Majority of GPs now question the scientific worth of animal tests
06
Sep 2004
Majority of GPs now question the scientific worth of animal
tests, with 82% worried for their patients' safety
Patient advocacy group Europeans For Medical Advancement
commissioned a survey of 500 General Practitioners, conducted by
TNS Healthcare (http://www.tns-global.com)
between 5th - 17th August 2004. The
company, which has many large pharmaceutical clients, selected the
GPs so as to ensure a thorough demographic and geographical UK
spread. The results show a staggering level of distrust in results
obtained from animal experiments:
-- 82% were concerned that animal data can be misleading when
applied to humans
-- only 21% would have more confidence in animal tests for new
drugs than in a battery of human-based safety tests
-- 83% would support an independent scientific evaluation of the
clinical relevance of animal experimentation
This confirms what Europeans For Medical Advancement
suspected - that a silent majority of doctors today are aware that
animal tests are not the safety net the public and the medical
profession are frequently assured they are by the government and
the pharmaceutical industry.
In fact, there is evidence that testing new drugs and
treatments for human disease on animals endangers human health and
safety - for example, hormone replacement therapy increases
women's risk of heart disease and stroke, even though studies in
monkeys predicted the opposite. Aidsvax failed to protect 8,000
volunteers from HIV, even though it protected chimpanzees. Dozens
of treatments for stroke have tested safe and effective in animals
in recent years but patients have been injured or killed by all of
them. Please see http://www.curedisease.com
for many more examples.
The clinical relevance of animal research requires urgent
evaluation - a fact now accepted amongst the medical profession
but not by the government, which "has not commissioned or
evaluated any formal research on the efficacy of animal
experiments and has no plans to do so".* A paper published in
the BMJ on 28th February 2004 asked “Where is the evidence that
animal research benefits humans?” If such evidence cannot be
found, the practice should cease. Patients will benefit because
they will no longer be damaged by misleading data, and also
because the resources currently pouring into animal research will
be freed for clinical research.
Medical Director of Europeans For Medical Advancement, Dr.
Ray Greek, commented,
"An independent, transparent and public evaluation of the
scientific value of animal experiments is clearly overdue. My
medical colleagues have long been frustrated by the
Establishment's refusal to debate this issue openly. We believe
they must now do so. Today, we are studying disease on the
molecular level, where differences between species make mistakes
inevitable. Today, medicine is much more evidence-based and it is
time to weigh the real harm from animal experiments against the
alleged benefits."
Lib Dem Shadow Environment Secretary
Norman Baker MP said,
"This is an important survey result which
rightly questions the extent to which it is safe to rely on
extrapolated results from animal tests. There needs to be a debate
about this matter, rather than the sterile one which the media has
created, artificially juxtaposing "animal extremists"
with "men in white coats". While I utterly condemn the
unlawful and intimidatory actions of a few extremists, it is wrong
to suggest, as the media does all too often, that the scientific
and medical community is all in favour of experiments on animals,
and that they all feel safe with extrapolating the results. They
aren't, and they don't."
* Written answer from Home Office Minister Caroline Flint
to parliamentary questions by Mike Hancock MP (April
2004)
Notes to Editor
Contact: Kathy Archibald, Director of EFMA, 0779 228 9066 / 01728
451436
The questions above were:
1) Does it concern you that animal data can be misleading
when applied to humans? 82% yes, 8% no, 10% don't know
2) Today there are many sophisticated methods of testing
drug safety, including pharmacogenetic studies using DNA chips,
virtual human metabolic prediction programmes and micro-dosing
studies where volunteers are monitored with PET and other
scanners. Would you have more confidence in a battery of these
human-based tests than in data from animal tests? 51% yes, 21% no,
28% don't know
3) Would you support an independent scientific evaluation
of the clinical relevance of animal experimentation? 83% yes, 8%
no, 10% don't know
Europeans For Medical Advancement is a mainstream
science-based non-profit research and educational institute
dedicated to improving human health by modernising biomedical
research. We oppose animal experimentation, based on overwhelming
scientific evidence that findings from animal models cannot be
reliably extrapolated to humans. Far from helping us, animal
experiments directly harm people, divert funds from genuinely
useful research methods and are a major obstacle to medical
progress today. See http://www.curedisease.com
Dr Greek is co-author of three books on the human costs of
animal experiments: Sacred Cows and Golden Geese (Continuum,
2000); Specious Science (Continuum, 2002) and What Will We Do If
We Don't Experiment on Animals? Medical Research for the 21st
Century (Trafford, 2004) - all available from EFMA@curedisease.com
http://www.curedisease.com
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