PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. Animals for research by Wim D'Haeze, Ph.D. The stark contrast between the aggressiveness of the actions organized by some animal activists who aim to protect animal rights and welfare by banning animal research on the one hand, and the importance and relevance of the scientific data obtained based on animal research on the other hand fuels to date’s debates and discussions. Around the world, animals are used for testing products ranging from soaps and cosmetic products to drugs against cancer. Animal research is necessary as the molecular basis of diseases that strike millions of people worldwide, such as AIDS, Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, hepatitis, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, is still not fully understood. Regulatory bodies request efficacy and safety data for new drugs based on animal experimentation before clinical trials in humans can be initiated. Due to animal testing, the likelihood of adverse effects occurring during testing in humans can be significantly reduced allowing safer creation of new therapies. In 2002 in the UK alone, approximately 2.7 million animals, including mice, rats, rabbits, carnivores, hoofed mammals, primates, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, were used in scientific research. Animal testing has substantially contributed to the production of drugs against rabies, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and tuberculosis, diseases that have a worldwide appearance in common. More particularly, animal tests have also shown that accutane/roaccutan, a medicine to treat severely disfiguring skin diseases, is highly likely to cause birth defects. In addition, the use of animals for scientific research was also indispensable for the production of certain antibiotics, HIV drugs, and cancer treatments, and the development of organ transplantations and open-heart surgery techniques, to mention a few. However, it is important to remark that in some cases, animal responses to exposure of a drug may be different than those in human responses, and animals living in laboratory and crowded conditions experience stress which influences the response to a given treatment and leads to unreliable results. While most biomedical institutions and pharmaceutical companies are enforced to follow strict federal and national regulations for the use of animals in research, abuses are still reported in some cases, animals may die from exposure to a certain treatment, and they live in small cages suffering from stress. Throughout the past decade, millions of dollars provided by governments, but also by pharmaceutical companies, were dedicated to support research for alternatives that could substitute animal research. Aiming to reduce the number of animals used for research was initiated by the three R’s principle publicized in 1959 – replacement (i.e., use alternative research and testing methods that do not require the use of animals), reduction (i.e., use statistics to reduce the number of animals that must be used in each experiment), and refinement (i.e., improve the experiment to reduce animal discomfort and to ensure proper and humane care of animal subjects). In this respect, it has been shown that the use of advanced statistical methods and modeling may help to reduce the number of animals used for scientific research illustrated by a method developed to test diphtheria and tetanus vaccine by measuring the level op antibodies in an animal. Accumulating data also suggest that if mice and rats prove sensitive for certain tests, they do not need to be repeated in, for instance dogs. Certain hormones and vaccines (e.g., polio vaccine) can be produced in cultured human cell lines which eliminated the use of extensive numbers of monkeys. Skin tests can be conducted using artificial skin materials instead of shaved animals. In addition, advanced scanning and imaging techniques and autopsies reveal substantial information without the requirement of animal testing. Obviously, animal research to test the safety and effectiveness of novel drugs is important in cases when alternatives are not yet available, but sense of torturing animals during the development of various cosmetic products is definitely arguable. Ultimately, nonhuman primates are good research subjects because of their close taxonomic relationship with humans. The chimpanzee, for instance, is the only species apart from humans, that is susceptible to infection with human hepatitis viruses. There is no alternative model to study vaccine strategies for this disease. However, those experiments may be accompanied by stress, suffering, and even death of the laboratory animals. This is what is tackled by animal activists who strive to ban animal research to protect the rights of animals. In my opinion, actions by animal activists would be acceptable if they were peaceful, but several aggressive actions such as the placements of bombs and the threatening of scientists and their families reported during the past years make one wonder why? Of course, scientific research in which animals are abused is absolutely unacceptable. Notwithstanding the stringent regulations for animal research worldwide, those practices are unfortunately still a reality. Virulent actions, however, will not solve those problems and may lead to the loss of valuable research instead. Animal activists may have extreme opinions based on misunderstandings and misinterpretations, a situation which could benefit from fruitful, informative, and constructive dialogue between the public, scientist, and policy makers. Scientists may be perceived as distant and unwilling to openly speak about their research which may suggest that they have something to hide. A survey performed by the journal Nature among 1,682 readers working in the biomedical sector demonstrated more dialogue among the numerous parties involved is desired. More discussion groups organized by biomedical institutions, but also by pharmaceutical companies, and the open-access publication of informative articles regarding the importance of animal research and the reasons for performing experiments in animals may, at least in part, solve such problems. In addition, a complex ethical review process and legislation is in place and often perceived by scientists as a hurdle which not only guaranties that animal rights are respected as good as possible, but also ensures that no scientist will perform research on animals if no decent alternative is available. Nonetheless, a minority of scientists performs research thereby ignoring welfare of animals and those are most likely the heart of the problem. It is the responsibility of governmental organizations to clear such labs. Besides dialogue, it is also important that all scientists involved in animal research know which products have been tested in which animals and which transgenic animals are available. Unfortunately, most of the scientific research in general and the majority of the animal research is still not accessible to all scientists and definitely not to the public. This is a major problem which leads to the use of many more animals than actually necessary as some of the research is duplicated because of malinformed scientists and the lack of a uniform worldwide body that controls and reports about animal research worldwide. Importantly, patent law and the protection of intellectual properties will have to be adjusted to generate such a freely accessible database of crucial animal research information. In conclusion, animal research remains important for the development of novel therapeutic strategies and it is in the interest of science and humanity that all people involved are on the same page. It is the responsibility of the researchers to professionally and honestly interfere when the discussion become political. It is the responsibility of the public, and particular to animal activists, to be critical, but also professional in reviewing research projects that involve animals. After all, it is likely that everyone will sooner or later need a medical treatment and the fact is that almost every medical treatment has relied on animals to develop it. Wim D’Haeze is Bio-Engineer in Chemistry and received his Ph.D. in Biotechnology at Ghent University (Belgium) in June 2001. His doctoral thesis work was focused on the understanding of several early steps of the symbiotic interaction between the Gram-negative soil bacterium Azorhizobium caulinodans and the tropical legume Sesbania rostrata. The initial steps require the production of bacterial compounds including signal molecules and complex surface polysaccharides that are pivotal for invasion of the plant tissue and the formation of new organ tissues. In the three subsequent years, he performed post-doctoral research at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA) dealing in part with the structural and functional characterization of azorhizobial extracellular polysaccharides. Currently, Wim D’Haeze is employed as Science Writer and focuses on a new horizon regarding the molecular basis of devastative neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, in order to screen for and develop new therapeutics. In addition, he is also a freelance Medical Editor. E-mail: wim.dhaeze@sbcglobal.net. ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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