danielson said:
question- if animals are needed for medical research, would an organisation like PETA protest? and to what degree would they protest?
(im/my family is a memeber of some protection societies but PETA aint one of them so im quite curious)
That is a really interesting debate.... I don't really know anything about that but this stuuf is interesting..
Alternatives: Testing Without Torture
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In the near future, laboratories might be hanging signs outside their doors saying, “No admittance to rats and rabbits.” Alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable, both for cosmetics and household product tests and for medical research. In most cases, non-animal methods take less time to complete, cost only a fraction of what the animal experiments they replace cost, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible.
Products Without Pain
Pharmagene Laboratories, based in Royston, England, is the first company to use only human tissues and sophisticated computer technologies in the process of drug development and testing. With tools from molecular biology, biochemistry, and analytical pharmacology, Pharmagene conducts extensive studies of human genes and how drugs affect these genes or the proteins they make. While some companies have used animal tissues for this purpose, Pharmagene scientists believe that the discovery process is much more efficient with human tissues. “If you have information on human genes, what's the point of going back to animals?” says Pharmagene cofounder Gordon Baxter.(1)
Instead of dripping chemicals into animals’ eyes to test toxicity, researchers can now grow a thin layer of cells on a membrane and monitor changes in electrical resistance in the cells as they are exposed to test chemicals.(2)
Avon Products, Inc., which until June of 1989 killed about 24,000 animals a year to test its products, now uses many non-animal tests, including the Irritation Assay System (formerly known as Eytex and Skintex) and an in vitro test used to assess irritancy levels of substances. It mimics the reaction of the cornea and human skin when exposed to foreign substances and can be used to determine the toxicity of more than 5,000 different materials.
Corrositex is an in vitro test approved by the Department of Transportation as a substitute for the traditional rabbit skin test. The test assesses corrosivity using a protein membrane designed to function like skin. The method gives results in just a few hours for as little as $100 per test.(3)
Three companies have developed artificial “human skin” which can be used in skin grafts for burn victims and other patients and can replace animals in product tests.(4)
Scientists can also use mathematical and computer models, based on physical and chemical structures and properties of a substance, to make predictions about the toxicity of a substance. One such software package, TOPKAT, which predicts oral toxicity and skin and eye irritation, is used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Army.
Using computers, scientists have built an accurate working model of a human heart that will allow researchers to test new treatments electronically before they are attempted on humans. Computerized “virtual organs” predict how drugs will be absorbed and metabolized, so drug companies can now test the effects of substances electronically before ever trying them on a person.
Other toxicological test kits allow drugmakers and cosmetics manufacturers to run tests that indicate whether the compounds used in products will cause cancer or other medical problems. Using integrated molecular assay systems that show how human and animal bacterial cells react when exposed to various compounds, the kits allow manufacturers to test thousands of potentially toxic compounds a year more quickly and cheaply than the compounds could be tested through the use of animals.(5)
Medical Applications
In medicine, perhaps the most informative research takes place not in test tubes, but in hospitals and clinics and the offices of statisticians and epidemiologists. Clinical surveys, human volunteers, case studies, autopsy reports, and statistical analyses permit far more accurate observation and use of actual environmental factors related to human disease than is possible with animals confined in laboratories, who contract diseases in conditions vastly different from the situations that confront humans. Long before the famous “smoking beagle” experiments began, statisticians and epidemiologists knew that cigarette smoking caused cancer in humans, yet programs to warn people about the hazards of smoking were delayed while more animal tests were carried out (to the satisfaction of the tobacco industry) and proved “inconclusive.”
Time and Money
Non-animal tests are generally faster and less expensive than the animal tests they replace and improve upon.(6)
In cancer studies, animal tests of a single substance may take four to eight years and cost $400,000 or more, whereas short-term non-animal studies cost as little as $200-$4,000 and can be completed in just days. The dangers of waiting years for results of animal tests are apparent: In 1985, the EPA determined that three animal tests had not shown a sufficient degree of danger in the pesticide Alar, and it called on the manufacturer to conduct still more cancer studies on animals. Now, years later, these studies are still incomplete. Although the EPA has pulled Alar from the market, non-animal tests would have taken a matter of days or months, not years, and could have meant that fewer consumers would have come into contact with Alar-treated products.
Learning to Help Without Harming
More and more medical students are becoming conscientious objectors, and many students now graduate without having used animals; instead, they learn by assisting experienced surgeons. In Great Britain, it is against the law for medical students to practice surgery on animals, and many of the leading U.S. medical schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, now use innovative, clinical teaching methods instead of old-fashioned animal laboratories. Harvard, for instance, offers a Cardiac Anesthesia Practicum, where students observe human heart bypass operations instead of dog labs.
Moving Forward
Professor Michael Balls, head of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), says, “Many regulators feel more comfortable with animal tests, even with tests that are known to be unreliable and of questionable relevance.”(7)
For scientific, health, ethical, and economic reasons, researchers and regulators must switch their focus to non-animal tests, and the large number of animal experiments that are conducted more out of “curiosity” or habit, rather than out of a real need for information, should be eliminated at once.
What You Can Do
• If you own stock in a company that conducts animal tests, introduce a shareholder resolution opposing the use of animals.
• Ask the FDA to stop requiring cruel and obsolete animal tests for pharmaceuticals and allow companies to substitute in vitro tests.
References
Reuters, “British Company Pioneers Non-Animal Tests,” 29 Aug. 1996.
“New Toxicity Test Designed to Spare Laboratory Animals,” Orlando Sentinel, 23 Aug. 1996.
Wade Roush, “Hunting for Animal Alternatives,” Science, 11 Oct. 1996, p. 168.
Lawrence M. Fisher, “3 Companies Speed Artificial Skin,” The New York Times, 12 Sep. 1990.
David Algeo, “Big Plans on Tap for Xenometrix,” Denver Post, 18 Oct. 1996.
Barnaby J. Feder, “Beyond White Rats and Rabbits,” The New York Times, 28 Feb. 1988, Sec. 3, p. 1.
Shelley M. Colwell, “Alternative Action,” Soap/Cosmetics/Chemical Specialties, 19 Oct. 1996, p. 56.
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is a groovy dude
Just bein' a pig for fun, no harm meant.
, i bet if someone was living next to one of those guys he wouldn´t have to worry about air conditioning.
