Don't surgeons train on animals before operating on humans?
http://www.curedisease.net/faqs/faq13.shtml
Many surgeons have done trial procedures on lab animals, but many
others have admitted that working on animals confuses the issue.
Common sense suggests that orthopaedic surgery on a dog, for example,
will differ greatly from that on a human. Applying animal data to the
human body is always unscientific. Here are some examples:
Once ophthalmologists practiced radial keratotomy (corrective eye
surgery) on rabbits, they later tried it out on humans. After blinding
many individuals, doctors modified the procedure for the human eye.
Had they originated their research on the human eye through in vitro
or autopsy research, these tragedies would have been prevented.
Extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass procedures for inoperable
carotid artery disease were tested and perfected on dogs and rabbits.
Once approved for humans, neurosurgeons performed thousands of EC-ICs
before they discovered the operation caused death and strokes more
often than it resulted in recovery.[27]
Thousands of cats, dogs, pigs and primates have been sacrificed to
find successful procedures for organ transplants. But despite the
number of practice surgeries on animals, the first human operations
fail.
By practicing procedures on non-humans, surgeons lead patients to
believe their risk is minimal. Unfortunately, when a new method is
introduced and tested on a human subject, projected results are no
more than guesswork. By conducting the initial operations on human
cadavers, doctors would reduce this risk and improve patient care.
How did animal experimentation become so established to begin with?
There have always existed abundant human bodies, tissue, and blood to
augment our knowledge base. But when western Catholicism prevailed,
papal decree forbade autopsy. In the second century AD, a Roman
physician named Galen performed endless animal experiments and
generated over 500 treatises on animal physiology.
Galen's false hypotheses - declaring that animals possess the same
physiology as humans - helped dim the light throughout the Dark Ages,
but the Renaissance offered a slight reprieve. When competitive
intellectual inquiry overwhelmed Church injunctions, autopsies
revealed animal-based inaccuracies and shed light on the true nature
of human disease.
In the 1600's - 1800's, when so little was known about physiology, one
could learn basic things from animals, because all mammals have things
in common at the gross level: they all have hearts, lungs and livers,
for example. Today, our studies are at the molecular level precisely
where the differences between species are greatest. In the mid 19th
century, Claude Bernard took up animal experimentation. His tremendous
zeal and proliferation of data created a market for animal
experimentation.
"From a history of misconceptions..."
In the 1930's, a disaster over ethylene glycol poisoning established
animal testing as routine in drug development. The disaster of
thalidomide, a drug for morning sickness that led to over 10,000
babies with birth defects, spurred governments to mandate animal
testing as a supposed guarantee of drug safety. Never mind that animal
tests had failed to predict the thalidomide tragedy itself. [30]
Why does animal experimentation continue?
Many factors perpetuate animal experimentation, the most obvious of
which is momentum. The tradition is so deeply ingrained that the whole
system is based on it. Its fundamental acceptance has long allowed it
to escape attention. Many doctors and scientists have now started to
question it - as evidenced by our recent survey of GPs.
Another factor is that researchers are far removed from patient care
and really believe that by experimenting on animals they are helping
to cure human disease. Also, they attract grant money based on how
many papers they publish in the scientific literature. It is much
easier and faster to publish papers using animals than by doing
human-based research.
There are many other reasons but by far the most im****tant is money.
Animal breeders and cage and equipment manufacturers are £
multi-billion industries. But the biggest beneficiary is the
pharmaceutical industry. Animal tests help them speed new drugs to
market and, most significantly, give them a legal defence against
public allegations of inadequate safety testing.
Pharmaceutical companies have known for decades that animal testing is
scientifically worthless but they use it to provide liability
protection when their drugs kill or injure people. Juries are easily
swayed by volumes of safety data from rats, mice, dogs and monkeys -
even though it is meaningless for humans.
Sadly, nothing has really changed since Thalidomide. Vioxx (2004) was
the biggest drug recall in history, leaving thousands of deaths in its
wake. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said: "This is a public
health emergency which raises grievous questions about the adequacy of
our regulatory system."
Aren't the 3Rs ("Reduce, Refine and Replace") the best way to phase
out animal experiments?
The 3Rs (“Reduce, Refine and Replace”) are based on the assumption
that experiments on animals, though unpalatable, are scientifically
valid, leading to cures and treatments for human disease. Proponents
of the 3Rs advocate reducing, refining and replacing animal
experiments with 'alternatives'. The principle has merit in theory -
though not in practice - from an animal welfare perspective. However,
it makes no scientific sense because if a practice does not work,
there is little point in reducing or refining it. The 3Rs have
unfortunately become a smokescreen, which allows the continuation of
animal experiments to seem acceptable - as long as the 3Rs are
applied. The industry could not have devised a better PR campaign.
Those who endorse the 3Rs and Alternatives promote the 'necessary
evil' view of animal experiments. They maintain that each type of
experiment - of which there are millions - is, regrettably, necessary
until it can be replaced by an Alternative. This perpetuates both the
practice and the myth that sustains it. Animal experimenters claim
that each and every experiment must be *****sed on a case-by-case
basis for scientific validity and justification. However, science
tells us otherwise:
Applying knowledge gained from animals to humans harms humans most of
the time (see A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation for many
examples)
Intractable differences between species mean that animals cannot
'predict' how the human body will respond to a disease or a drug.
Their use violates the most fundamental principle of biology:
evolution. Therefore the 'animal model' paradigm should be rejected as
unscientific.
The 3Rs serve to deflect attention and debate away from the very real
issue of the scientific validity of animal experimentation. While
appearing to focus attention on concern for the welfare of laboratory
animals, those promoting the 3Rs avoid entering into dialogue on the
justification of using animals as models of human disease. The
scientific literature of the last 100 years or so reveals sufficient
evidence to demonstrate that using animal data in medical research is
misleading and often dangerous.
Science already has a wealth of superior (not 'alternative'!)
human-based methods at its disposal. They are responsible for the
medical care we enjoy today and are the only way to prevent, cure and
treat human illness - yet many are starved of funds while animal
experimentation is highly funded. The animal experiment lobby
maintains that animal experimentation is an expensive business - it
is. But it is not just costing society enormous sums of money, it is
costing us far more in terms of human health.
Society need not fear that abandoning animal experimentation would
mean giving up medical progress. On the contrary, it would ensure
greater safety for patients and volunteers in clinical trials and a
higher probability of finding cures for human illness. For more
information, please see What Will We Do If We Don’t Experiment on
Animals? Medical Research for the 21st Century (Greek & Greek,
Trafford 2004).
Europeans for Medical Progress
PO Box 53839, London SE27 0TW
Tel: 020 8265 2880 Email: info@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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