Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Education And Debate

Does animal experimentation inform human healthcare? Observations from a systematic review of international animal experiments on fluid resuscitation

BMJ 2002; 324 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.324.7335.474 (Published 23 February 2002) Cite this as: BMJ 2002;324:474

Rapid Response:

Re: Animal Experiments do not inform on human healthcare

Experiments on animals waste time and money which could be much
better spent.Funding the implementation and development of non-animal
methods of research and testing, directly applicable to humans, would
result in better therapies and more effective medications. Resources now
being wasted on archaic and misleading animal studies should be redirected
to health education, healthcare and preventive medicine.

To even consider using non-human animals which are phylogenetically
further removed from humans for research purposes has no basis in
science. Animal experiments are scientifically invalid because of species
differences. The effectiveness of treatments and the measurement of safety
in humans does not correlate with the results of toxicity,
carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and teratogenicity tests in
animals.Therefore, no matter how few or how many animals are used or
experiments performed, there can be no 'model' to compare with humans.

Humans suffer from diseases that have uniquely human manifestations.
The only people calling for more vivisection in the light of the knowledge
that has come from the human genome project are those who will profit
financially from more vivisection.

Competing interests: No competing interests

28 February 2002
Sheila Edwards
retired teacher
PO BOX 15825, DUBAI, UAE