Animal Rights

An estimated 26 million animals are used for research, testing, and education in the United States each year. More than 70,000 of them are nonhuman primates. Rats and mice account for about 95 percent of all animals used in research. Most of the remaining research animals are rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, fish and insects. Combined, less than one percent of the remaining research animals are cats, dogs and non-human primates. The overwhelming majority of research animals are specifically bred for laboratories. Animal research plays a crucial role in scientists' understanding of diseases and in the development of effective medical treatments.

Animals are used in research predominantly for four reasons, a) add scientific knowledge through basic biological research to help human understand how living things work, and apply that understanding for the benefit of both human and animals, b) many basic cell processes are the same in all animals, and the bodies of animals are like humans in the way that they perform many vital functions such as breathing, digestion, movement, sight, hearing and reproduction, c) humans and animals share hundreds of illnesses and hence animals are used as models for the study of human illness, d) therapies are developed through experiments on the animals and e) the benefits and harmfulness of medicines are measured through such experiments.

Before we explore further about research on animals, one needs to understand the environment in which such animals are kept. They are all kept in a lab setting not knowing when one will be used to test something. Psychologically, they are on a constant fear of being subjected to pain on any day without any advanced notice. For the past few decades, scientists are talking about refinement of tests so animal distress or pain is minimal, reduction of the number of animals used in one particular study, and the replacement, whenever possible, of animal experiments with non-animal experiments. Conservatives in the United States are ready to defend unborn human child under the broad categorization called Prolife quoting the religious beliefs as a reason for preventing women from making the right choice of their will depending on the circumstances under which they became pregnant. But there are barely a few organizations who have been fighting against lab testing of the animals in order to develop cure for diseases.

When human beings are subjected to Phase I or Phase II or Phase III of clinical study, those who are conducting such clinical trial are asked to comply with so many regulatory compliance including obtaining the consent from the person, making sure there are no risks to the life of the individual human beings who are subjected to such trials, proving to the FDA that efficacy is established with the animals before the drug is administrated to the humans. These regulatory procedures clearly establish a bias that the animal life is less important when compared to the human life.

New initiatives in the United States and abroad are seeking to replace animals with alternative models for ethical and scientific reasons. Today, because experiments on animals are cruel, expensive, and generally inapplicable to humans, the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases and testing products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human health. These modern methods include sophisticated tests using human cells and tissues (also known as in vitro methods), advanced computer-modeling techniques (often referred to as in silico models), and studies with human volunteers. These and other non-animal methods are not hindered by species differences that make applying animal test results to humans difficult or impossible, and they usually take less time and money to complete.

The scientists have created “organs-on-chips” that contain human cells grown in a state-of-the-art system to mimic the structure and function of human organs and organ systems. Some companies have already turned these chips into products that other researchers can use in place of animals. Researchers have developed a wide range of sophisticated computer models that simulate human biology and the progression of developing diseases. Studies show that these models can accurately predict the ways that new drugs will react in the human body and replace the use of animals in exploratory research and many standard drug tests. Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) are computer-based techniques that can replace animal tests by making sophisticated estimates of a substance’s likelihood of being hazardous, based on its similarity to existing substances and our knowledge of human biology. Companies and governments are increasingly using QSAR tools to avoid animal testing of chemicals.

A method called “microdosing” can provide vital information on the safety of an experimental drug and how it is metabolized in humans prior to large-scale human trials. Volunteers are given an extremely small one-time drug dose, and sophisticated imaging techniques are used to monitor how the drug behaves in the body. Microdosing can replace certain tests on animals and help screen out drug compounds that won’t work in humans so that they won’t needlessly advance to government-required animal testing. Advanced brain imaging and recording techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) with human volunteers can be used to replace archaic experiments in which rats, cats, and monkeys have their brains damaged. These modern techniques allow the human brain to be safely studied down to the level of a single neuron, and researchers can even temporarily and reversibly induce brain disorders using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Strikingly life-like computerized human-patient simulators that breathe, bleed, convulse, talk, and even “die” have been shown to teach students physiology and pharmacology better than crude exercises that involve cutting up animals. The most high-tech simulators mimic illnesses and injuries and give the appropriate biological response to medical interventions and injections of medications. Ninety-seven percent of medical schools across the U.S. have completely replaced the use of animal laboratories in medical training with simulators like this, as well as virtual-reality systems, computer simulators, and supervised clinical experience. For more advanced medical training, systems like TraumaMan, which replicates a breathing, bleeding human torso and has realistic layers of skin and tissue, ribs, and internal organs, are widely used to teach emergency surgical procedures and have been shown in numerous studies to impart lifesaving skills better than courses that require students to cut into live pigs, goats, or dogs. This is the welcome sign even though private institutions, large pharmaceutical companies, and other drug testing companies are still substantially using the animals for testing their drugs.

