From: rms@acsu.buffalo.edu (Robert M. Straubinger)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Animal Research (mouse screens?)
Date: 12 Oct 92 01:19:25 GMT
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Pharmaceutics

In article <BvK55E.LEz@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
>

>Russell Lawrence previously wrote:
>rl> [National Cancer Inst] decided ... to use more types of
>rl> tumors at the base tier of the research, *after* replacing live mice
>
>From article <BvIz95.7EJ@acsu.buffalo.edu>, by rms@acsu.buffalo.edu (Robert M. Straubinger):
>rs> So from your response, it would seem that the use of mice (with
>rs> implanted tumors) has not been "abandoned" at the National Cancer
>rs> Institute as a means of searching for anti-cancer drugs ...
>rs> .... It would seem that 'abandoned' is hyperbole.
>
RL >Perhaps.  If you've got some pointers to current technical data, I'd
   >love to take a look.  The only recent documentation that I've seen comes
   >from reports in the popular press.   

I was under the impression that you had access to such documentation as
the basis of your original statement regarding the use of (tumor-bearing)
mice in screening for anticancer drugs. I will relay your statements
to the National Cancer Institute and attempt to find someone to address
these points.

>
>rl>  ...   Would you agree with 
>rl> me that it was fallacious to assume that a compound with 
>rl> therapeutic effectiveness in treating P388 would be equally 
>rl> effective in treating the full range of human cancer?
>
>rs> If they had asked me, *I* wouldn't have done it that way.  Maybe.  
>rs> 'Fallacious' is somewhat judgemental;  I think people in the past 
>rs> took the very best approaches they could think of in searching 
>rs> through hundreds of thousands of naturally-occurring and 
>rs> synthetic compounds that *might* lead to a new therapy for 
>rs> cancer.  
>
RL >Was there any factual basis for the assumption that leukemia and
   >breast cancer were related?  [no] I'm not attaching moral guilt 
   >to the underlying assumptions, but they don't make much sense to 
   >me. ....

What is the factual basis for your statement that leukemia and
breast cancer are unrelated?

Most cancers share some important similarities in their growth
properties, suggesting specific common, fundamental changes as
the basis for their lack of growth control. I suspect that these
similarities may have been the most striking biochemical features
to meet the eye of cancer researchers in the past.

   [deleted my statement that cancer is a complicated problem,
    and that the initial rationale for live animal screens may have
    been the mentality that finding anticancer drugs would be
    similar to the kind of screening that identified antibiotics]

RL >You're making an assumption... namely that a frontal attack on
   >any problem is the best way to find a resolution.   What peeves me
   >about the "War on Cancer" conducted in the 70's and early 80's
   >is that the environmental factors affecting the onset of the disease
   >were becoming apparent, via epidemiological studies, yet were 
   >persistently ignored by the government as well as a number of 
   >powerful, private organizations (notably the AMA).   I don't
   >know the cost data, but I suspect the war on lung cancer could 
   >have been won more cheaply and more quickly if the money spent
   >on mouse screens had been used to buy off tobacco farmers once
   >and for all.   I can't help wondering if "cure" warrants bigger
   >expenditures than "prevention" because of the economic advantages
   >contained therein for several select groups of individuals: farm
   >lobbies, physicians, industrial polluters, and some (not all)
   >pharmaceutical companies.

I'm not making an assumption about the value of a frontal attack; Remember
I have already stated that I question the value of mass screenings:
   >rs> That said, I'll reiterate my personal distaste for mass screenings,
   >rs> animal-based or otherwise. After several decades, it should be clear
   >rs> that difficult problems may be more likely solved by thought than
   >rs> by brute force. We've been trying brute force for years. 
I agree that prevention is preferable to treatment, and that it is difficult
to understand how tobacco is still legal in this country, given the tremendous
cost in lives we have paid.

I question, however, whether the war against cancer could have been 'won'
any more quickly. Many cancers may have genetic or viral origins, or 
environmental causes too subtle to detect. Treatment depends on basic 
biochemical and physiological and medical understanding of the disease.
Research is the way to such an understanding. This is a hideously
complicated disease, and prevention is only part of the answer.

RL >  ...  I don't consider the generic use of brute force to be 
   >fallacious, BTW, although it may be an unwise investment.  The 
   >attack on P388, however, reminds me of the old sufi joke about the 
   >drunk Nasrudin who lost his house keys in the bushes next to his 
   >front door and went looking for them under the lamppost down the 
   >street where the area was cleaner and better lit.  

This is an amusing story, but unlike the search for one's lost keys,
the search for better therapy of cancer has no 'finite' solution;
there is no single cure, rather there must be both treatment and 
prevention.

Aside from your statement regarding prevention and environmental
cancer causes, what factual data did cancer researchers ignore
when they went off in irrlevent directions to look for better
therapy of cancer?

Bob Straubinger
Dept of Pharmaceutics
SUNY/Buffalo          "Above are my opinions, not those of SUNY"
rms@acsu.buffalo.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals