Why animal testing is bad

Advancing Science without Harming Animals Animals have been used repeatedly throughout the history of biomedical research. Early Greek physician-scientist, Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) performed experiments on living animals [1]. Just as the legendary Greek physician Galen (199 – 217 AD) performed experiments on animals, which led to advancements in the understanding of anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology [2]. Likewise, the twelfth century Arab physician Ibn Zuhr introduced animal testing as an experimental method for testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients [3]. In recent years, the use on animals for biomedical research has become a topic of criticism and debate because of the claim, “animals are necessary for biomedical research” which is unsupported by scientific literature [4]. In response to this debate is the growing awareness of the limitations of animal research and its incapability to make accurate predictions about human health [4]. Crystal Miller-Spiegel from aavs.org reported that in modern science, most researchers have begun to “induce into nonhuman animals virtually any conceivable human disease that exists, many of which do not even naturally occur in the species of animals being used.” Researchers genetically mutilate animals by deleting, inserting or inactivating the function of genes, as well as physically, chemically, and/or biologically altering the animals to cause or mimic diseases. Researchers in Texas said today that they had developed the first animal model that mimics a family of human arthritic diseases. The animals which have been given human genes, produce a human protein that increases their susceptibility to disease. The genetically altered rats, appeared to suffer most aspects of the human disease[10]. Researchers have also begun breeding naturally affected animals to produce more animals with a specific disease or trait. These animals are coined as ‘models’ and they are used by researchers to learn about the disease, lifestyle or environmental effects on the disease as well as treatment methods, with wild hope that these findings will in some way relate to people. Because the disease is intentionally produced, and the researchers and scientists want to understand its dynamics, the animals are not treated as human patients would be [5]. Animal experimentation does not reliably predict human reactions due to the obvious differences in physiology, anatomy, and metabolism resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of thousands of humans and animals. The scientific validity and reliability of animal experimentation is questionable due to the obvious differences between humans and animals, because it is difficult to apply data from animal studies to human ailments. For example penicillin is toxic in guinea pigs but has been priceless in the advancements of human medicine. Acetaminophen (active ingredient in Tylenol) is poisonous to cats but is remedial to humans [4]. Since many of the diseases introduced into the animal ‘models’ are specific to humans, accurately applying information from animal studies to human patients are often left to speculation, because of this even the highest quality studies will go on to replicate poorly in human clinical research [6]. Because of the differences between animals and humans drugs that do well in animals usually end up failing in humans. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, “nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.”[7]. Time, money, and lives are squandered in the process. In recent years the number of approved drugs causing serious and unexpected health problems has increased substantially, thus leading the Food and Drug Administration to either put black box warnings on their labels or removing the product off the market all together. The FDA reported that “adverse events associated with drugs are the single leading contributor to preventable injury, and may cost the lives of up to 100,000 Americans, account for more than 3 million hospital admissions and increase the nation’s hospitalization bill by up to $17 billion each year.” [8] Alternately, drugs and procedures that could be effective in humans may never be developed because they fail in animal studies. It is impossible to know how often this happens because drugs that fail in animal studies are rarely tested in humans unless the researching scientist request that the drug be tested in a small group of healthy human volunteers. In many cases, medical discoveries are delayed because researches waste time, money, effort, and animal lives trying to create an animal model of a human disease. A classic example is the discovery that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer. The finding was first reported in 1954 and was dismissed because lung cancer due to inhalation of cigarette smoke couldn’t be induced in animal models. It was not until 30 years later that the U.S. Surgeon General issued the warning on cigarettes [9]. Scientists use animals in biological medical research more as a matter of tradition not because animal research has proved particularly successful than other modes of experimentation. Animal studies are flawed by design; luckily humans are protected from being used in harmful and invasive research, but animals are not. As a result the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was formed to protect animals and raise awareness of the cruelties they face. PETA focuses their attention on four areas in which the largest number of animals suffer for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories, and in the entertainment industry. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns. As long as researchers insist on using nonhuman animals as a primary way of learning about human disease more harm will be done to people and other animals.

Sources
[1] http://chelseamorris.webs.com/animaltesting.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_animal_testing
[3] http://www.unhas.ac.id/rhiza/arsip/saintis/zuhr.html
[4]http://www.aavs.org/site/c.bkLTKfOSLhK6E/b.6456997/k.3D74/Problems_with_Animal_Research.htm
[5]http://www.aavs.org/site/c.bkLTKfOSLhK6E/b.6457061/k.D1D2/Inherent_Suffering.htm
[6] Hackam, D.G. and Redelmeir, D.A. (2006). Translation of Research Evidence From Animals to Humans Journal of the American Medical Association, 294 (14):1731 – 1732.
[7] Food and Drug Administration (2006, Jan. 12). FDA Issues Advice to make Earliest Staged of clinical Drug development More Efficient. Press Release Retrieved March 2008, from http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2006/NEW01296.html
[8] Food and Drug Administration (2004).Innovation or stagnation: Challenge and Opportunity on the Critical Path to New Medical Products. Retrieved March 2008 from www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/criticalpath/whitepaper.pdf
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messages
[10] http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/30/us/scientists-genetically-alter-rats-to-mimic-arthritis-in-humans.html