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Regarding the June 23 story, "Campaign promotes animal testing as 'backbone of biomedical research:"

As a cardiologist, medical educator and former animal researcher, I'd like to point out that, contrary to the claims of the advertisements bombarding Atlantic City, the translation of animal experiments to human benefit is exceedingly poor.

Decades of animal experiments have failed to cure or significantly impact nearly all of our most serious and debilitating diseases. At least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been tested successfully in monkeys and other animals; every one has failed in human trials. More than 150 stroke treatments successful in animals have failed when tested on patients.

The same is true for literally dozens of the worst chronic diseases afflicting people. More than 90 percent of drugs that pass animal tests fail human trials, yet killer drugs like Vioxx are approved for human use based in part on animal tests.

The genetics era in medicine has taught us that complex genetic determinants explain why results in animals can't predict results in people. Even the National Cancer Institute, the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine have joined the effort to switch from animal testing to in vitro and human-based methods. The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have pledged to work toward this goal.

The Foundation for Biomedical Research should understand that if animal experiments are the "backbone of biomedical research," that backbone is bent and broken. Patients deserve better than outdated and unreliable animal research.

DR. JOHN J. PIPPIN

Dallas, Texas

(Editor's note: Dr. John J. Pippin is a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which advocates for alternatives to animal testing.)

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Have I ever had malaria? No. But do I support animal testing for medication going to people? Still no.

Egg Harbor Township resident Janet Schubert has the correct answer: Animals and humans are affected differently in a lot of cases. Just because a medication works on a mouse doesn't mean it will help a person. Canine Advantage gets rid of bugs for dogs, and it's tested on dogs because it's obviously for dogs. But it wouldn't get rid of bugs on humans since it's toxic to us.

There are people available who volunteer to be test subjects. Wouldn't that give us a more direct method of testing and more effective medication? Of course. So why waste valuable time testing drugs on animals and get something that might not even work?

CAITLIN GLASSER

Mays Landing

2 comments:

• PaulMcKellips (1) posts 2:58 pm

  John Pippin responds to POAC’s story (Campaign promotes animal testing as 'backbone of biomedical research'; June 23, 2009; Michelle Lee) by claiming: “Decades of animal experiments have failed to cure or significantly impact nearly all of our most serious and debilitating diseases. At least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been tested successfully in monkeys and other animals; every one has failed in human trials. More than 150 stroke treatments successful in animals have failed when tested on patients.” He is hand-picking the failures and ignoring the successes. You could also say that decades of “human” research on the common cold have failed to find a cure. For many cancers, animal research has taken previously fatal diseases and turned them into relatively minor inconveniences. Best example is testicular cancer. Forty years ago it was a death sentence for young men. Now you get it and go on to win the Tour de France seven times, all thanks to drugs discovered via animal research. He mentions HIV, but that was another death sentence 25-years ago, and now it is a chronic, manageable disease thanks to drugs discovered using animals. There's a long, long list of successes that far outweigh the failures. He writes: “The same is true for literally dozens of the worst chronic diseases afflicting people. More than 90 percent of drugs that pass animal tests fail human trials, yet killer drugs like Vioxx are approved for human use based in part on animal tests.” Vioxx was safe in animals, and safe in people in Phase I, II, and III clinical trials. The animal tests correctly predicted the human safety. What neither the animal nor human tests could predict was the 1 in 100,000 adverse reactions that weren't seen until the drug went into millions of people. And more than 90% of drugs that pass in vitro tests (test tubes and petri dishes) fail in animals (in vivo, or living organisms) and are screened out before they are put into people. In fact, only about 1 in 10 drugs that go to IND (investigational new drug) make it to market, and about 1 in 5 that complete Phase II (human efficacy trials) go to market, so you can also say that 90% of drugs tested in humans eventually fail in humans. What's his point? Drug discovery is a triage process: you begin with hundreds of thousands of drugs with the hopes of finding one that will make it to market. He claims: “The genetics era in medicine has taught us that complex genetic determinants explain why results in animals can't predict results in people. Even the National Cancer Institute, the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine have joined the effort to switch from animal testing to in vitro and human-based methods. The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have pledged to work toward this goal.” This suggests that NCI, NRC and others have abandoned animal testing which is patently false. NCI has a very significant animal research program both internally and funded through extramural research. Every cancer drug goes through rigorous animal testing before NCI decides to move it forward. The NIH and pharma are both expanding early in silico (tests performed on a computer) and in vitro tests to screen more drugs against specific targets in order to increase their hit rate. This doesn't mean that fewer animals are being used. It means that more drugs are being screened early so that better early hits can be put into animals. “The Foundation for Biomedical Research should understand that if animal experiments are the "backbone of biomedical research," that backbone is bent and broken. Patients deserve better than outdated and unreliable animal research.” This is a common claim of the animal rights movement, but they never suggest what would be a suitable alternative. Animal research is an imperfect science, just as human clinical trials is an imperfect science. But without animal research, the alternative would be to go directly from in vitro efficacy directly into human volunteers without any concept of safety, bioavailability, or efficacy. I would think a “cardiologist, medical educator and former animal researcher” like Dr. Pippin would even know that. If they think the 90% failure of animal positives in humans is bad, wait until they see how awful it will be when we go straight to humans, and how many people will die in the process. Paul McKellips Executive Vice President Foundation for Biomedical Research

• comp4all (1) posts 12:52 pm

  "Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." -Professor Charles R. Magel As many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. every year. Much of the experimentation-including pumping chemicals into rats' stomachs, hacking muscle tissue from dogs' thighs, and putting baby monkeys in isolation chambers far from their mothers-is paid for by you, the American taxpayer and consumer, yet you can't visit a laboratory and see how the government has spent your money. You can't even get an accurate count on the number of animals killed every year because experimenters and the government have decided that mice and rats and certain other animals don't even have to be counted. Animal experimentation is a multibillion-dollar industry fueled by massive public funding and involving a complex web of corporate, government, and university laboratories, cage and food manufacturers, and animal breeders, dealers, and transporters. The industry and its people profit because animals, who cannot defend themselves against abuse, are legally imprisoned and exploited. It is time to evolve and stop believing that animals need to be experimented on in order to combat all our diseases. This is archaic nonsense - we have far more effective and efficient ways open to us today. Stop feeding us nonsense!!

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