Does animal testing help human medicine?

33 facts to consider.1) Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals.  Over 98% never affect animals.

2)  According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree"5%-25% of the time."

3) Among the hundreds of techniques available instead of animal experiments, cell culture toxicology methods give accuracy rates of 80-85%

4) 92% of drugs passed by animal tests immediately fail when first tried on humans because they’re useless, dangerous or both.

5) The two most common illnesses in the Western world are lung cancer from smoking and heart disease.  Neither can be reproduced in lab animals.

6) A 2004 survey of doctors in the UK showed that 83% wanted a independent scientific evaluation of whether animal experiments had relevance to human patients.  Less than 1 in 4 (21%) had more confidence in animal tests than in non-animal methods.

7) Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer to humans – less use than guessing.  The experimenters said:“we would have been better off to have tossed a coin."

8) Rodents are the animals almost always used in cancer research. They never get carcinomas, the human form of cancer, which affects membranes (eg lung cancer). Their sarcomas affect bone and connective tissue: the two arecompletely different.

9) The results from animal tests are routinely altered radically by diet, light, noise, temperature, lab staff and bedding. Bedding differences caused cancer rates of over 90% and almost zero in the same strain of mice at different labs.

10)Sex differences among lab animals can cause contradictory results. This does not correspond with humans.

11) 75% of side effects identified in animals never occur.

12) Over half of side effects cannot be detected in lab animals.

13) Vioxx was shown to protect the heart of mice, dogs, monkeys and other lab animals.  It was linked to heart attacks and strokes in up to 139,000 humans.

14) Genetically modified animals are not like humans. The mdx mouse is supposed to have muscular dystrophy, but the muscles regenerate with no treatment.

15) GM animal the CF- mouse never gets fluid infections in the lungs – the cause of death for 95% of human cystic fibrosis patients.

16) In America, 106,000 deaths a year are attributed to reactions to medical drugs.

17) Each year 2.1 million Americans are hospitalised by medical treatment. 

18) In the UK an estimated 70,000 people are killed or severely disabled every year by unexpected reactions to drugs.  All these drugs have passed animal tests.

19) In the UKs House Of Lords questions have been asked regarding why unexpected reactions to drugs (which  passed animal tests) kill more people than cancer.

20) A German doctors' congress concluded that 6% of fatal illnesses and 25% of organic illness are caused by medicines. All have been animal tested. 

21) According to a thorough study, 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs which passed animal tests.

22) 61% of birth defects were found to have the same cause.

23) 70% of drugs which cause human birth defects are safe in pregnant monkeys.

24) 78% of foetus-damaging chemicals can be detected by one non-animal test.

25) Thousands of safe products cause birth defects in lab animals – including water, several vitamins, vegetable oils, oxygen and drinking waters.  Of more than 1000 substances dangerous in lab animals, over 97% are safe in humans.

26) One of the most common lifesaving operation (for ectopic pregnancies) was delayed 40 years by vivisection.

27) The great Dr Hadwen noted "had animal experiments been relied upon...humanity would have been robbed of this great blessing of anaesthesia."

28) Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (heart drug), cancer drugs, insulin (which causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would be banned if vivisection were believed.

29) Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies.

30) The polio vaccine was delayed 40 years by monkey tests.

31) 30 HIV vaccines, 33 spinal cord damage drugs, and over 700 treatments for stroke have been developed in animals.  None work in humans.

32) Despite many Nobel prizes going to vivisectors, only 45% agree that animal experiments are crucial.

33) The Director of Research Defence Society, (which serves only to defend vivisection) was asked if medical progress could have been achieved without animal use. His written reply was "I am sure it could be."

See 50 disasters of animal testing  here.

References

1)  Page, Dr T, "Vivisection Unveiled", John Carpenter, 1997, p6

2)  'Animal Toxicity Studies:Their relevance to man Lumley & Walker (ed) pp57-67, Quay, 1989  

3)  Clemedson C, McFarlane-Abdulla E, Andersson M, et al. MEIC Evaluation of Acute Systemic

Toxicity. ATLA 1996;24:273-311,  http://www.pcrm.org/resch/anexp/in_vitro_tests.html

4)  Nature Biotechnology 1998; 16:1294

5) Heart disease: Gross, D, Animal Models in Cardiovascular Research, Martinus Nijhoff Pub 1985. 

