Animal Testing for Drug Safety: A Necessary Evil?
As an animal lover—and especially a dog lover—I can understand where PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is coming from when they condemn FDA for not putting an end to toxicity testing on animals. But as a consumer of medication, I also understand the need to test certain things on animals before subjecting humans to potential serious adverse effects. And here lies the challenge that has been around for decades, if not longer, sparking disputes between scientists and those who back ethical treatment across the board.PETA has been appealing to FDA for some time to update and clarify its guidances related to animal testing. In a Jan. 31 letter to Commissioner Eschenbach, PETA’s Nancy Douglas listed the following issues:
- 92% of compounds that pass animal tests go on to fail in human clinical trials
- Companies perform excessive animal tests beyond what the FDA might recommend….and FDA facilitates this excessive use by failing to penalize the behavior
- An 18-pharma company working group in Europe concluded that acute toxicity studies in the drug discovery process do not provide pivotal information for human safety assessment—ICH is incorporating the group’s recommendations into its guidance documents and FDA expressed support for the discontinuation of acute toxicity studies but has not yet issued guidance on this subject to change industry practice
- Many dogs suffer longer than the “acceptable” nine months’ time to assess chronic toxicity
- Nonanimal tests have been shown to be superior to certain animal tests for rabies vaccines, but new tests have not been adopted.
The above list encompasses only a few of PETA’s complaints to FDA. The latest in the organization’s attacks is a full-page ad in the Washington Post showing Eschenbach next to an adorable yet frightened-looking beagle with the message: “FDA stands for Federal Dog Abuse.”
This brings me to my next and final point, which is why people focus so much on dogs with regard to animal testing. Of course, dogs are “man’s best friend” and humans have a special bond with these animals. But if one supports animal rights, then rabbits, cats, mice, rats, and other animals that undergo laboratory testing should be given equal concern. If PETA is fighting for the ethical treatment of animals, then it should focus on stopping lab testing in all animals, not just dogs. What’s your take on animal testing? Is it a necessary evil to ensure safe medications get to humans, or is it something FDA should put an end to?
Hi Angie,
Your point, that all sentient animals–regardless of their cute/cuddly coefficient–deserve moral consideration, is well taken and I agree. However, I don’t think you can accuse PETA of failing to speak out for animals who are charisma-challenged (or perhaps it is humans who are challenged in our ability to appreciate life’s rich pageant in all of its fascinating diversity).
Consider PETA’s two rodent-focused investigations inside the laboratories at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The rodent focus was intended, in part, to draw attention to the fact that rats and mice are excluded from the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and consequently are not afforded the minimal protections extended by the AWA (veterinary care for sick and injured animals, pain relief following invasive procedures, and so on). The infamous Jesse Helms amendment to the AWA, which threatened to permanently exclude rats and mice from the AWA, was fought tooth-and-nail by PETA. Because animal experimenters – who talk a good game about how much they care about the welfare of animals – poured their extensive resources into getting the Helms amendment passed, it did, and consequently tens of millions of animals in U.S. are denied very basic care.
A recent literature survey found that between 50 and 80 percent of experiments conducted in the U.S. and UK involving invasive procedures on mice and rats do not provide post-procedural pain relief to the rodents. It’s a crying shame.
PETA does in fact, fight for the ethical treatment of all animals. It doesn’t just focus on stopping lab testing in dogs. Either you haven’t been paying atttention– or perhaps, you have an agenda.
No agenda in mind. Just focusing on the text of the letter and the recent advertisement featuring a dog. I think people, in general, are more concerned about testing of dogs and probably cats because these are more common pets than mice, for example. I would like to hear what people think about animal testing in general in terms of its usefulness to drug testing before those drugs are approved for and given to humans.
Hi Angie,
Thanks for your comments. Regarding your question about the efficacy of using animals in drug testing, it seems that the data you’ve cited – 92% of compounds that pass animal tests go on to fail in human clinical trials – pretty much says it all. Unless I’m missing something, it seems that we would be better tossing a coin.
Part of the problem is, of course, extrapolating from animals to humans (their bodies will respond differently than ours). And, part of the problem may have to do with animals’ altered metabolism resulting from the stress and trauma of caged life (Hanno Wurbel and others have written extensively on this aspect).
I often come across articles discussing such things as the Hurel chip (created by researchers at Cornell University), the Liver Toxicity Chip (MIT, I believe), the Virtual Human (which I understand offers models of different organs and organ systems), and so on. I don’t know the extent to which these have been evaluated by the FDA as pre-preclinical testing methodologies, but it seems that they should be implemented prior to animal tests (just as the FDA encouraged the use of microdosing prior to animal tests so that compounds determined to be toxic could be tossed out; animals could be spared; and cost of drug development could be kept in check).
Certainly, animal tests need to be phased out.
Thanks for your post on this important topic.
So I’m doing this highschool project and I have to figure out how to convince the PETA animal rights group to let me test cancer curing proteins on monkeys, either that or find another way to test the proteins. This is all purley hypotheticall of course, but what would you suggest I say?