- 21
- JUN
Posted by Zebedee under blog's category : Antivivisection & extremism
The animal rights group Animal Aid has launched a campaign against medical research charities who fund animal research. The campaign has been condemned as irresponsible, illogical and ill-conceived, and scientists warn that the threat to boycott medical research charities could set back research ‘by decades’.
The Independent and its sister newspaper the i have featured the story today. The front page headline in the i is ‘Charities at War’. The leader column is an excellent explanation of why animal research is still vital to medicine.
'There are alternatives. Drugs can be tested on human tissue and living cells grown in the laboratory. But it will be years before they replace animals. What alarms many is the sharp rise in animal testing over a decade – which reflects the big increase in funding for medical research, public and private. The development of genetically modified animals has also improved understanding of how humans will respond to a treatment.'
Lord Willis of Knaresborough, Chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, said:
‘On behalf of all our members, the use of animals in science is taken with extreme caution and is funded only where absolutely necessary in order to find breakthroughs which will relieve suffering and bring hope to literally millions of patients, not only in the UK but around the world. We can give an assurance that all research involving animals conducted by our members is rigorously regulated by UK legislation demanding high standards of animal welfare. Complying with measures to replace, refine and reduce the use of animals in research is a priority for all 126 of AMRC’s members.’
Professor Colin Blakemore, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford said:
'This is an utterly irresponsible attack by Animal Aid on the some of the most important charitable contributors to medical research in this country.These charities have a duty to use money given to them in the most effective way to support patients and to understand and treat disease. They support research on animals only when it's absolutely essential and where there's no alternative. If Animal Aid were successful in discouraging donation to medical charities, they would be guilty of delaying progress towards treatments and cures for devastating conditions.'
Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council said:
'The use of animals in medical research remains absolutely essential. Animal research is an integral part of understanding how basic systems of the body work and what goes wrong with them to cause disease. Most modern medicine and surgery exists because of animal research. When we fund animal research, we do so knowing that all the alternatives have been exhausted and our scientists are subject to the world’s strictest regulations. We support those charities, universities and institutions that abide by the strict ethical and legal framework for use of animals in research – we know their work has helped make advances in some of the biggest health challenges of today and will ultimately save lives.'
UAR wrote a 500 word opinion piece for the Independent, which was cut to under 200 words. We make no apology for including the full text here:
'All mainstream medical and scientific organisations around the world agree that animals are essential in scientific research, medicines development and safety testing. Animal research is necessary to understand the body in health and disease, and to develop new and improved treatments. The use of animals in research is never undertaken lightly. Every single animal research project must be approved before it starts by inspectors who are all doctors and vets, and by local ethical committees. Competition for research funding is strong and all funding organisations – including medical research charities – will only fund top quality, relevant research. The potential scientific and medical benefits of the research, and the possible suffering of the animals used, are weighed up carefully before any animal research project can proceed.
No-one wants to use animals in research, and no-one would use them unnecessarily. Animal research is considered a last resort, to be used only when there is no alternative. In the UK, strict regulations and a licensing system mean that animals must be looked after properly and may not be used if there is any other way of doing a piece of research. Most of the animals used are rodents and fish – cats, dogs and primates are used in less than 1% of UK animal research.
Animal studies are used alongside other types of research. Such ‘alternative' methods – which in fact make up most of medical research – include the study of cells and tissues grown in the laboratory, computer-modelled systems, and human patients, volunteers or populations. But it is the nature of research that scientists do not rest on their laurels – they are constantly searching for new and better ways of doing their work. This includes finding alternatives to animals, and we even have a dedicated body in the UK , the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research, to focus on this.
In just the last month we have seen reports ... of exciting research in vital areas that are attacked by this antivivisection report. These include: research using mice, stem cells and a new drug which shows how the heart may be able to repair itself; research using rats which suggests that a ‘memory switch’ could help Alzheimer’s patients; a new approach to cancer vaccines which has been used to treat prostate tumours in mice and was successful four out of five times.It is difficult to see how these advances could have been achieved without animal research.
Millions of people are alive today thanks to medical advances, most of which have depended on animal research. The gold standard treatment for Parkinson’s disease ? a ‘brain pacemaker’ ? could not have been developed without research on monkeys. Even so, there are still diseases without adequate treatments – for example Alzheimer’s, many cancers and heart failure. We strive to improve the ways we do research, making use of new technology such as imaging wherever possible, but for now animals remain vital to advancing medical research.'
Also highly commended is a blog today by Cancer Research UK explaining the importance of animal research to cancer treatments.
You are welcome to leave comments here or on the Independent website. We particularly liked the comment:
'As a direct result of reading this article I have just logged on to my bank account and increased my direct debit to Cancer Research UK. I urge everyone else who reads this to do the same. Let's poke these evil Animal Rights people in the eye.'
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Get in-depth information on the contribution of animal research to medicine
Comments
Hi Gaspode,
Just replying to your point about animal models used to mimic different diseases (you mentioned stroke as an example).
I agree that there animal models of diseases often don’t perfectly mimic the human condition. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing! Diseases are complex and affect many different physiological mechanisms at once.
When trying to understand which of all the affected mechanisms that is actually causal for the disease it is good to have a model that only shows one of the hallmarks of the specific disease. By comparing the effects of each one of these abnormal changes individually (ie in different animal models) we can pin-point the cellular/molecular/genetic changes that actually led to the development of a disease. Once this has been established, we can start developing drugs that target that specific mechanism and (once we think it's safe) test these in people.
