Does animal testing work?

Monkeys, dogs, cats, rabbits, mice... ours to legally abuse

Perhaps we should ask ourselves why 83% of GPs support an independent scientific evaluation into the efficacy of testing on animals. Or why adverse reactions to prescription medicines (all tested safe on animals) are the fourth leading cause of death in the western world and cost the NHS around £466million a year.

And let’s not forget, not all tests are carried out in the name of science. Everything from garden pesticides and food dyes are STILL tested on animals.

Beagles are used in testing due to their even temperament and size. Other sentient beings abused by humans include monkeys, cats, rabbits, mice and rats.

Here are some key facts and statistics relating to the ‘necessary evil of animal testing’:

• Animals are NOT human and are biologically unable to mimic human responses to drugs. Evidence against testing human drugs on animals is mounting and cannot be ignored. Both human and animal lives are at stake
  
• Vioxx – a drug designed to ease the pain of arthritis sufferers – improved animal heart health but went on to cause 300,000 heart attacks and strokes in humans (half of which proved fatal)
  
• 92% of drugs fail in clinical trials, having successfully passed through animal studies. The ‘hit and miss’ conclusions of animal-based research are placing the lives of human volunteers (taking part in aforementioned trials) at risk
  
• “We do trials in people because animal models do not predict what will happen in humans” Dr Sally Burtles, Cancer Research UK, Report of the Expert Scientific Group on phase one clinical trials (quoted post-TGN1412 clinical trial failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412)
  
• “The reliability and relevance of all existing animal tests should be reviewed as a matter of urgency” The Toxicology Working Group of the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures in 2002
  
• The link between cancer and smoking, the causes of heart disease, the identification and purification of insulin, and cataract removal are just some examples of medical advances made without the use of animals
  
• A recent European Directive (2010/63/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 22 September 2010) recommended a reduction in scientific experimentation on sentient beings amongst its member states and encouraged the use of non-animal alternatives, of which there are many including human tissue research, microfluidics, computer modelling, DNA chips and microdosing – such non-animal research methods are cheaper and faster than traditional animal-based methods.

Thalidomide – a case study


There are many examples of drugs tested, apparently safely, on animals which then went on to prove unsafe or ineffectual in humans (for example, the anti-inflammatory drug trialled on six healthy men at Northwick Park Hospital in 2006, which although tested safely on lab animals, went on to cause organ failure in all of the human volunteers).

Thalidomide – a drug created to combat morning sickness –  went on to cause birth defects in more than 10,000 babies worldwide. It was at the time of going to market, advertised as being as ‘harmless as a sugar cube’. When the drug began to cause birth malformations in thousands of human babies, researchers raced to reproduce its teratogenic (malformation-causing) effects in animals. Over 50 different strains of species – primates, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rats, mice, hamsters, rabbits, swine, ferrets and even armadillos – were given the drug. None reproduced the effects witnessed on the human foetus. Eventually, rare White New Zealand rabbit offspring did mimic the birth malformations in humans, but only occasionally and only when fed between 25 and 300 times the dose given to pregnant women. Because the defects were so infrequent, animal testing further delayed recall of this highly teratogenic drug.

Ironically, during the civil trial against the manufacturer of Thalidomide, witnesses (themselves animal experimenters) admitted under oath that “the results of animal experiments are never valid for human beings”. It is such testimonies that ensured the manufacturer evaded criminal charges.

As part of the aforementioned trial, Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of penicillin, Ernst Boris Chain, testified that "no animal experiment with a medicament, even if it is carried out on several species, including primates, under all conceivable conditions, can give any guarantee that the medicament tested in this way will behave the same in humans, because in many respects the human is not the same as the animal". Indeed, 86 % of human diseases never happen in animals.

In spite of such testimonies, the Thalidomide ‘disaster’ proved a catalyst for more stringent animal tests; it is now UK law that the effects of new drugs must be tested on pregnant animals. Why? It has virtually no medical logic.

If Thalidomide were new to the market in 2012, under such law and even if researchers bypassed all other species and tested immediately on the White New Zealand rabbit, so occasional were the recorded defects, that Thalidomide would be considered safe to prescribe to pregnant women.