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Loading...What If Animal Testing Brought A Cure For Cancer?
If medical research on animals would pave the way to a cure for cancer, would it be OK? A pharmaceutical company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada is putting the question to the test; they’ve credited a key study using mice to a breakthrough treatment for brain and breast cancer.
biOasis Technologies, Inc. released a statement that their new medical regime looked promising to stop the growth of tumors in human patients with metastasized brain cancer and breast cancer. During the past year, the company has conducted research by transplanting highly aggressive human breast cancer cells under the skin of mice and treating them twice a week for six weeks with their new drug, BT2111, Herceptin (R) or a placebo. The tumors in the mice of the control group grew by a devastating 400 percent. The tumors in the mice that received the new treatment were completely stopped and the animals had very few side effects.
Advocates like those from the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine have argued in the past that “animals are poor models” for studying human diseases. In addition to the pain and suffering endured by the animals, much of the research has resulted in outcomes that do not cure human ailments. The theory says that human and animal physiology is different and just because a treatment shows promise in an animal study, the likelihood of it showing the same results when it is retested on humans is limited.
However, the scientists at biOasis sidestepped this argument by injecting the mice with human cells. Their report stated the model the company used is “accepted industry-wide as a gold standard for assessing the performance of new and emerging drugs to treat cancer.” They believe the regime will translate to a “potentially life-saving treatment” for human patients.
So has the world entered a new phase of medical research? Scientists around the world are experimenting in new ways on animals such as this one that posted on Care2, “Genetically Modified Camel Milk Could Help Produce Pharmaceuticals.”
The biOasis research will now be sent for further collaboration with Texas Tech University. It will be years before it will be available for the average cancer patient or further studies may prove that it will never become a new medical miracle. Whatever the outcome, the question will still stand before us as to whether the sacrifice the animals paid in the name of human health is acceptable.
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Read more: animal cruelty, animal research, animal rights, animal testing, animal welfare, biomedical research, health policy, human rights
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More recently than Hippocrates, John Hill noticed an environmental cause from the dangers of tobacco use in 1761 and published a book “Cautions Against the Immoderate Use of Snuff”. In 1775, Percivall Pott of London observed occupational cancer in chimney sweeps which appeared to be caused by soot collecting under their scrotum. This led to further identification of occupational carcinogenic exposures and public health measures to reduce cancer risk. So the environmental causes of cancer were known long before vaccinations became widespread.
To simplify history for those who haven't studied it well, I have taken the liberty of finding an easy website to start with and copying a few paragraphs here that are well researched and widely accepted as fact. In fact, I have studied Ancient Greek and Hippocrates myself.
"The word cancer came from the father of medicine, Hippocrates, a Greek physician. Hippocrates used the Greek words, carcinos and carcinoma to describe tumors, thus calling cancer "karkinos." The Greek terms actually were words to describe a crab, which Hippocrates thought a tumor resembled. Although Hippocrates may have named "Cancer," he was certainly not the first to discover the disease. The history of cancer actually begins much earlier."
The world's oldest documented case of cancer hails from ancient Egypt, in 1500 b.c. The details were recorded on a papyrus, documenting 8 cases of tumors occurring on the breast. It was treated by cauterization, a method to destroy tissue with a hot instrument called "the fire drill." It was also recorded that there was no treatment for the disease, only palliative treatment.
There is evidence that the ancient Egyptians were able to tell the difference between malignant and benign tumors. According to inscriptions, surface tumors were surgically removed in a similar manner as they are removed today.
http://cancer.about.com/od/historyofcancer/a/cancerhistory.htm
Sandra:
You might be interested to know that Cancer started with the Polio vaccine. Government insisted we all had to have it, later discovering it gave you cancer, so took out the problem and that is when the sugar cube was born.
That generation has peaked now, as has cancer. It is transferable though I would assume less so with each generation.
Certainly our life styles have generated it's own nightmare also now, but for many they had no idea how little their health meant to the big corporate companies.
The countries less effected by cancer refused to freak out over Polio and did not make it mandatory, thinking us fools, and have not to this day been effected to cancer as we are.
We aren't fools, we are money grabbing heartless opportunist. In any case animals are not to blame and deserve protection from the strong, not pain and carnage.
There is big money in the animal trade for science and until people stand up for them and quit buying products that are using these tactics, it will go on. Note too that Co.s that say not animal tested by them. True but some countries where they make their products insist on animal testing. So... a true statement neatly wrapped in a lie.
Since cancer in humans is a cellular response to irresponsible lifestyle choices and manmade environmental factors, why should animals be forced to pay the painful price of OUR transgressions. Our bodies are OUR temples! If we choose to abuse ourselves, then that is on us. My g-d! We have even BRED ANIMALS TO HAVE CANCER for our own selfish purposes. If you ask me, humans deserve to die of cancer. Stop the research, stop the treatments, and put the money into cleaning up the toxic environent and the toxic food supply and you'll see a 95% reduction in cancer deaths. Cancer doesn't kill you, anyway. The "treatment" does.
@Virginia Y: The BEST answer I have read so far. People need to read more and inform themselves about the effects of big drug companies and the treatment approved by the FDA too!! (Which is mainly occupied by people who have interests in the big drug companies AND Monsanto, etc, who manipulate our information too).
What if we quit pumping ourselves full of carcinogens?? Who knows how far we could lower the rates of cancer if quit injecting glutaraldehyde, formaldehyde, 2-phenoxyethanol, aluminum and more in the form of vaccines. The carcinogenic effect of vaccines have never been tested and yet we continue to use them and add to the cancer rates...and the more vaccines, the more cancer. Scientists don't even bother to track it in any way, shape or form. It's up to the people to do so. It's a multi-billion dollar industry run amuck.
Here is the kicker Andrew.. do you think the Nazis were looking for a cure for cancer or just enjoying what they were doing? Following the big dollars? What if's don't bring a cure.. I doubt the camps were concerned about cures, but more there to satisfy their sick curiosities. If you read about some of them you'd know better. " Carl Vaernet is known to have conducted experiments on homosexual prisoners in attempts to cure homosexuality. Experiments on twin children in concentration camps were created to show the similarities and differences in the genetics of twins, as well as to see if the human body can be unnaturally manipulated" Wow really? Did they do this in the name of science or just to kill and torture one segment of society they deemed as " less than themselves?" ....Get this.. they are not interested in a cure.. the money is in the treatment.....
TESTING ON ANIMALS IS WHERE YOUR BAD DRUGS COME FROM THERE ARE THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO TEST DRUGS FOR HUMANS AND THAT IS TO USE A HUMAN THIS IS THE ONLY WAY ,DEATH ROW INMATES ,LIFER INMATES PRISIONERS THAT WILL NEVER GET OUT OF PRISION
Helene, in response to your comment that is quite a bit above this one already, you are right about following the money. Not only have there been billions of dollars spent to find a cure for which none is found that pharmaceutical companies are willing to back; but also follow the money to see why cancer cures which have already come out are suppressed. Hemp oil and a couple of fruits and herbs (don't have list of them in front of me at the moment) have been proven to cure some Cancers. The animal testing seems to be, as far as I can tell, just another way of creating pain and bloodshed and negativity for the Earth as the pharmaceutical companies are owned by the same elite who want to decrease the world's population.
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