Smoking: New York Times, December 6 1993

6)  GP survey (2004) commissioned by patient safety group Europeans for Medical Progress

(www.safermedicines.net)

7)  F J Di Carlo, Drug Metabolism reviews15, p409-13

8) R Peto, World Medicine Vol 79, 1979

9) D.Spani, M. Arras, B. Konig and T. Rulicke, 'Higher heart rate of laboratory mice housed

individually vs in pairs', Laboratory Animal Welfare, Vol. 37, No. 1, Jan 2003, Science

Magazine www.sciencemag.org Volume 298, Number 5602, Issue of 20 Dec 2002, p. 2321

10) EJ Calabrese, 'Toxic Susceptability: Male/female differences, quoted in Page "Viv Unv.", p41

11) AP Fletcher in Proc R Soc med, 1978;71, 693

12) Clin Pharmacol Ther 1962; pp665-672

13) Current Opinions in Lipidology, BMJ  2005;330:212

14) Fletcher, AP et al, 1976 Stroke, vol 7, pp135-142

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16) Journal of the American Medical Association 14/4/98

17) Journal of the American Medical Association 14/4/98

18) Nature Medicine 2000; 6:502-503

19) Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Lords Hansard report 2/12/98

20) Professor Hoff, Congress of clinical medicine, Wiesbaden, 1976

21) Munchner Medizinische Wochenschrift, no 34 1969 quoted in Hans Reusch "Slaughter of the

Innocent", p365

22) Munchner Medizinische Wochenschrift, no 34 1969 quoted in Hans Reusch "Slaughter of the

Innocent", p365

23) Developmental Toxicology: Mechanisms and Risk  JA McLachlan, RM Pratt, C L Markert (Eds)

1987 p313

24) Biogenic Amines (Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 97–145 (2005)

25) Lewis, R. J., Sr. (1989). Sax’s Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials. 7th edn. John Wiley,

New York.      Turbow, M. M., Clark, W. H. and Dipaolo, J. A. (1971). Embryonic abnormalities in

hamsters following intrauterine injection of 6-aminonicotinamide, Teratology4 (4), 427–431      Beall,

J. R. and Klein,M. F. (1977). Enhancement of aspirin-induced teratogenicity by food restriction in

rats, Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 39, 489–495.     Klein, K. L., Scott, W. J. and Wilson, J. G. (1981).

Aspirin-induced teratogenesis: a unique pattern of cell death and subsequent polydactyly in the rat, J.

Exper. Zool. 216, 107–112.      Slone, D., Siskind, V., Heinonen, O. P., Monson, R. R., Kaufman, D.

W. and Shapiro, S. (1976). Aspirin and congenital malformations, Lancet 1, 1373–1375.    Werler, M.

M., Mitchell, A. A. and Shapiro, S. (1989). The relation of aspirin use during the first trimester of

pregnancy to congenital cardiac defects, New Engl. J. Med. 321, 1639–1642.      Wilson, J. G. (1977).

Current status of teratology. General principles and mechanisms derived from animal studies,

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26) Birmingham Daily Post, 4/10/1892

27) Dr Hadwen 'The difficulties of Deguerre, p357, & General Anaesthesia, Gray/Utting/Nunn, p152

28) Aspirin & Insulin Hans Reush, "Slaughter..", p364:Cancer, NAVS Campaigner 1988

Jab/Feb):Digitalis, Page "Viv. Unv." p9  Penicillin , Mark Matfield, r2, Brian Hayes Show,19/4/94

29) K. Walker, The Story of Medicine, Hutchinson, 1954.  R. McGrew, Encyclopedia of Medical

History, MacMillan Press, 1985.  A. Gastiglioni, A History of Medicine, (1947 edition translated by

E.B. Krumbhaer) Ryerson Press, 1941

30) Paul, JR, 1971 'A History of Poliomyelitis'. Yale University Press, p385

31) Spinal cord: Journal of the American Paralegic Society11;23-25, 1988

Stroke: Nature Medicine 2002; 8 (1):5 Future of neuroprotective drugs in doubt, also Stroke 1990

21: 1-3. 

HIV: Poignard P, Sabbe R, Picchio GR, et al. (April 1999). "Neutralizing antibodies have limited

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Berman PW, Gregory TJ, Riddle L, et al. (June 1990). "Protection of chimpanzees from infection by

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Connor RI, Korber BT, Graham BS, et al. (February 1998). "Immunological and virological analyses

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32) Research Defense Society Website, 1998

33) Written reply to enquiry by member of the public quoted in "Viv. Unv.", p101