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Loading...New Technology More Reliable and Ethical Than Animal Experiments
If you want to know how to cure diseases in humans, you want to test experimental treatments on whatever else is most similar. For years scientists have tested their hypotheses on non-human animals, like mice and rats. But extrapolating the results of medical and other scientific research from non-human animals to humans is a dubious undertaking at best. Other animals’ biologies are not the same as ours. They have similarities, often more than we like to admit, but not enough to draw reliable conclusions about the safety of medical interventions in human beings.
As reported by the American Anti-Vivisection Society, “Acetaminophen, for example, is poisonous to cats but is a therapeutic in humans; penicillin is toxic in guinea pigs but has been an invaluable tool in human medicine; morphine causes hyper-excitement in cats but has a calming effect in human patients; and oral contraceptives prolong blood-clotting times in dogs but increase a human’s risk of developing blood clots. Many more such examples exist.”
Not only are the results of animal experiments of limited use (if not downright dangerous), they are also cruel, painful and kill most of their subjects. 95% of the over 100 million animals who suffer and die in laboratories — this includes not just medical tests but food, cosmetic, chemical, and purely academic experiments — have no protection from cruelty. The federal Animal Welfare Act, which ostensibly protects animals in laboratories, doesn’t cover mice, rats, birds, and cold-blooded animals. As long as a lab-affiliated committee approves an experiment, the experimenter can do whatever he or she wants to these living, feeling creatures.
Happily, some scientists have turned their attention towards creating more effective and ethical alternatives to vivisection, like computer models and tissue cultures that have more in common with human physiology than any animal does. The Harvard Crimson reports that researchers recently developed a device that “simulates the microenvironment of the human intestine by creating a miniaturized three-dimensional scaffold that supports growth and development of a patient’s own cells—even including microbes essential for digestion and normal physiology.”
The lead researcher, Harvard University Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering Director Donald E. Ingber, said that one motive for his work is “the problem that animal testing really doesn’t accurately predict what happens in humans.” According to The Crimson, Ingber believes the new technology may allow scientists “to pursue a more comprehensive understanding of cellular pathways and medical prognoses.” It could be especially valuable for research into Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Harvard’s Assistant Director for Undergraduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering, Sujata Bhatia, said that the new device “does such a nice job of mimicking the actual environment of the intestine, it could be an amazing tool for both biomedical students and biomedical engineers.”
Ingber anticipates more devices that will improve upon and replace animal research, including technologies replicating human lungs and hearts and even the interactions among multiple organs. This is good news for animals and humans alike.
Related Stories:
Animal Experiments Increase in Labs
Urge the FDA to STOP Requiring Animal Experimentation on New Drugs!
Read more: animal experiments, colitis, Crohn's, Harvard, vivisection
Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
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I believe that in today's modern world with the technology we have, the alternatives all animals can be spared. I do agree that we need to have meds for our pets but most meds that humans use can be applied to our pets in different degree of dispensing or applying. Those that can't be means less animals use in lab testing but still use maybe terminal. There are excellent alternatives using programming, cultures, etc many. As far as meds for the humans well, why is it such a bad idea to consider using humans such as death row candidates? These criminals took from society by cold blooded killing of families, children. Rape horrific crimes. This is a way to give something back to society of what they took and to feel the pain suffering indirectly but by being told of what they did to these people. It may curb the violence. We need to ask ourselves why we pay so much for these criminals to have good lives in prison. They have colored tv, weight lifting, books to read even some get themselves education enough to get themselves out just to do all again. I don't believe in taking a life unless in self defense but they did and an eye for an eye ins' t so bad when they did the worse take a life which is against GOD it isn't so barbaric other countries adopt this and have less crime, violence. So, yes, animals need not be a part in experiments sense it is senseless they are nothing like us and those who can't be rehabilitated should be considered for lab experiments or shu
Thank you for sharing.
Ze C .......... Thank you for your "exposé" on the subject - very educational - but it still doesn't explain WHY animals are still being used WHERE THERE ARE VIABLE ALTERNATIVES AVAILABLE !!! People have spent (in a lot of cases) the best part of their lives to INVENT these alternative testing "machines" ..... and nobody seems to want to use them, despite their being cheaper, easier to use, and (in most cases) more effective ..... LUDICROUS !!!
Damn the character limit. Sorry for the multiple posts.
10. I was not aware that shelters SELL their euthanized animals to schools for teaching purposes. In my day, carcasses were donated, and the animals that were killed were not done so FOR the school; they would have been euthanized regardless. We kill billions of pet species in shelters every year due to people not being responsible enough to have their pets spayed and neutered. I feel that at least by giving these bodies to science their death is not totally in vain.
11. Veterinarians DO practice on live pet species during their training. I wouldn’t want my beloved pet to go under the knife of someone who had never done a surgery before, would you? Typically, animals used for surgical practice are euthanized before every waking up, or if they are allowed to recover, they are medicated with pain killers and sedatives to avoid pain and stress. Remember that veterinarians are in the business of making animals feel better, not torturing them.
