From: itsmine@med.unc.edu (Greg Popken)
Subject: Re: PCRM. Was Re: animals in research
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 22:56:30 GMT


Deleted example of 6 drugs proved safe in animals but harmful to humans

>
>The examples go on and on.  I simply don't have confidence that a
>treatment will work on humans until it's been tried on humans.  This
>leads me personally to believe that a much higher percentage (than
>probably many others would say) of animal research could be safely
>dropped.

These examples that go on and on? Exactly how many is on and on?  Have you
taken a look at the latest issue of Physicians Desk Reference?  There are
thousands if not tens of thousands ofdrugs developed in animals that
are presently safely being used in humans( not to mention treatment plans
and technics.)
 I would also like to point out that all human studies of drugs are done
 in animals first and then they are tried in humans.  Never has a drug
 been tested in animals and then dropped out on the market without some
 human studies. These two do not act as separate entities. They act adjuct
 to each other.

>
>Text deleted

>    1.	My lack of confidence in the underlying logic and fundamental
>premise of the animal research philosophy, which claims that we can,
>in many cases, test on one species and then extrapolate the results
>directly to other species. 
>
>    2.  Writings of those who have studied the history.  Men like
>Reines, Sharpe, Ruesch, Croce, Rollin, Ryder, Rowan and groups like
>PCRM, MRMC, CIVIS, DBAE (Doctors in Britain Against Animal Experiments),
>ILDAV (International League of Doctors Against Vivisection). 

These aren't biased opinions are they?
>
>    3.  Evaluation of past claims made in support of animal
>experimentation.  In another thread, I've given my opinion about the
>claim for the discovery of insulin, which is probably the single most
>often-cited example used in defense of animal research.  Yet this
>example can't withstand close scrutiny.  And even if it could, it was 70
>years ago.  You've heard of the "What have you done for us lately"
>syndrome? If the best example occurred this long ago and we've spent
>huge amounts of money since then, think of all the more productive uses
>to which 70 years of money, talent and other resources could have been
>applied. 

And what if insulin or pancreatic isolates didn't work? How many peo0ple
would have died from injections in the fundimental stages of the
experiment.  Or what if insulin did work but it turned out there was a
protein expressed along with it that proved fatal?  Decidintg you can't
continue to sacrifice so many human lives on an problem you can't identify
you give up and over look a very important discovery.
I have a better example.  You discover a muscle relaxing compound, and
determine that this would be great for bronchiodialation. (Opening of the
air way so that people with athsma can breath)(Which is kind of important
I guess? If you want to live that is!). You test the compound in a
computer. Great results. You test the compound in tissue culture./
Great results.  You test the compound on humans. Oops, the patients you
gave the drug to are experiencing atrial fibrillations and even heart
attacks.  Damn, if you had tried this one rats you could have prevented
this
  LOOK UP ISOPROTERINOL!

And when you develope new drugs that seems to kill the aids virus in a
petri dish, how much do you give to human patients? 5mg per Kg 500 mg per
Kg how about 5000 mg/Kg?  Do you give it orally or do you inject it? Do
you give the patients other drugs to eliviate the side effects?  Oh I'm
sorry, you have absolutely no idea what the side effects might be. It
could just be diarea or it could be complete shut down of the digestive
system.  If animal experiments were done and we saw complete shut down of
the digestive system then we can be aware to look for that problem.  It
might happen it might not but at leats we are aware of the potential!

The body (human or not) is a instrument of unimaginable parameters. O f
course we can't predict every one frome species to species.  But as I have
stated before the number of similarities between those species used for
animal reseach and humans, withregard to the study being conducted FAR
outweighs the differences.

					      Greg Popken 

These views are mine and mine alone. 


Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals