“Animal testing has saved tens of millions of lives”

That seems to be the base argument of all those such as Speaking of Research and other pro-vivisection groups around the world. We hear it quite often, but let's take a look at that statement. 

Following a recent hearing for a bill, introduced by Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, to ban the importation of primates for research purposes, there has been an increase in media coverage including some researchers defending their use of animals.

They often argue that the use of animals – primates in particular - has been instrumental in the development of major medical breakthroughs. The reality is that whilst animals are widely used for medical research, they are far from being an appropriate model, and certainly could not be credited for any ‘breakthrough’. The genetic, anatomic and metabolic differences between humans and other animals mean that any data obtained from animal tests cannot be translated to humans with sufficient accuracy. Even when genetically modified, there is no single animal model that can accurately mimic the complex human situation. There are far too many unknown variables that cannot all be accounted for.

Three of the most common examples used by researchers are:

• Development of the Polio Vaccine
• Deep Brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s Disease
• MORE animal testing (including on pregnant animals) would have avoided the Thalidomide disaster of the sixties

These claims are misrepresentative of the historical records.

With regards to the polio vaccine, monkey experiments were involved in its development, however Polio is contracted through the digestinal tract in humans but through the respiratory system in monkeys. The original vaccine resulted in numerous deaths and paralysis. Then further experiments (on monkeys) led to development of a nasal treatment which caused permanent olfactory damage to children. In 1941, Dr Albert Sabin studied human autopsies to disprove the nasal theory and stated: “…prevention was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys” Finally, in 1949, Nobel Laureate John Enders grew the virus in tissue cultures. He did unfortunately use monkey tissue which resulted in a virus (SV4O) jumping the species barrier. It is now grown in human cell culture (and could have been originally).
(Source: Safer Medicines)

More recently, deep brain stimulation for sufferers of Parkinson’s disease is often credited to the terribly cruel work with MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine).)- treated monkeys, developed after the serendipitous discovery of symptoms of parkinsonism in young drug addicts exposed to the narcotic contaminant. Yet the practice has actually been used to treat sufferers since the 1940’s - many years before the first ever description of the MPTP-primate model ever existed.[1] 

Thalidomide – showed no detrimental side effects in animals but caused immense suffering in tens of thousands of children born with missing or deformed limbs. It has been claimed that had it been tested on pregnant animals we would have seen malformations, however after thousands of malformed babies were born researchers started conducting teratogenicity tests and failed to produce similar malformations in numerable other species.

Finally, the White New Zealand rabbit also gave birth to deformed offspring, but only at a dose between 25 to 300 times that given to humans. It also eventually occurred in monkeys, but only at ten times the normal dose. The bottom line is that more animal testing would not have found the side effects, and even if they had tested on the White New Zealand rabbit, Thalidomide would still have gone to market since the vast majority of species showed no ill effect. It is only possible to produce specific deformities in specific species, and chances are the right species would never have been used.

There are several other examples throughout history where animal research has been given undue credit.

William Harvey has been credited as being the first to provide an accurate description of the blood’s circulation in 1628 through using animals (although it has been reported that the Chinese understood the blood’s action as early as 2,650 B.C.). However Dr Lawson Tait (one of the most famous surgeons of the nineteenth century responded:
”That he [Harvey] made any contribution to the facts of the [blood circulation] case by vivisection is conclusively disproved… It is, moreover, perfectly clear that were it incumbent on anyone to prove the circulation of the blood as a new theme, it could not be done by any vivisectional process but could, at once, be satisfactorily established by a dead body and an injecting syringe.”[2]

Ovarian function was demonstrated by physician Dr. Robert.T. Morris in 1895 in surgical procedures on women, yet history credits the discovery to Emil Knauer who one year later reproduced the procedure in rabbits in 1896.[3]

Banting and Best are often cited as having discovered insulin through animal experiments in 1922. However further investigation of the history of diabetes reveals that this is not quite the case. The connection between diabetic symptoms and the pancreas dates back to 1788 when an English physician, Thomas Cawley, performed an autopsy on a diabetic. Unfortunately subsequent research on animals delayed the acceptance of his hypothesis. Despite the existence of this knowledge, it was evidence obtained from Banting and Best’s dog experiments that was the convincing factor for scientists.

In summary, animals have been used throughout history in crude and invasive experiments, but the fact that they were used in the process does not imply that they were a necessary part of the development of these treatments. There's certainly no doubt that animals have been used in almost every medical breakthrough. The questions are however, whether their use played an essential role, whether the breakthroughs could have been made without using animals and whether more knowledge and progress would actually have been gained without their use. The fact that they were used as part of a medical discovery does not make them complicit in that discovery.

Conversely it could be argued that animal testing has instead cost tens of millions of lives – particularly when we consider that Penicillin was delayed for 15 years and blood transfusions for more than a century due to misleading data from animals. Imagine how many lives would have been saved had we not been misled by animal tests!

So, let’s not take the vivisector’s claims at face value. Let’s start challenging them and questioning the need for animals in the first place and whether we are likely to find better outcomes from human-specific research. We should never be bamboozled by such claims simply because the messenger is wearing a white coat.

For further information about animal experiments: Please visit www.HumaneResearch.org.au
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HumaneResearchAustralia/

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HRAust

---

[1]Burns RS et al. 1983. A primate model of parkinsonism: selective destruction of dopaminergic neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra. PNAS 80:4546.

[2]Tait, L. (1882) Transactions of the Birmingham Medical Society, quoted by Greek, R and Swingle Greek, Jean, (2002) Specious Science

[3]Greek R. and Swingle Greek, Jean (2002) Sacred Cows and Golden Geese.