I do not deny that there may be some researchers out there who truly do not care a fig about their animals, like there are those who do not care about their work in any field who do (how many bad child or adult care providers have been in the news over the years?), but I would be inclined to say that these are few and far between.
I agree that using animals in this manner is not ideal, and yes, even barbaric. However, I find the abuses in the food animal and fighting animals (dog and cock fighters, etc.) to be far worse, m
7. Most people who work with animals have a deep caring and appreciation for their animals. For most, it is an ethical consideration (as well as the law), but even for those that do not "care", it is in their best interest to keep their animals clean, happy, and healthy, as sick or stressed animals do not provide reproducible or reliable data which the FDA will not accept. Lab animals are also incredibly expensive. Even the cheapest lab mice can cost $50 to $80 per animal, so again it in the best interest of the scientist to keep them as happy as possibly.
8. IACUCs (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) that oversee animal use protocols, as mentioned in this article, are comprised of both scientists and laypeople, and are required to have at least one veterinarian (often more), as well as one or more folks who have no connection with the industry at all to read and approve every single experimental protocol. These meetings are also required to be available to the public in many cases. There is a lot of scrutiny and consideration.
9. People with incurable diseases DO volunteer and are used all the time in trials evaluating new drugs. They're called clinical trials, and are constantly being advertised and recruited-for by the drug companies and research institutions. They are the last step in a drug approval process, but think about this: would you want your mother with stage 4 breast cancer to be given a drug in a new clinical trial that might cure her cancer,
5. Pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, liver enzyme induction, and a host of other physiological functions are extremely similar in animals as in humans. They are never identical, but there are literally millions of peer-reviewed journal articles demonstrating that animal research, far from being in vain, is one of the best predictors of whether a drug will work in humans. Is it a perfect predictor? No. But neither are any of the “alternative” methods often suggested such as tissue culture which is far removed from the complexity of a multi-cellular organism.
6. Are any of you who are against animal research pure vegans (no meat, fish, dairy, eggs, honey, leather, keratin, or gelatin products)? If not, I would direct your attention to the 10 BILLION cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals that are crammed in cages, unable to turn around or lie down for YEARS, only to be slaughtered in front of their mates versus the 10 million (1000 times fewer) lab animals that are being utilized to try to make a better world for everyone (humans and other animals alike) rather than feed a society that eats 100 times more meat than it needs to (if any at all).
7. Most people who work with animals have a deep caring and appreciation for their animals. For most, it is an ethical consideration (as well as the law), but even for those that do not "care", it is in their best interest to keep their animals clean, happy, and healthy, as sick or stressed animals do
3. Contrary to what this article claims, there are lengthy laws detailing the ethics that need to be applied to ALL lab animals. These do become more stringent moving up the evolutionary scale. Mice, one of the lowest-on-the-evolutionary-scale mammalian species does have the least stringent laws. However, the law still requires that each animal have clean living space, ample fresh food and water, enough room to move around freely, stand up on hind legs, lie down, build a nest, have some form of environmental enrichment (like tubes or wheels), and share a cage with other mice whenever possible, as they are social species. Compare this to the way food animals are treated: pumped full of hormones, steroids, and antibiotics so they can be kept living in filth (cows in feedlots), often crammed in tiny individual cages away from their fellows where they can’t even stand up (chickens, pigs), or “grown” in immobilized state so their meat remains “tender (veal calves).
4. I think many researchers would prefer to use humans convicted of heinous crimes as "guinea pigs" as is sometimes suggested by readers, but this is currently not permitted by law. Perhaps those of you who believe this should be allowed should petition your senators?
5. Pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, liver enzyme induction, and a host of other physiological functions are extremely similar in animals as in humans. They are never identical, but there are literally millions of peer
A very compelling article, however, I would like to point out a few things, being someone who works in the industry. Apologies to those who have read my comments before. This is a very important issue, and I feel everyone should be involved and know the facts. The more transparent this is, the better for everyone. I do not claim to know everything about the industry, but I have worked in it for many years and have seen first hand how it works and what the laws are.
1. No researcher enjoys working with living animals. At our current level of understanding of biology and pharmacology, it is sadly necessary if we ever want to develop new drugs or therapies for both humans AND animals. Tissue culture does not mimic a whole organism, and computer models can only model what we ALREADY know. They cannot predict or demonstrate new ways a drug may act on a complex higher organism.
2. It is not the researchers who choose to do this work, it is the FDA that demands it. In other words, if a lab wants to apply for human clinical trials, some level of animal works needs to have been done first. To stop this work means no more new drugs for your family or your pets. You can sign a petition that is going around (link on this site recently) to urge the FDA to change these animal rules.
3. Contrary to what this article claims, there are lengthy laws detailing the ethics that need to be applied to ALL lab animals. These do become more stringent moving up the evolutionary scale. Mice,
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