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Ever had malaria? How about tuberculosis or elephantiasis?

These unpleasant - and in some cases deadly - diseases have become "poster illnesses" in a new pro-animal testing campaign. Billboards plastered with words such as rabies and leprosy have popped up along the Atlantic City Expressway and the Black Horse Pike, on buses and bus shelters. Similar ads appeared on two radio stations and in The Press of Atlantic City.

A commercial has run on TV40, in which a woman, identified only as Jen, says she is a scientist and breast cancer survivor searching for a cure through rodent testing.

The ads are created by The Foundation for Biomedical Research, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit dedicated to promoting "humane and responsible animal research" for human and veterinary health, according to its Web site. Paul McKellips, the foundation's executive vice president, said it is a part of a nationwide outreach program "to help the public understand that animal research is the backbone of biomedical research."

McKellips said many people do not realize that medications go through animal testing before being approved for humans. He added that animal research is done humanely, regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the medical community is trying to reduce the number of animals used in tests, which are usually rats, mice, fruit flies and zebrafish.

"Research is good. That's really the ultimate message we want to send out," McKellips said. He said the campaign highlights diseases such as leprosy and rabies to stand out from groups promoting research for more well-known causes, such as cancer and Parkinson's disease.

It may seem strange to run animal testing ads in southern New Jersey, since there are no animal research facilities in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties, but McKellips said the Atlantic City and Philadelphia region is influential in the medical research field.

The Garden State has 33 licensed animal research facilities, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site. The facilities include medical companies, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson, and schools such as Princeton, Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

The ads started appearing in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia around April and will last until July. McKellips said he did not know how much the foundation spent on the campaign. The posters ran on 24 buses in the Atlantic City area for a month and cost $6,000, said Courtney Carroll, an NJ Transit spokeswoman.

It was unclear how much the television, billboard, newspaper and radio ads cost. The foundation previously spent $336,792 on videos, pamphlets and booklets promoting the benefits of biomedical research in 2007, according to Guidestar, an online database on nonprofits.

The campaign - and the issue of animal testing - drew a variety of local reactions.

Dave Hunsberger, a middle school teacher from Mays Landing, thought the ads were "a little bit over the top" and seemed like they were copying the Got Milk? and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaigns. In general, Hunsberger said he feels animal research is necessary if it is done in a humane way to save people.

Dr. Drew Harrris, president of the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research, said it raises awareness about animal research in medicine. "The bottom line here is no one's going to want to treat a disease unless it's been tested in an animal (and) it's proven save with animal research," said Harris, who noted his group is not connected with the foundation.

Rich Frank, an Egg Harbor Township resident who is active in a local group focused on helping circus animals, said the billboards were very one-sided but that it was an exercise in freedom of speech. "They seem to have deeper pockets and more money to put this campaign on than we would to put up something against it," he said.

Frank, who has been a vegan for 20 years, said the only animal research he supports would be for veterinary purposes. Frank added that while he made his decision a long time ago, the new ads could influence other people.

Another Egg Harbor Township resident, Janet Schubert, who identified herself as a breast cancer survivor, said she found the ads "appalling and deceptive" because diseases have many nuances. "Just because it's tested on animals doesn't mean it's going to work on humans. And before it's ever released to the public, they do clinical trials on drugs on humans. You get placebo and clinical studies."

Schubert supports medical research, but she prefers human trials, genetic testing and computer models. "The real answers you are going to get are from the people who are dealing with the disease," she said.

E-mail Michelle Lee:

MLee@pressofac.com

To learn more

For more information about the Foundation for Biomedical Research, visit:

www.fbresearch.org

To see the ads and videos, visit:

www.researchsaves.org

1 comment:

• OnestaOrganics (1) posts 6:43 pm

  Not all research is well planned. The oversight of registered animal research facilities through the government includes, as far as I remember, *announced* inspections of research facilities by AAALAC (google that). This does not allow for objective inspections, as "problem" animals can be (and are) hidden or killed before inspection and problematic research is suspended during inspection time. These inspections do not assure that animals are experimented on and handled humanely. No unbiased supervision is there in the lab on a day to day basis; it's up to the researchers and their staff to do this right. Protocols of university-based research have to be approved. However, in the US, the deciding committee used to be (in the year 2000+) and probably still is, made up of institute-intern staff and one institute-friendly (i.e., chosen) outsider - how objective can these verdicts be? Considering the diversity of biomedical research, how can a committee ever be able to objectively judge the scientific value of studies if the committee members come from an even slightly other field than the submitted research proposal??? I have studied zoology in Austria and was invited to the US as a postdoctoral researcher. Much of the research I have seen approved here would have (had and still have) a very very hard time of being approved in Austria or similar European countries. Research does have its place but it doesn't have sense if it is badly planned or based on research where animals aren't treated in ways that would render at least scientifically relevant data. Of course medications have to be tested on a number of animal species -- because that's the law. Most of these test species are rodents which are nocturnal but tested on by humans during the day (these rodents become wide awake when lights are finally turned off at night! Which means that they will be quite 'groggy' when they are experimented on during day time). Most of the experimental animals are kept in ways that are very unnatural (mostly isolated from other animals, with not much else to do but to sleep, eat, pee and poop). Most of the animals drugs are developed on, are physiologically far away from man - e.g., a rat's or mouse's metabolism is sky high compared from that of a human (just an example if you'd need one to make a distinction between man and mouse or rat, both of which are the most frequently used 'standards' for the required pre-human drug trials). Rats, cats, mice, hamsters, ...dogs are caged. Monkeys and pigs are caged. This lifestyle can't make them good test subject, can it? I know of one private US-based drug research lab where they hire people to socialize with their experimental cats - and I still respect them for doing this. Drug research trials have to be done with animals first (yes, because it's law), and look what side effects and dangerous concoctions these experiments render for us humans! Drug development is expensive, no question. There is the pressure of an ever persisting competition, those animal experiments, followed by some adequacy and safety studies in human trials, before the FDA finally approves the drugs on the general public. Wouldn't it be better to promote disease prevention instead of making us believe we can do what we do because there will always be a drug to fight whatever we catch during our often unhealthy life style? Further, wouldn't it be better to work with human systems FIRST before stepping 'up' to animal experimentation? There are also many in vitro studies which could substitute many animal experimentation (good luck for that if you are an US_based drug developer, the FDA doesn't count these tests yet!). Sure, some researches may need to retrain if we (and the FDA) step away from our obsession with animal drug testing, but it is really easy to train from in vivo (animal) studies down to in vitro ("test tube, cell culture), and it is fun too! It's also easier to control an in vitro system than an animal system which might involve too many organ systems and reactions which might make it impossible to interpret many drug reactions. I thought I share - Heidi from www.onestaorganics.com

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