This week's issue of Nature includes a variety of content on animal experimentation, including the results of an anonymous poll of biologists (80% claimed to conduct animal experiments), editorial content in favor of animal testing on the one hand and more openness on the other, along with interviews with vivisectors aimed at revealing their "nuanced" views.
The editorial piece on the poll is predictable in its endorsement of vivisection, but does acknowledge that there are issues with the way it is communicated.
Animal research saves lives. That is the mantra often used to counter verbal and physical attacks on animal researchers and their institutions by animal-rights activists. And it is unquestionably true: animal research has made many valuable contributions to medical science.
However, the simplicity of the slogan barely does justice to the complexity of the issue. From a scientific point of view, for example, it is clear that certain animal models are useful: the neural prosthetics that promise to restore some independence to paraplegics, for example, arose from curiosity-driven studies of the primate brain (see Nature 443, 122; 2006). But others are imperfect: certain mouse models of cancer, for example, do not accurately mimic the disease in humans, and may even have hampered the development of some drugs (see Nature 442, 739–741; 2006).
May have hampered some drugs? Well that's the understatement of the year, don't you think? 90% of drugs are abandoned without going to human clinical trials. And of those that prove "safe and effective" in animal models, 92% (even more for cancer drugs) don't make it through clinical trials and on to the production line. Some 40% of drugs that do go to market ultimately undergo major relabeling for risks and side effects or are withdrawn entirely. Given all of that, all the Nature editors can muster is that animal models may have hampered the development of some drugs? At least they acknowledge there are some faults.
Onward.
The responses of anonymous invididuals show that there are indeed barriers in the "system" to expressing concerns about welfare, adopting the 3Rs, etc. One participant implies that she is forced to do unnecessary tests and/or tests that she apprently wishes she did not have to do in order to move vaccine candidates through the pipeline:
"As a researcher in the field of HIV vaccine development, I am placed in a very awkward position regarding the use of non-human primates," said one immunologist. "I personally feel uncomfortable with primate research yet I realize that without primate data, vaccine candidates are rarely forwarded to human trial."
Another investigator who uses human data where others continue to rely on animal experiments reports being eschewed and criticized by peers:
It can even be hard, some said, to express nuanced opinions (such as the idea that most, but not all, animal research is strictly essential) within the community of researchers, let alone with the public.
"I am more concerned that the scientific community, rather than the animal-rights movement, makes it difficult to voice a nuanced opinion on animal research," said one neuroscientist, whose research involves using imaging to study the brains of human patients.
It seems that even those who want to move towards epidemiological animal studies over "models" per se encounter resistance. One woman who is trying to use this approach because epidemilogical studies will provide better science and allow her to help individual animals in the context of clinical practice, told her story:
"Naturally occurring diseases might be a better reflection of what is going on in a human than inducing something in a mouse or a rat. People's pets that spontaneously develop these overwhelming infections need the treatment, and we would be more responsible because we are not actually creating diseases in animals."
Otto says she's had a hard time getting a hearing for her proposal from researchers resistant to change.
Another article in Nature's series also addresses the code of silence:
In some labs, at least, scientists feel pressured to keep quiet about the grey areas of debate, lest they undermine the official mantra
Heaven forbid that they offend NABR or some other industry front group. One respondent who spoke about the mantra brought up the issues of transparency and deception:
"I have heard animal-research advocates say that you have to say everything as nicely as possible, and that edges towards fabrication. They say that everything heads towards a cure for something and that all the experiments work."
This was also echoed in near the end of the editorial summary on the findings of the poll:
Many noted that a main difficulty in discussing animal research is in dealing with the fact that some animal models aren't perfect. "We have not addressed legitimate issues that animal rights groups have raised, ...a mouse is not a human and the question to be tested will not be fully answered," said one neuroscientist, who works on animals. "We need to admit this but point out that it is more complex than that."
What does and does not get said is a serious matter. So is how the issues are framed - and how people talk about vivisection. I will further explore the HOW in a separate entry - sequel if you will. :) Watch for it.
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