Animal experiments of no medical worth
I AM writing to support Jan Creamer's letter which Paul Browne, EU animal research law finds a balance, Points of view, April 24, so vehemently condemns. It is alarming that the pro-vivisection lobby is trying to weaken the commission's proposals for the revision of the new EU Directive on animal experiments.
It comes as no surprise that Mr Brown is of the pro-test lobby from Oxford, where the university's new bio-medical laboratory — built at an approximate cost of £18m — conducts thousands of useless experiments on animals.
It is a fact that it cannot be proved that a single life was ever saved because of animal experiments. If a drug proves successful in treating human illness, it is despite and not because of the fact that it has been tested on animals. Great new medications are not hiding in mouse urine or chimp spit.
If animal experimentation had to be validated the same way as other methods, vivisection would never be allowed.
Vivisectors admit that they don't know which animal experiments are likely to produce accurate answers and which will produce misleading answers. If you don't know which experiments are useful and which are misleading, then all animal experiments must be useless.
Please remember the young men who suffered life threatening side effects during the trial of drug TGN 1412, which was given to 50 monkeys in pre-clinical trials, in some cases in very large doses and was thought to be safe.
If readers value real medical progress and agree with more than 80 per cent of British GPs who are concerned about the reliability of animal research, they can contact their MEP.
Urge them to strongly oppose Amendment 107 passed in Agriculture Committee, which would mean that 90 per cent of animal experiments would require no prior authorisation but simply be assessed by the laboratory itself — undermining any attempts to discover other methods.
The truth can be found on websites www.buag.org or www.navs.org.uk.
I oppose vivisection not only because it is unbelievably barbaric and unforgivably cruel but also because it is worthless, wasteful, inaccurate, uninformative and dangerously misleading. The truth is that animal experiments kill people.
Frances Wicks
Alphington Road, Exeter
(by post)
2 Comments
by Shannon Beatty, USA
Wednesday, May 06 2009, 6:39PM
“Two-edged sword: would you prefer humans be used for experimentation from the very beginning? (The last folks to do this were tried and convicted as war criminals.)
Live animals represent a big step from mixtures in test tubes- and justification of animal use requires the investigator sign sworn statements for their ethical care and treatment. Animal studies are costly, and must be thoroughly justified to the accountants- the purchase and care of animals for one small experiment can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars.
Before development of reliable tests using cultured cells or indicator chemicals, many experiments performed in animals prevented what would have been certain human deaths had the animal tests not been done- and the new drug shown to fail. Over 90% of new biologicals never make it beyond pre-clinical R&D.
Bovine insulin was approved for use in treating human diabetes after testing in beagle dogs.
Treatments for human hemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders were developed after research studies in dogs.
Heart valves and other tissue replacements were developed for humans after extensive studies in pigs.
Findings from the rhesus studies of TGN1412 were given neither the attention nor interpretation they deserved- some of these animals were euthanized after TGN1412 made them very sick, with some of the same symptoms that were later observed in human subjects. Not for the first time in an early investigation of new biologicals, with or without prequalification in animals, experimental humans came very close to death.
"..It cannot be proved that a single life was ever saved because of animal experiments" -?
"The truth is that animal experiments kill people" -?
A more accurate statement might be that "animal experiments kill animals."”
by Kathryn Holloway, London
Tuesday, May 05 2009, 2:21PM
“Please note that the website Ms Wicks mentions in her letter should be www.buav.org.
Kathryn Holloway
Supporter Care Officer, BUAV”