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;324:474All rapid responses
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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
In reply to the article ‘Does animal experimentation inform human
healthcare’ (BMJ 23 February Pp474-476) I would like to make the following
points.
How can we predict from animal experiments? Are we like mice or rats
(which often react in opposite ways to each other)? Are we more like dogs
or rabbits? Regardless of whether the rats die or the dogs thrive it is
always the first human volunteers to take the new drug/treatment who are
the real guinea pigs.
The problem of species differences was dramatically demonstrated when
the government recently discovered (2001) that cow brains had been used
for ‘BSE in sheep’ research, instead of sheep brains. The research was
dismissed as the wrong species had been used.
For over 200 years animals have been used in cancer research yet
there are more cancers now than ever before with 1 in 3 people affected.
There is also a modern epidemic of asthma, allergies, AIDS, Alzeimers,
autism, diabetes, ME and degenerative diseases.
Suspicion falls on the obsession with (usually animal tested) synthetic
chemical based drugs, vaccines, cosmetics, food additives, pesticides and
other synthetic environmental toxins.
The ‘pill for every ill’ culture has failed miserably and the NHS cannot
cope with the resulting tide of illness.
In 1998 a survey found adverse drug reactions to be 4th in the list
of causes of death – after heart attacks, cancers and strokes (1).
Only when researchers use proper human based science can we have
confidence that we are doing our utmost to ease human suffering from
disease.
Yours sincerely
Gillian D Russell DCR
Retired Neuro-radiographer. Medical Consultant’s wife
(1) Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) 14/4/98
Competing interests: No competing interests
The article 'Does animal experimentation inform human
healthcare? Observations from a systematic review of
international animal experiments on fluid resuscitation'
fails to mention the ethical consideration of animal
experimentation, i.e, the simple question of what gives
us the right to use animals for testing.
Secondly, the authors fail to give due attention to
the fact that profit-driven test results can be and are
manipulated to suit the sponsor's requirements. There are
also numerous other features they choose to ignore, e.g.,
how drugs which are deemed safe when administered to
animals can and do result in severe ADRs, including death,
when prescribed to humans. The 'warning' sections of the
FDA and CSM websites clearly testify to this reality.
Incidentally I write as one of the many type 1 diabetics
who on being changed to animal-tested 'human insulin' lost
all warnings of hypoglycaemias, and also began to suffer
CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), resulting in the loss of my
job and home. The list of complications I now suffer,
which would not have manifested themselves in animals,
is almost endless.
If the article is an attempt to defend animal testing,
then it fails - as all such attempts must do.
David Mitchell.
B.A.(Hons), MPhil, PhD.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Fluid Resuscitation in Animals
The debate concerning whether or not we can 'learn from animals' is
far more subtle than the responses to this article [and others] suggest.
It depends on the problem and on which species, moreover the lessons of
comparative medicine are most useful when the 'model' has sufficient
similarities to suggest its relevance and enough differences to make it
informative. Blanket assertions that we can not learn from animals are
naive but equally, many generalisations about humans fall when we start to
look at ethnic differences and, increasingly,genetic predisposition.
In the speciific instance of this review of fluid resuscitation after
haemorrhage there are some exceedingly odd features. First, it confounds
therapy aimed to increase circulating volume [eg isotonic sodium-based
solutions] with hypertonic sodium solutions whose benefit in shock
probably rests on pharmacological properties other than their minuscule
and transient impact on circulating volume. Second it contains no species
routinely treated for haemorrhage by veterinary surgeons, probably because
it cites no veterinary journals; treatment of haemorrhage in sheep is
scarcely routine and in pigs it is exceedingly unusual. There is a
substantial literature on the use of hypertonic saline and, of course
various other fluids, to treat haemorrhage in other animals, notably cats,
dogs and horses. Finally it makes the usual assumption that research in
animals is synonymous with studies in laboratory animals, mainly rats. The
transected tail model in rats is a particularly misleading one since the
clean transection of the major artery is likely to predispose to re-
bleeding problems once arterial pressure starts to rise. This may be
relevant to some forms of clinical haemorrhage but I doubt if it is a good
model for most. I would also doubt that studies with controls denied any
fluid resuscitation after haemorrhage were any longer scientifically or
ethically justifiable: the use of positive controls is appropriate.
The greatest value of relevant research in appropriate species of
animals is that comparative medicine is essential to remind us that humans
are not unique; they are animals of a particularly interesting type. Only
then can we start to think sensibly about questions such as how much salt
mammals need and how much is detrimental, why some animals are more
suceptible to extremely high blood pressure yet resistant to its damaging
effects, and to capitalise on the fact that spontaneous tumours in
animals, equivalent to those in humans, may be a most useful intermediate
step in evaluating new treatments, between tumours induced in experimental
rodents and those experienced by human patients. Awareness of such
opportunities is all too low in the medical community but it will form the
subject of an all day symposium at the Royal Society of Medicine
[Comparative Medicine Section] later this year.
Competing interests: No competing interests