. Secondly it is true that in some cases test on animals have been misleading but in many cases there is no good alternatives. Also there are a lot of very good treatments that would not exist today if it wasn't for experimentation on animals. The idea that there is a paradigm shift towards abandoning animal research is an uniformed and stupid one. Research is improved, we understand the differences between humans and animals better and can account for them. We can improve our experiments and make better use of fewer animals but animals are going to be obsolete anytime soon.

[support-animal-research]

EDIT:
I meant: "animals are NOT going to be obsolete soon"

[runner 08]

I think you are going to find yourself quite surprised. Perhaps not in 5 years but definitely in 8 -10.

We as a culture are gradually waking up and becoming more humane.

[PlaceboStudman]

the sad part is, there are many of us who are chronically or critically ill who would gladly volunteer our bodies to medical experimentation for new and state of the art treatments and procedures. I have done so myself numerous times, living with Spina Bifida. Unfortunately, even voluntary live human experimentation is considered medeival, barbaric and unethical.

Thank THe Powers That Be at NIH and other federally or privately funded organizations that there are trials for new and experimental drugs and procedures that people can volunteer for, but only if they fit very specific requirements where a person becoming more ill from a treatment is less of a worry than the benefit of the potential in the treatment

[emjay1954]

Ms. Chaitowitz writes, "I don't feel I've ultimately benefited from our healthcare system," although she's survived five years with her diagnosis of MDS. A few decades ago when I began doing my research (yes, with animals fortunately), 5 year survivals with MDS were extremely rare.

But her truly absurd statement is that researchers may have found a cure for her by now if they were not "sidetracked" by animal research. Ms. Chaitowitz, we pursue ANY model for disease if it offers the possibility of a breakthrough. It happens that intact animals are seldom used for leukemia research these days, not because they are animals, but because better, cheaper, or more relevant experimental systems have been developed.

I hope you live a long time, Ms.Chaitowitz, and I hope you will someday express your appreciation for the animal research that made your survival possible.

But for those of you who would abolish animal research, please pledge that you won't accept any treatment that was developed through the use of animals. Reject heart surgery, chemotherapy, lipid lowering drugs, and blood pressure medicine. Just say no to insulin. Oh, and refuse treatment for your family, too. After all, if you would prevent the research that would help my children, why should yours benefit from it?

In the meantime, the rest of us will keep using animals, even though you make increasingly difficult and expensive for us to do so. And we know this: When you're sick, you'll take whatever we come up with.

[lwdgf]

Well emjay1954, before you begrudge a dying woman her medicine and challenge other anti-vivis­ectionists to avoid theirs, perhaps you should pledge that you and your family will take Thalidomide, Eraldin, Opren, Clioquinol, Isoprenaline, Rezulin, Vioxx, etc., since those have been "proven safe" in animal tests. The medicine Simon is taking is already here. Taking it doesn't mean she has to condone animal testing. We have a black president living in a house built by slaves. Should he live elsewhere just to prove a point? We should all consider the paths used to get us where we are, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse everything that happened along the way.

[support-animal-research]

Animal testing is not perfect and doesn't pick up all side effects. If thalidomide had been tested on more species, including pregnant animals (like rabbits for example) They could have picked up the teratogenic effect. It is an example that demands more not less experiments with animals. Also we might not know about the Vioxx side effects if animal studies hadn't pointed researches in that direction and if researches hadn't looked for it specifically in humans (after getting indications from animals)

[Smokey11]

lwdgf wrote:
"...you should pledge that you and your family will take Thalidomide,... etc., since those have been "proven safe" in animal tests."

Safety is a negative and can never be proven. All of those medications passed not just one, but three phases of human testing.

"The medicine Simon is taking is already here. Taking it doesn't mean she has to condone animal testing."

The stem-cell therapy she received directly increased present-tense demand for vivisection because it required animal antibodies for sorting the stem cells that saved her away from the mature cells that are harmful to her (GVH disease). She conveniently ignores the fact that animals are vivisected in the course of medical practice, not just research and testing.

"... We should all consider the paths used to get us where we are, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse everything that happened along the way."

The "already happened" rationalization doesn't apply for vast amounts of medical practice that require animal exploitation. In addition to the cell sorting that gave Simon two years of life, other more mundane examples are HIV testing (clinical testing of humans to determine if they are infected) and pregnancy testing. Both require ongoing exploitation and vivisection of animals, but both are ignored by everyone who claims that animals have rights and that using them in research and testing is wrong.

[Animalia Libero]

emjay, the things you mentioned all came about because of the research on humans, not the research on animals. The first heart catheterization was done by the human doctor who invented it and he did it on himself, insulin problems in diabetics were found because of research on humans but insulin was first derived from animals. This insulin sickened many people, and it was the artificial insulin derived from imitating human insulin that was used successfully. I could go on if you like...

Animal research played a part in medical progress, often by slowing it down, or halting it in many areas of medicine.