Whilst studies on human patients are invaluable when is comes to finding out which (eg molecular) changes occur in a disease, they do not by themselves show which one of these are detrimental. Indeed, some of the changes that occur are actually protective!
This is why research done in patients and animal models of diseases are complementary – with neither being sufficient in itself to help us develop new medicines.
I wouldn't disagree with you that most scientists are very conscientious about applying the 3Rs to their research, and about caring properly for their animals. The issue which I think needs more debate concerns the scientific validity of their experiments. Both internal and external validity are problematic, as shown by surveys of study design quality (eg the 2009 NC3Rs survey by Kilkenny et al and papers by Pandora Pound and Malcolm Macleod) and well-documented failures of specific models eg stroke. We should soon see the results of a study of ten years of primate research by the MRC, BBSRC and Wellcome. That could also raise questions about validity.
So I don't think it's sufficient to say that most statements in the Animal Aid report are false. A more detailed rebuttal is needed.
Gaspode:
I agree with you that there is a risk of turning it into a 'Them & Us' debate - because of distraction from the two main issues which are (1) the welfare of animals used in research, and (2) the scientific reason for using them.
As someone who works with animal testing I can only say that the animals in the facilities where I work receive an extremely high level of care which probably surpasses that of most pets. We do everything in our power to ensure that any pain or distress they experience is either eliminated or reduced. Of course, there will be times of discomfort. I doubt, however, that this comes anywhere near that which eg a wild rat experiences (due to lack of food, predators such as cats, rats poison etc.).
My main objection to Animal Aid's report (which I have read thoroughly) is that it most of their statements are actually false. This may be because neither of the authors is a scientist - and therefore have difficulties understanding scientific issues - or because they have purposefully misrepresented the truth to gain support. Either way, it is very irresponsible to publish such a 'report' as it spreads misinformation. For example, many of the treatments they claimed were developed not using animals have in fact been thoroughly tested before given to patients!
I believe it would be beneficial for animal welfare to have a constructive discussion of how to improve the welfare of animals used in research even further. But such a discussion can only be had with people who stick to the truth.
It's so depressing to see such an important issue, or collection of issues, treated like a debate in the Commons - it's Them and Us, and no-one can give ground. There are some very important questions raised by the report, concerning the use of animal models which seem to have little predictive value, about the quality of experimental design, and about peer review. These problems have been raised in respectable scientific journals. I would like to hear what people think about these issues, not what they think about Animal Aid.
Just so everyone can see exactly how Dr Smallwood and his Animal Aid chums twist the meaning of … well everything. I 'll add the entire post in the Independent, from somebody calling themselves Thrasos, that he suggests are encouraging violence against himself.
'As a direct result of reading this article I have just logged on to my bank account and increased my direct debit to Cancer Research UK. I urge everyone else who reads this to do the same. Let’s poke these evil Animal Rights people in the eye.'
So, in Dr Smallwood’s mind urging donations to medical research charities becomes a threat. Perhaps he has been associating with animal rights activists – the masters of the incitement to violence followed swiftly by a disclaimer – for too long.
Though perhaps too we should be understanding of Dr Smallwood’s anger, after all the principal effect of his campaign so far has been to encourage increased donations to the very charities he is targeting. Oops!
Well done to CRUK for standing by their principles, supporters and the patients who depend on their work.
For those too young to remember, a Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick) is the title of the first show, in 1976, of the Secret Policeman's Ball series of comedy benefit shows for human rights organisation Amnesty International.
So a 'poke in the eye' should not be taken too literally. To do so suggests a sense-of-humour bypass. I'm also surprised that Adrian Smallwood didn't google the phrase. He seems to have spent some time with google recently, searching for research funded by charities that he thought he could misrepresent and discredit.
Or maybe Smallwood didn't use primary sources at all but just took the references from the writings of Ray Greek and the handful of scientists and doctors around the world who like to write this type of 'cargo cult science' (you can google that one too).
As for 'evil', well the writer didn't actually refer to Smallwood as evil, but animal rights activists in general. If the cap fits, as they say ...
As someone who has lost a close friend to cancer and another to AIDS, as someone who is aware that many breakthroughs in science come through enlightened individuals such as Darwin, Einstein, Jenner and Semmelweis I urge all scientists who are continuing to experiment on animals as predictive for human response to read the latest contribution in science by Americans for Medical Advancement: Animal Models in Light of Evolution, Drs Ray Greek MD and Niall Shanks PhD.
This book encompasses the diverse fields of evolutionary biology, complexity, genetics and genomics, the philosophy of science, biological theory and empirical evidence. It shows that empirical evidence alone proves that animals cannot predict human response to drugs and disease. When this evidence is set in the context of the evolutionary biology of complex systems, including genetics and epigenetics, science has both theory and evidence to explain why animal models cannot now predict human response to medicines and disease and why animal models never will be able to do so.
There is a FAQs about the use of animals in science: a handbook for the scientifically perplexed to accompany this great work for the lay person, or non-scientist.
No science view should be aired without reading these two books first.
As co-author of the report, I've directed the media to your 'liking' of a defamatory quote that calls me evil and wishes me a poke in the eye. I'm sure Cancer Research UK are also delighted to be associated with such reasoned argument against violence.