I develop drugs using animal research AMA

[1dayonly]

My work involves R+D, safety studies and I am a member of several national and international welfare working groups (including the EU ones until March).
Ask me anything

Thank you for answering my earlier question. I have another.
I remember as a teenager seeing the awful pictures. Of rabbits having stuff put in there eyes etc for makeup.
Is this not done anymore even for testing medicines that would go in the eye? Is it all injections etc?
I genuinely appreciate you fro what you do.

Thank you for answering my questions. Do you know why the staggered testing was not done in the two trials that ended badly?

Were the trial leaders (clinicians?) reckless? It must have been horrific when all the subjects became so seriously affected at once.

Did not know that about Botox!!

Have you ever had anyone infiltrate where you work?

*I remember as a teenager seeing the awful pictures. Of rabbits having stuff put in there eyes etc for makeup.
Is this not done anymore even for testing medicines that would go in the eye? Is it all injections etc? *
The scale for skin or eye irritation is called the Draize test.
Within Europe, in vitro tests for corrosive potential are now done rather than the Draize test as it was then (pre 1983, though the pictures are still available and used by animal rights advocates). However, for pharmaceuticals there is still the regulatory requirement for test items to be dosed by the clinical route: ie if a new eye drop were developed it would need to be tested by dropping into the eye. If adverse signs of irritation were seen we would grade them according to the Draize scale. The test vehicle and excipients are already well characterized and in my >30 years in pharma development I have never seen a positive Draize result.
I cannot speak for the chemicals industry but my understanding is that the eye Draize test is no longer a regulatory requirement for chemicals. The scale may also be used for skin irritation which is still important for worker safety. The scale is a measure of inflammation: swelling, redness, exudate. No positive result is good, and is always avoided where possible by prior use of an in vitro test.

Thank you for answering my questions. Do you know why the staggered testing was not done in the two trials that ended badly? Were the trial leaders (clinicians?) reckless? It must have been horrific when all the subjects became so seriously affected at once
I was involved as a peer reviewer in one of the investigations. In both cases the reviews showed multiple causes, including dose selection, volunteer informed consent and study design. In my view hindsight is a wonderful thing and I believe that an adverse reaction in at least one participant was unavoidable, but in both cases a more cautious clinical regime could have prevented adverse signs in some participants.

Have you ever had anyone infiltrate where you work?
I think that everywhere that works with animals in this way has had either unsympathetic employees who become 'whistle blowers' or attempts by those who want to make a point to infiltrate. I actually think that generally it's a good thing: no-one should become complacent when the stakes are so high and no-one should ever forget what these animals give up so that we can do what we do.
I do have an issue where films are released with animal suffering: the infiltraters are employed in good faith to be animal carers or whatever, so if there is an animal in distress they should be calling a vet not making a movie.
There was an awful one from a German lab a few years ago: monkeys with rods attached to their skulls for brain research (far more specialized and invasive than what I've ever done) that were filmed on a remote camera by the technician who was actually the one being mean to them. There was awful footage of animals after surgery recovering from anaesthetic made out to be animals in distress etc. The person who took the film should have been helping them.

Short answer: probably yes, but there hasn't been a movie or expose yet.

Lots of the bigger animals have names and have a close bond with their carers

Sorry, what a load of bull. From a human point of view you can’t form a bond with something that you’re more than happy to inflict pain on! If you truly had a bond with an animal, or claimed to be an animal lover, you wouldn’t be able to do the job! I love my dog, I feel devastated if I accidentally stand on her paw. I would feel exactly the same way if I stood on a snail. I could never in my life imagine purposely causing pain to an animal or any living thing, and still claim to have a bond with it!

I honestly don’t know how you could purposely do something knowing that animal will feel pain and gain absolutely nothing from it. I am judging you and I think it takes a ‘special’ human being to do your job. I use the word ‘special’ because the word I wish to use would only be removed.

these animals give up so that we can do what we do

The animals don’t “give up” anything!! They never had the chance, and most importantly choice to give anything up!

I have an issue where films are released with animal suffering: the infiltraters are employed in good faith to be animal carers or whatever, so if there is an animal in distress they should be calling a vet

You’re a hypocrite.
How can you perform your job knowing full well you’re causing those animals pain and distress, and yet claim to have an issue with others who don’t call out a vet to animals which are in pain?
If my dog was stolen to be used for dog fighting or testing etc (I know the latter doesn’t happen but let’s pretend..) I would rather my dog die than be tested on.... ‘saved’ by the vet.... only to be tested on again.

And yes I am vegan. I’m not a hypocritical meat eater who thinks animal testing is wrong but killing them for food is okay.
Nor do I take any medication.

From a human point of view you can’t form a bond with something that you’re more than happy to inflict pain on! If you truly had a bond with an animal, or claimed to be an animal lover, you wouldn’t be able to do the job! I love my dog, I feel devastated if I accidentally stand on her paw.
I would never have a lone dog living in my home. They would have no opportunity for normal behaviour. Dogs are pack animals.
Presumably you would be willing to give your dog a daily injection if they developed a thyroid condition requiring regular treatment? That would cause them pain but be for the greater good. I've already said that I'm speciest: for me the greater good is the treatment of man.

I'm signing off now.
more info on the legislation if you want to know more

Kenny - you’ve never taken medication? I find that hard to believe. You’re extremely lucky if you’ve never been poorly enough to need medication. What would you do if you did (god forbid) become unwell and without medication you wouldn’t survive?

Thanks OP for the work you do - very interesting post.

Keep working hard op. I'm sure the people getting at you would be the first in line to use the drugs if their ill child desperately needed them. And if not it's their morals I'd be questioning not yours. My friend who works in research is very careful just what she tells people. I am massively proud of what she does and how hard she has worked to get there. I'm sure your loved ones are of you too.

