The heated debate on the rights and wrongs of animal testing continues to fill newspaper columns following the publication of two UK studies looking into animal testing and its merits.
The first study undertaken by the Weatherall committee, commissioned by the Royal Society, the Medical research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Academy of Medical Sciences, found both a strong scientific and moral case for limited research tests on monkeys.
Sir David Weatherall, a former Oxford University geneticist and lead author of the report, said in certain cases using non-human primates remained the only way of answering important scientific questions because other animals such as mice were not sufficiently similar to humans.
'There is a scientific case for careful, meticulously regulated non-human primate research, at least in the foreseeable future, provided it is the only way of solving important scientific or medical questions and high standards of welfare are maintained,’ he said.
The committee said three diseases, malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, which combined kill 800 people globally every hour, would best be tackled with vaccines that could only be developed and proved safe by testing them in monkeys.
'Pre-testing in a small number of non-human primates can ensure we only proceed into human trials with vaccines that are likely to prevent millions of people dying of these diseases,’ Sir David said.
But the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) said, while the report should be commended, it did not go far enough.
Chief executive Dr Vicky Robinson said: 'It is disappointing that, despite a ringing endorsement for the work being done to reduce primate use, the report did not go far enough in trying to map out the priorities for development and adoption of new alternatives.”
The second publication, by the British Medical Journal, looked at studies in six areas and found animal studies agreed with human trials in just three.
The recent debacle at the Northwick Park clinical trial is a case in point as human volunteers suffered adverse reactions to a drug found to be safe in animals.
The author of the study, Professor Ian Roberts, recommended animal studies should be used, but not for all drug research.
In this study, the team reviewed evidence from a wide range of human and animal trials looking at six areas of treatment and found that there was no consistent agreement between animal and human studies.
Professor Roberts said: 'The debate over this issue is really quite hysterical. At the moment there is too much emotion and not much science.’
He continued: 'Anti-vivisectionists say animal testing is of no use at all, and those who do them say we would have no safe and effective treatments if we didn’t’.
While the debate is more vociferous in the UK than elsewhere, stakeholders around the rest of Europe are developing strategies to replace animal tests with modern alternatives.
The European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has already set up a database of alternative methods to animal experiments.
Also involving the Commission is the European Partnership on Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA). The platform aims to implement alternative approaches to animal testing by collaborating with companies from seven different sectors of industry to realise the 3R strategy of reducing, refining and finally replacing animal testing altogether.
For more information, please visit:
http://ecvam-dbalm.jrc.cec.eu.int/
www.epaa.eu.com
Category: Miscellaneous
Data Source Provider: Press sources
Document Reference: Based on information from press sources
Subject Index: Life Sciences; Medicine, Health
RCN: 26843
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&DOC=48&CAT=NEWS&QUERY=0123f1cfd725:aaa8:247d0338&RCN=26843