Animal tests get renewed backing

[monkeytrousers]

here

I think this is a tricky one. I'm a vegetarian, mostly for moral and ethical reasons and I'd like to hope that one day science and medicine could move away from this area. But at the same time I couldn't campaign against such testing while it remains vital to medical research, as I would support stem cell testing also.

I was briefly a member of the BUAV but their language was increasingly sensational and overly emotive and that made me doubt their findings. I wanted a more middle ground stance.

What does anyone else think?

Dophus,

Do you know if the MCA (or whichever body is responsible) accept Indian-generated data as readily as UK data? Can we, as consumers, trust data from other countries?

Edam,

Do you know if the research labs treat animals worse than any other sector that deals with animals (eg: farms, vets, pet breeders, zoos, general public). It's easy to blame research labs for unusual cruelty but it seems that the RSPCA has more than enough to do just by dealing with cruelty among pet owners. I think we need to put these allegations into perspective.

Skeptic -

data would be accepted from any country. For publication it would be subject to scientific peer review. Within industry it would have to meet FDA quality control ( more about reliabilitya nd reproducibility).

Edam -

There were issues at Huntingsdon where a couple of technicians were convicted of animal cruelty. Just as some doctors and nurses occasionally hurt patients, childcarers sometimes hurt children. No one woould ever claim that all carers were cruel just as all animal scientists aren't cruel.

Thanks, Dophus

I never said all scientists are cruel. But many experiments on animals do involve cruelty by their very nature. Sawing the top of a monkey's head to get to their brain is cruel, although arguably justified if you need to study brain function. Creating animals which are bred to have deformities and the medical conditions is cruel. Arguably justified by the greater good but still by its very nature cruel. The question is, if you accept that animal experiments are justified, how do you ensure that pain and suffering is minimised? How do you ensure that only those experiments that are strictly necessary are carried out, and ensure that every single individual in the chain upholds the highest standards of animal welfare?

It's only cruel to take the top off a monkey's head if they do it while the monkey is unanaethetised, surely?

They wouldn't do the experiment if there wasn't any value in it. Granted, you may not find the evidence they collect valuable personally, but tolerating other people's values is part of living in a community, IMO.

Cruelty is a relative thing. At one end of the scale, only the lack of anaesthetics would be considered cruel by some people; at the other end of the scale keeping pet birds in cages would be considered cruel. Not everyone is going to agree.

Animals research is regulated by the Home OFfice. All researchers hold personal and project licences which detail the procedures that are allowed to be done. These are rated to their severity. The project licences are approved by a combination of peer review and by a dedicated home office inspector (who normally has a veterinary background). No unnessary suffering is allowed. Animals are always given pain relief and if judged to be suffering - euthanased.

Trust me - scientists do keep within the law and do not carry out unregulated procedures.

However the main reason that strict welfare guidelines are adhered to is that the people who work with animals are dedicated individuals who care about the aniamls they work with.

apologies for my typing and spelling. I have a baby on my knee

That makes so much more common sense than emotive, sensationalist &%$% put out by the anti-vivisection groups, Dophus.

I think when we hear about extreme cruelty for the sake of profits going on we should all step back and actually think about whether any of it makes any sense. What are the advantages of the cruelty? How exactly does it translate into profit?

Absolutely.

Why use animals that require fedding, breeding, and have of the Brazilian rain forest in regulations if you can use cell line and computer modelling alone.

For every molecule (drug) that makes it to man approximately 10,000 would have been produced. All of these would have been tested in immortal cell lines.
Approximately 100 will be tested in animals
Approx 10 will make it into healthy volunteeres
Half of these will make it into patients
Two into large scale trials
One into use.

It costs approximately one billion UD dollars.

Of the drugs which are launched only 1 in 7 is a commercial success (i.e. recuperates its investment).

Patents last 20 years and drugs will have been in develpment for approx 10 years prior to launch. This is why drugs are so expensive.

Good info, Dophus. It all makes sense.

As primarily a reader, nott always lurker of this thread I just want to say how much more I am appreciating the tone and content of posting.

It certainly gives me something to think about - as a mother. Like someone mentioned about Linda MacCartney - your perspective can change when things get more personal. Even still I do choose holistic healthcare over pharmacheutical medicines for my child - but she does not have a life-threatening disease that would make her life over those of tested animals a sacrifice I would have to bear. Because it would be a weight on my shoulders.

I am an extremely sporadic eater of meat - was vegetarian for 10 years. My reasons for being vegetarian are because I could not kill an animal without alot of trauma and I love animals like equals. So I do find animal testing difficult because the animal is my equal even if it is not my species. I almost dislike that aspect of my being that having to choose.

I understand the huge expense involved with animal testing that you mentioned Dophus. I read of a woman who in her 60´s went to work with Medicine Men in the South America jungle - alot of the plants they used had amazing healing potential, but she told in the article I read that companies in America were not interested. Higher expense perhaps? Or no allocation for that kind of research? I am not sure or cannot remember. But the reason I mention her and her work is because I feel (no expert, just feel) there are non-animal based potentials that have come and gone without real research of their potential taking place. That may seem emotive but a life is an emotive issue.

I agree that there are possibly jungles full of life-saving medicines. Whilst drug compaies do not generally directally go out into the jungle to find them they do indiretly use them. I can't quite remeber the name of the drug but it is mentioned at the Eden project in cornwall. Eli Lilly did develop a drug based on a natural remedy.

However the molecules found in nature are equally dangerous as those manmade (e.g. nicotine, caffeine, LSD venoms to name a few). IT is a a sad fact that few efective drugs exist without potentially uncomforatble or dangerous side effects. I would argue that even natural remedies need to be tested on animals for potentially dangerous side effects.

Chemical concoctions found in the rainforest would never be used for drugs as they stand. It would be a case of figuring out the active ingredient and then synthesizing it in the laboratory.

exactly

Yes, I do understand that science and society still would require testing upon rainforest concotions - and that it would be synthesised... cheaper than the real thing being the determiner there.

Dophus even though you would argue natural medicines require testing, there are alot of naturopathic and homeopathic remedies that are not tested on animals, alot of plant based remedies have evolved without it. I guess that is how alot of people living in rainforest discovered what worked for them - people testing via accident or trial and error.

There is an urgency in science to find remedies / save lives which puts animals lives at risk. Which for me is why regulation, technology and public opinion matters. I don´t support extreme fractions of animal rights movements, they often can damage on the other end of the spectrum like other posters have mentioned. But I have felt their rage in my heart.

Synthesizing in the lab is not to make the chemical entity cheaper - it's to make it pure, therefore reproduceable and free from potentially toxic or unpleasant impurities.

I think that I have read that out of the top ten drugs in use in the 'west' 8 were derived from a plant based material. But they still have to tested for safety. And that testing is on animals.

the regulation of animal testing in the UK is second to none, including spot checks by independents vets.

It would be cheaper though in the long term would it not?? It is like animal testing and the maintenance involved with keeping animals vs computer modelling I would have thought. I am sure its a rationale I have heard for synthesising.

On a side note AmeriScot if you recall during the chemical petition thread I said I was going to check out at my health food store for dishwashing tablets.. found some and they were discounted 20% No phosphates produced by a company called Held.. (swiss) www.held-clean.ch

www.held-clean.ch/pagesshop/Artikelkategorien/Artikeldetails/shop_detail.asp?ArtikelNr=73 lazy link sorree to actual product

Papill and others, bottom line question, if yous child dh had an incurable disease you you favour the lives of rats and mice or members of your own family?

Because that is the situation that I am in at the moment. This is not an annoying probelm that dh has, but a life threatening one. Frankly I don't give a damn if rats are killed tio get a treatment that will cure him. And if you are not in the same position as me, then you are lucky.

I don't deal in what its or maybes I want a cure. Now.

If you are going to make therapeutical efficacy claims about a drug in this country, it has to have a medicine license. To get the license, it has to be adequately tested and, at the moment, that means some amount of animal testing. In the future, as our scientific knowledge base increases, then we may be able to convince the government to reduce the amount of animal testing that it is required.

Just because indigenous peoples in some remote jungle use a specific plant for their various ailments, this is not "good enough" to meet pharmacological standards in this country. It's not that far off being an old wive's tale.

re computer simuations they are great so far. hands up all the people that have found a computer simulation good enough to model scizophrenia, or epilepy or depression?

Or one that can model the complexity of drugs metabolised by the liver and excreted by the kidney?

I'd love to see one, they would be cheaper and easier to use, but as yet they don;t exist!

They exist on the cosmetic level, HMB - ie the effects on skin.

But not when you look at very complex systems like the brain.

And people are totaly debiltated by diseases of the brain!