Why aren't you test the drugs on criminals (e.g. paedophiles, murderers and similar)?

@Onecutefox, freedom to live without torture is a basic human right.

I'd question the morals, sanity and emotional state of anyone who could willingly torture a human being.

As with the death penalty there is always that minor chance that the convicted are innocent and i wouldn't like to place that guilt on another person because it would make them as bad as the perpetrator.

Yes, there's always the "unless they're 100% proven without doubt guilt" debate but we cannot ever guarantee that this is the case.

I'd question the morals, sanity and emotional state of anyone who could willingly torture a human being.

If they can torture innocent people sure they deserve a good punishment. Why should innocent animals suffer if there are other "animals" who could serve this purpose?

Anyway, thank you OP for answering the questions. Interesting to know about the Botox.

I am not a vegetarian but I also don't like this hypocrisy when meat eaters love cats and dogs as pets but eat meat which comes from animals who also enjoy this world.

I would like to see murderers and child rapists used for experiments instead of animals. They could pay back a bit to society and produce some more valid results than animals. Apart from illegality and maybe personal ethics, what would be the pitfalls here OP?

Sorry I realise the last few comments were along those lines. I read a certain amount then wandered off for a while.

Ok so I'm belying my username as an ethical vs science question has come up, but I'll definitely be off after this: so much cleaning and wrapping to do!
I would like to see murderers and child rapists used for experiments instead of animals. They could pay back a bit to society and produce some more valid results than animals. Apart from illegality and maybe personal ethics, what would be the pitfalls here OP?

I'm going to try and ignore the ethical issue of using prisoners in this way as a pp has covered it well. I'll say again that I'm a speciest so dosing people who don't need the drug before an assurance of safety from animal studies wouldn't sit well with me.

The scientific reasons why this would not work:

1. People aren't clean or healthy enough and the background data are too variable.

Animal safety studies rely on tight limits on animal health, age, and background information on the strain so that we can use clinical pathology and micropathology to see changes related to treatment with the test item. The study designs use the lowest possible number of animal to give sufficient statistical power to recognize real findings from background noise. The more background noise, the bigger the studies need to be.

1. There aren't enough prisoners to make a statistically valid determination, which means patient populations could not receive safe treatment.
2. Even if we had the death penalty for some crimes there would not be enough organs to examine.
3. People live too long: carcinogenicity testing of pharmaceuticals is done by dosing very low multiples of the clinical (human) dose of drug for an animal's lifetime. Basically we dose groups of animals until half of them have been euthanized due to illnesses of old age. They live healthy lives and then we put them to sleep at the end of their lives. The remaining animals are examined in great detail for any signs of tumours or abnormal cell growth in any of their organs. To do similar studies in humans (if we could find enough healthy ones which we couldn't) would delay patient treatment for 70+ years after the drug could have been used. Imagine a world where we have no antibiotics a a cut on the finger could kill you. That's where we'd be even with the same scientific knowledge if we used humans instead of animals for testing.

Well, OK, 3 is spurious reasoning. Edward Jenner wasn't limited by an ethics committee and he discovered vaccination by dosing a little boy with smallpox after giving him a dose of cowpox to test a theory. Edward Jenner got lucky. I suspect that if someone tried that nowadays a thousand daily mail readers would come after him with pitchforks.

In summary:
prisoners aren't healthy enough to show the results well enough. It's just wrong.
*Even if enough healthy people were available and willing to do clinical trials without non-clinical studies first (hey...students are generally in better health) we couldn't kill them and get the data needed; even if we could biopsy all the organs instead of sectioning them we don't have the surgical skill to biopsy every organ and prevent someone bleeding out.
*Using people would delay development of necessary pharmaceuticals and cost patient lives.

Thank you @1dayonly for such an interesting thread.

I am pleased there are scientists like you doing these things in order to help humans. You have come across as intelligent, compassionate and thoughtful about what you do.

Thank you from me too. Such an important career helping so many people.

Thank you for that thorough and fascinating reply re the science being human testing being unsuitable. I do realise that most people would probably also struggle ethically with it even if it came without all the pitfalls mentioned. Very interesting thread. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing on this thread- I think it's so important that people understand a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.

The aim is obviously not to cause suffering. The hope is that drugs are non-harmful and useful so that they can go on to the next stage and eventually help people.

In a former life I worked in a research environment where behavioural studies were carried out on animals (largely very benign stuff). In my opinion, many of the animals kept in such environments have better overall welfare than many pet animals of the same or similar species.

For example:
-Social animals are not allowed to be kept in social isolation unless this is justifiable for the period of the study. How many rats are sold in pet shops every day, to go on to be kept alone in a private home?

-The environment they are kept in and the enrichment available has been judged to be suitable.

-They are cared for by trained and knowledgeable people.

-They should always receive veterinary care if they need it. How many posters do we see on here debating whether or not they should take a dog to the vets?

In my opinion/experience, there is far more animal suffering through ignorance in private homes around the UK than in lab settings. In lab settings, every effort will be taken to minimise suffering (by people who are actually knowledgeable about what can cause that species to suffer). This isn't the case in other settings.

Are all the 'animal lovers' on here vegans then?
FGS as if trialling drugs on rats should be stopped when developing kids life saving medicines.
I'm sure you'd all turn down such medicines if it were your child who needed it. Ya know, being ethical and moral and all that.

@1dayonly can I ask, what kind of conditions are the animals kept in? Do they ever get toys, forms of enrichment, exercise, or treats?

@kennycalmit

A blessed live you lead not to have to take any medication. Thsts not a virtue though, or something you've achieved through hard work, it's luck.

Have any of the animals ever gone on to be adopted into normal homes? I’ve seen a video about beagles from a lab being adopted.