[Animalia Libero]

Thank you for sharing your story Simon.

I always look at it like this: Medications exist IN SPITE OF animal testing, not because of it. If anything, ill people should be grateful for what they can get, seeing that the majority of medical research dollars go to cruel and faulty animal research which can not predict human response (see http://www.peh-med.com/content/4/1/2 ). You touched on this a bit in your article.

While people should definitely eliminate pharmaceuticals from their diets as much as possible (ie say not to drugs, say yes to herbs and prevention) there are certain ailments that can not be treated this way. Yours is one of them.

As I see it, you are not taking advantage of the benefits of animal research, you are taking advantage of the benefits of HUMAN research. The only reason nonhuman animals played a part was because the law requires them to. But, the discoveries leading to your medications were a result of human research.

Feel no guilt.

[Halsey]

Simon..first..I want to tell you about a "story" I just printed out..a promising procedure, and your type of cancer was mentioned specifically...it is not a drug..it is a "FLT PET scan...it's a 3 page article that I pulled down from an AP headling that scrolls across my earthlink homepage...there was/is a small study at the University of Wisonsin/M­adison...D­r. Mark Juckett is one of the authors of the study...I know you are entering hospice..b­ut..well..­maybe try to track the study down.

I too am battling triple negative breast cancer..which carries a lower survival rate..
I also think about the animals..I've long been a vegetarian..and hate the thought of dogs or chimps or mice suffering. Yes, I want to live; and have taken the treatments (chemo and now completing 6 weeks of daily radiation)­..but..tha­t death comes to us all...and what price do I put on my own life. I feel fairly confident, that were I in the same room with a dog...and saw what it would go through to give me another 2-5 years...I'd, hopefully, just say.."hook me up to the morphine drip and let the dog go"... You and I cannot undo lab experiments..but I get the feeling we would if we could, as difficult as that would be.


Peace

[DaveLesser]

HuffPost's Pick

Simon, thank you for sharing your story with us. Like the exploited laboratory animals who must bear humans' injustice, I think you carry a heavy burden for people who do not have cancer, and even for those who do have cancer. It would be one thing to be using these drugs and remain ignorant of the fact that they are tested on aimals, but you know they are tested on animals, and you hate it! Yet as you said, you have little recourse and are forced to try these drugs if you want to live. And Simon, I hope you do not feel guilty for this. I think your conviction and clear understanding of the situation the medical community is in, warrants your actions and rewards us with hope that you can keep going, keep surviving and speaking out for change, progress, and compassion for all sentient creatures. It is the sacrifices of the animals and the humans who are short-changed, and the tribute you pay to those sacrifices, which will one day cause us to shudder at how we behaved. Thank you, Simon.

[SarahKindrick]

To me, even if animal research was effective, I would be opposed to it. There are so many practices that can be effective (e.g torture of human beings in the name of "anti-terrorism") that cannot be condoned, because they are just wrong. One doesn't always have to rationalize that a practice is ineffective, unhealthy or expensive to oppose it. What would we think if a superior race of beings came to this planet and decided to experiment on us for their own purposes. Would we think it okay for them, if we were similar enough to them to make their practices rewarding to them? Plain and simple. Animals suffer and are killed in vivisection. We would not like it done to us, so we shouldn't do it to them.

Sarah

[ChrissyMatt]

Thank you for writing this. You are an inspiration to us all.

I feel the same way regarding the harmful drugs I take to control my Crohn's disease. These drugs cause cancer and life-threatening bacterial and fungal infections. Doctors still don't know what causes Crohn's disease and I truly believe this is because researchers continue to spend their time trying to "give" mice the disease in order to study it. Also, it's a lucrative business to research Crohn's disease and to try to "control" it with expensive drugs.

[UNCLEJOE]

I joined the cancer club on March, 30, 2006 when a bone biopsy diagnosed me with `Non-Hotchkins Lymphoma, one of the incurable types of cancer.

My oncologist told me I had ten years to live from the time of the diagnos, and that since I was 83 years old I probably would die of old age before the lymphoma kicked in.

I have read that cancer patients treated on chemo only 2% live longer than eight years.

I refused all kinds of treatment and went on a fairly strict regimen of Organic food, two hour daily walks, mild exercise at home, and rested whenever I felt tired which is often. And Avoided any anxiety causing situations.

I'm on my third year with this cancer and do not feel any symptoms of the cancer and I believe my health has improved dispite other old age problems not related to lymphoma.

Why doctors never mention nutrition, exercise in fresh air, and involving oneself in a social or academic activity as an aid for improving health is a mystery.

[PlaceboStudman]

Why doctors never mention nutrition, exercise in fresh air, and involving oneself in a social or academic activity as an aid for improving health is a mystery.

Simple, because doctors and the pharmaceutical companies who subsidize them do not profit from people doing what people have been doing for millions of years that has kept our species going since long before the invent of synthetic pharmaceuticals