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.
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
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
yanam@med.umich.edu
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.
I meant: "animals are NOT going to be obsolete soon"
We as a culture are gradually waking up and becoming more humane.
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
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.
"...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.
Animal research played a part in medical progress, often by slowing it down, or halting it in many areas of medicine.
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.
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
Sarah
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.
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.
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