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Choose a category:
More Alternatives | High Welfare | Strict Controls | Greatest Benefits | Other
Or, if you cannot find the answer you require, ask us your question...
Note: We cannot answer questions related to personal medical treatment, please consult your doctor.
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Most Commonly Asked
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There are lots of alternatives today. Use them not animals. There must be something else you can do. (Question to Manchester meeting)
Alternatives are used. Cell-based and computer studies happen before animal studies and trials in humans happen afterwards. (Barbara Holgate, vet)
Animals have to be the last resort in British law. There are some things where you can answer the question only using an animal. (Prof Nancy Rothwell, brain scientist.)
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It's barbaric what researchers do to monkeys. They inject into the brain, remove parts of the brain. How can this ever be justified? (Question to CMP Manchester meeting)
Primates are treated very specially in British law and by British scientists. Their use can be justifed by advances to diseases of the brain, for example, but that does not mean any scientist can or should simply say "I want to inject something into the brain of a monkey." (Prof Nancy Rothwell, brain scientist)
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Even if we share many genes our brains are totally different to animals. How can you find out anything about our brains from animal brains?
There are differences, there are also similarities. Science rarely tries to mimic a whole human disease in an animal. Instead it focuses on one part of the disease that can be seen in the animal (Philip Connolly, CMP)
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Will we ever reach a stage where animal testing is no longer needed? (From Manchester meeting)
I hope so, but it will be a long time off (Nancy Rothwell, brain scientist).
You can never say never, but it's hard to imagine the new technology that would be necessary. (Barbara Holgate, vet)
While it would be wonderful if animal research could be phased out, I would be absolutely amazed if it were. New factors come into play as you scale up from a single cell to organs and from organs to whole organisms like people. (Prof Ray Tallis, clinician)
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What are your comments regarding frequent revelations of the number of people who are killed or injured from properly tested drugs?
The main purpose of safety testing with animals is to protect the healthy volunteers and patients who participate in clinical trials. When it comes to world-wide prescription you would need to have vast animal and human trials to find the sort of side effect that takes place in 1 in 500 patients, say.
A recent BMJ paper, shows that at least 93% of the adverse drug reactions that cause hospital admissions are to do with type A responses, i.e. the drug did exactly as expected. For example, aspirin can cause bleeding, this is known but people don't follow the guidance. Or - as yet another paper suggested - they don't tell their doctors that they are taking complementary medicines that might interact. The authors estimated at least three quarters of the admissions could have been avoided if best medical practice had been used.
Also the drugs that cause the problems - aspirin, digitalis, warfarin, diuretics - are at least 30 years old. Drugs being discovered using modern toxicology cause far fewer adverse reactions than the older ones.
So when prescription medicines cause problems it is usually because patient compliance and monitoring was not as good as it might be or the side effect was so rare as to have been missed in human trials as well as animal ones.
Further Information:
Adverse drug reactions as cause of admission to hospital
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Revelations that (animal tested) drugs are major cause of death (JAMA 18.4.98), and majority of drugs do not work in most people (Allen Roses Glaxo open secret among drug companies!), isn't it time to abandon animal experiments and adopt accurate methods?
All medicines are tested on people - volunteers and patients in clinical trials. The purpose of the animal safety tests is to protect these people from major threats. Coupled with non-animal safety tests and the very high level of medical supervision that is demanded of clinical trials, this is highly successful.
More people are involved in drug development than animals, but side effects may still not be seen in the clinical trials phase. That is why new medicines are prescribed very cautiously.
So don't blame the animal tests for something they are not designed to do. The reality is we are all different, which is why some medicines work for some people and not for others. As more is known about the genetic reasons for why this is the case, it will be possible to prescribe medicines that are better targeted for individuals.
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Is animal testing required by law?
Around 15% of experiments in the UK are required by different laws. For medicines the key legislation is the Medicines Act. For non-medical items there are others, e.g. the Consumer Protection Act and the Food Safety Act
Further Information:
Laws that protect and require animal research
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