Some of the experiments on animals are specious

Pro-animal-research activists may say what they wish to (New-age Terrorism, March 20) but there is little to substantiate their claim that research on animals helps human beings. The argument that we owe most or all of our advances in medicine to animal research misses out on a basic point ? animal models and humans have different physiologies. Therefore, the conclusions drawn from animal research “when applied to human diseases are likely to harm a patient,” Moneim Fadali, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, asserts in his book Animal Experimentation: A Harvest Of Shame.

The fallacy of using animals for medical research is illustrated by the fact that hundreds of drugs that would have been safe in humans are deemed hazardous since they fail animal tests. For example, aspirin and penicillin have all caused illness in animal models, but have been highly effectively when used on humans. On the other hand, almost 70 per cent of drugs known to cause birth defects in humans have no effect on pregnant monkeys. Such discrepancies impede medical research since retrials are costly and time consuming.

Can animal experiments be replaced? Jane Goodall, a leading primatologist, says that it’s inconceivable that the human race, which has developed technology to go to the moon, cannot develop something to replace animal research with more humane alternatives?

And we certainly have such alternatives in the form of advancement in medical technology. These technologies include silicon chips containing thousands of liver cells meant to mimic animal metabolism. There is also vision research with scanners, which can replace brain experiments on animals. Moreover, computer programmes, molecular research, demographic analyses and test-tube culture are slowly but surely making animal research less important. In his book, Vivisection or Science, Dr Pietro Croce, a spokesperson for the group, Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine, says that he had conducted experiments on animals for years. Croce, however, now feels that “traditional reliance on animal experiments is scientifically misplaced”.

While it cannot be said that no good has ever come from animal research, what can be said with certainty is that if the same amount of money and brainpower had been used in other ways, much more benefit would have accrued.

Moreover, some of these experiments on helpless animals, which wear the garb of medical research, are misleadingly attractive. Last month, 300 neurologists and neurosurgeons signed a petition for a moratorium on a cruel Ohio State University research. It asked students to paralyse mice by dropping heavy weights on their spinal cords. Aysha Akhtar, a member of Physicians Committed for Responsible Medicine, rightfully says that the experiment is not only cruel, but also “medically futile”.