No matter how many regulatory procedures exist to prevent the animals suffering from drug tests, it is impossible for any scientist to measure the pain those animals undergo through such rigorous and repetitive doses of drugs being administered. There is no mechanism to verify the psychological, physical and mental agony the animals go through while waiting in the cages of the labs throughout the world. I am glad days are not far off from the human beings cutting or testing or otherwise subjecting the animals to cruel and painful procedures to make the life of human beings better.

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

I have closely worked with so many CROs as a Partner of an Investment Banking company. I am very familiar with the clinical research methods, procedures, regulations, etc. I am also vigorously in agreement with you regarding how much struggle the researchers go through to invent a drug. With due respect to them, I question not only the researchers in clinical research organizations but also the big pharmaceuticals and government regulatory organizations about their systems and procedures.

First of all, how is it fair to have a process in case of Investigation of New Drug ("IND") to first administer them on animals to prove that the drug is not life-threatening before trying it out on human beings? This is an ethical issue I have with the regulators because it values the life of animals less than the human beings. The justification from the scientific community is that the drugs help animals also. If that is the case, why not try it on human volunteers so that innocent animals who can't speak for themselves be benefited from such inventions?

Second, there is no question in my mind that development of any science is through unyielding focus to derive something through prolonged research. That is the reason scientists are paid big bucks. But when Organs-on-chip and computer modeling techniques are developed over the last 25 years, why so many animals are still subjected to torture by big pharmaceuticals and private clinical research organizations other than the Medical Research Schools in the US? The scientists are explaining that their investigations are fool proof to reduce pain to the animals. But there is no evidence to prove this nor such statements consider what animals are subjected to when the labs raise them only to test such drugs on them? Besides, the healthy animals are first infected with a disease in order to apply the drug to find out whether the new drug cures them. Will healthy humans agree to be infected with a disease when they are subjects of investigation of new drug?

Big Pharmaceuticals claim the patent on inventions after 8+ years of investigation after testing them on animals and willing and participating humans through three phases. Both research organizations and pharmaceuticals make billions of dollars but there is no proof as yet that those animals who participated in those investigations were freed upon a patent is sanctioned. The animals are repetitively used for different investigation of new drugs and there is a chance that these animals could die in the process.

My snippet is not to undermine the efforts put in by the scientists or the clinical research organizations or pharmaceutical companies who invent new medicines for better quality of life of animals and humans. It is my view that to the extent possible, pharmaceutical and clinical research organizations will have to use vitro methods, silico models and QSARs before it is administered to the willing and participating human beings instead of animals. It is my understanding that only Medical Schools have adapted to this method and still private clinical research organizations and pharmaceuticals are continuing their drug investigation through animals. Moreover, medical schools have proved that the new method is much more effective, accurate and time saving than investigating on the animals. It only proves the point that the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations to change, is harming so many animals even today.

Viswa

 

Dear Balajee,

I am so happy to know someone as young as your daughter is an activist for animal rights. I wish I could read her views on this snippet as well.

Yes. You are right. Opposition for testing animals has been in existence for centuries with a lot of big names involved. As you rightly pointed out, testing the new drug animals does not necessarily mean it would work with human beings. But the argument that we hear from scientists is the animals used have similar organs. Moreover, regulators suggest animal test is mandatory to prove there is no harm to life before testing it on humans. I am only objecting to the attitude of considering animal life as less important than human life.

Viswa

 

Dear Sri Ojaantrik:

I am neither against the clinical research organizations and big Pharmaceutical companies nor against animal food processing companies. Their purpose is to provide quality life to the human beings. I am not expecting the whole world to turn vegetarian either. It is about the pain we cause to the animals through the processes adapted by an industry.

Frankly, in case of food processing industry, the question of ethics is discussed only when the animals are badly treated like being drugged or induced pain or slaughtered through hanging upside down knowing in advance what was going to happen by watching the animals in front are systematically being slaughtered. By the situation in case of clinical research is different. Animals are raised only for drug testing. They wait indefinitely in the lab for various testing from time to time. Even though scientists assure that there effort is to reduce pain to the animals, there is no guarantee or evidence to prove their point. There is no freedom for set of animals who were subjected to one tests. If the medicine is approved by FDA for release in the market, they wait for another set of clinical research.

Besides when new and improved methods are available, the laws must be made to make the CROs and pharmaceutical companies to eliminate animal testing. The reluctance to change is what is causing pain now to the animals who can't speak for themselves.

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

I am in agreement with you that whether the animals are subjected to test when newer methods are available or human beings are subjected to test without a proper consent with the knowledge of what is being administered to them, it is ethical violation. Recruiting people through hostel warden or headmasters is wrong unless the subjects are fully aware of the test or made aware through proper procedure of consent. Uneducated or poor being used as subjects is simply wrong. I have heard about a Public Charitable Trust set up by a billionaire was administering new drugs to the children in the villages in India through the press and it is my understanding that the Government of India is taking action against this Trust for such new drug test with children.

Subjects being treated with disregard for their lives is unacceptable ethical practice.

Viswa