{"id":765648,"date":"2021-11-06T08:39:11","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T12:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=765648"},"modified":"2021-11-06T09:22:28","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T13:22:28","slug":"behind-lab-doors-could-there-ever-be-a-world-without-animal-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=765648","title":{"rendered":"Behind Lab Doors: Could there ever be a world without animal testing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

In 2018, researchers from the University of Oxford tested a new cardiac drug on a virtual human for side effects with an accuracy of 89-96%, compared to 75% using rabbits.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

JAMES HOCKADAY:<\/strong> When Anna Marsh was 20, she was prescribed an antidepressant called Nardil. Doctors warned the art student that she might put on some weight, but instead she grew thinner and found herself constantly drained of energy. Her fatigue became so extreme that she would often lie on the worktops at the Royal College of Art during her lunch break because she was too exhausted… Had Anna known her medication would have damaged her liver \u2013 leading to hepatitis and causing two years of debilitating fatigue \u2013 she says she never would have taken it…<\/em><\/p>\n

After being told to come off her meds straight away, which induced \u2018terrifying nightmares and hallucinations\u2019, Anna then became so sick that she had to go back to her mum\u2019s home in Suffolk and undergo daily blood and liver function tests… Now 73, Anna refuses to take any pills and won\u2019t drink alcohol out of fear of what might happen to her liver… After all she went through, she became convinced that animal testing on medicine is not effective as it purports to be \u2013 as it wasn\u2019t enough to prevent her ordeal… Ever since, she has spent her life campaigning for techniques she believes are more relevant to human bodies. It is clearly a touchy subject, as Anna asked for her name to be changed for safety reasons.<\/em><\/p>\n

After protesting outside the Huntingdon Life Sciences laboratory in Suffolk in the late 90s, she woke up the following morning to find her front garden had been torn to shreds by saboteurs. \u2018People who protest against animal testing have been demonised,\u2019 she says. \u2018The other side will say \u201cyou care more about animals than people\u201d, but that\u2019s not true, I\u2019m living proof it\u2019s not true \u2013 we need better science for everybody.\u2019 It may have been 50 years since Anna\u2019s health scare, but there have been more recent cases of medicines showing promising signs in animals but harming people.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2006, human trials for a drug called TGN1412 \u2013 designed to fight leukaemia, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis \u2013 ended in disaster. Within 16 hours of the drug being administered to eight young health men, they were all rushed to London\u2019s Northwick Park Hospital with multiple organ failure. The drug had shown good signs in rabbits, dogs and monkeys, and human subjects were given a dose that was 500 times smaller. In interviews that followed, the men involved described feeling like their \u2018eyeballs were going to pop out\u2019 and that their brains \u2018were on fire\u2019…<\/em><\/p>\n

Campaigners suggest that cases like this show that animals process chemicals differently to people and therefore aren\u2019t the most reliable test subjects. \u2018Let\u2019s say chocolate was a drug that was going to cure depression and we did normal animal testing,\u2019 explains Dr Donna MacMillan, a scientist for Humane Society International (HSI), an organisation dedicated to improving animal welfare worldwide \u2018Chocolate is toxic to dogs, so we would throw that out at that stage, even though we know people can eat it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Because they\u2019ve been used for so long and all the time, resources and investment have always been in animal tests up until very recently. \u2018If we were able to redirect funding into new technologies and develop more innovative novel approaches then we\u2019d be able to move away from that.\u2019 And many countries do appear to be doing just that \u2013 albeit at a slower pace than campaigners might like.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month the European Parliament passing a resolution to move away from animal testing \u2013 demanding the European Commission set out a plan. Meanwhile US Senators Rand Paul and Corey Booker introduced a bill to end mandatory animal testing. Just last week MPs in the UK argued passionately on the subject during a Parliamentary debate, following a government petition to ban animal testing signed by more than 235,000 people. Comedian Ricky Gervais has also started a parliamentary petition of his own calling for lab animals to be included in the Animal Welfare Act \u2013 signed by 100,000 people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Clearly the demand for an end to animal testing is there, but is the technology? Already scientists are using computational models which can predict whether a chemical is likely to be toxic to humans. They can improve as they are fed more data \u2013 known as machine learning \u2013 and can even employ artificial intelligence for better accuracy. In 2018, researchers from the University of Oxford tested a new cardiac drug on a virtual human for side effects with an accuracy of 89-96%, compared to 75% using rabbits.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr MacMillan says computational models can have a good idea of a chemical\u2019s impact, even if it\u2019s new and has been nowhere near a human… Dr MacMillan adds this could be a more reliable way of predicting a drug\u2019s effect than using an animal, which she likened to a \u2018black box\u2019. \u2018If you run the same test in 10 different animals, you only get the same answer seven times out of 10,\u2019 she says.<\/em><\/p>\n

Another tool already being used by scientists are bio-engineered miniature organs, grown using human skin cells and used to test drugs. \u2018A blinking eye has been created, and a breathing lung and a beating heart and a kidney that produces urine,\u2019 says fellow HSI scientist Dr Lindsay Marshall. They don\u2019t look anything like an organ you\u2019d take from a human, she adds, rather it\u2019s a functional unit of cells that have the same physiological function…<\/em><\/p>\n

On top of this, there are 3D lab produced tissue models \u2013 artificial human skin \u2013 which can be used to test the irritability or corrosiveness of a chemical. Such models have led to a huge decline in the Draize test \u2013 which sees chemicals put on rabbits\u2019 skin or eyes. By combining results of several techniques and putting it through a strict mathematical model, scientists can assess the hazards of a drug in what is known as a next-generation risk assessment. In the summer of 2021 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development adopted guidelines for this method to be used to test human skin\u2019s sensitivity to chemicals instead of mice…<\/em><\/p>\n

Given that many of these alternatives are already used by scientists, the big question is: why is animal testing is still a requirement across the world? \u2018The regulators have to be risk averse, they can\u2019t afford to let something out on the general public that they have any concerns about,\u2019 explains Dr Marshall. \u2018I don\u2019t think they can see an easy way to replace it so they\u2019re kind of just ticking along with that because it would take a lot for them to revisit their entire processes, everyone would have to be on board.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

However, there is already one organisation in Britain dedicated to doing just that. The NC3Rs awards millions in funding to a wide range of institutions with this aim of refining animal tests, reducing unnecessary suffering, and hopefully one day, replacing it altogether. It recently published a paper clarifying that forcing rats or mice to swim for antidepressant trials is not a requirement.<\/em><\/p>\n

One researcher working in regenerative medicine told Metro.co.uk how he hates working on animals but is nonetheless bound by UK regulations. He asked not to give his name, given how people in his field have had bombs planted under their cars in the past by animal rights activists. \u2018The scientific community are trying to be a bit more public about this \u2013 providing more information so the public can understand the topic better,\u2019 he says. \u2018But the people telling you that aren\u2019t the ones with targets on their backs’…<\/em><\/p>\n

Chris Magee, head of policy and media at Understanding Animal Research, believes animal rights groups often paint a narrative of scientists as being uncaring on this issue… \u2018When the day comes that we don\u2019t use animals, it won\u2019t have anything at all to do with the anti-groups,\u2019 he says adamantly. \u2018They undermine the case for further investment by pretending that we\u2019re already there. We\u2019re not… \u2018I get it that they\u2019re passionate about it, but they\u2019re also trying to steal the glory of the long march of science and they\u2019re trying to paint people as psychopathic idiots’…<\/em><\/p>\n

Chris says that animal testing for the vaccine was \u2018crucial\u2019… Although some people have been concerned about how quickly the Covid vaccine was developed, there\u2019s been little outcry on what it was tested on \u2013 and neither has stopped over 45million people becoming fully vaccinated… \u2018I did wonder at the beginning, is this going to make people change their minds about animal research because it happened at a faster pace?\u2019 he admits… Dr Marshall says this is because \u2018animal research as a body does a really good job of promoting itself\u2019. \u2018I feel like it\u2019s really been rammed down my throat how important the animals are and how much of a hero the animals were, as if they had any say’. <\/em>SOURCE…<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED VIDEOS:<\/strong><\/p>\n