Evidently the BBC was given exclusive access, resulting in some excellent reports from medical correspondent Fergus Walsh, particularly on the PM programme and the 10 o’clock News on BBC One, and a good piece for BBC online.

BBC Two’s Newsnight was probably the best of the bunch, and was followed by a studio debate between antivivisectionist Michelle Thew and leading neurosurgeon Tipu Aziz. Jeremy Paxman continually challenged Michelle on her credentials, or should I say lack of them.

Fergus and the scientists who appeared in his package talked about research into stroke, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and the fruits of past animal research such as insulin for diabetes and antibiotics. He also spoke to the head vet at the University who stressed how much better the new facility was for both animals and scientists, and the stroke consultant and leading researcher Professor Alastair Buchan. When asked about ‘alternatives’ to animals, he said, memorably

‘You can’t make a head injury in a dish, you can’t create a stroke in a test tube you cant create a heart attack on a chip - it just doesn’t work.’

And the cat? That would be animal rights activist Mel Broughton, allegedly responsible for firebomb attacks on the University and one of those who has led the long campaign against the new biulding. He’s still remanded in custody awaiting retrial and is fast becoming irrelevant to this success story.

Replacing Primates in Medical Research—a flawed report with flawed conclusions

We would expect the authors of this report to have written the conclusions before they did their literature research. It represents the same old antivivisection arguments, re-drafted in a slightly different way. As such, it contains much the same flaws and contradictions as other antivivisection material.

The report is supposedly ‘a detailed analysis of the extent to which primate experiments have already been replaced by advanced non-animal alternatives such as cell and molecular methods, computer simulations and ethical studies with human volunteers’.

The authors have selected five areas of medical research into important human conditions, where they claim there has been ’very limited success in translating to human benefit‘. Paradoxically, these five areas supposedly illustrate where ‘notable progress has been made in replacing primate experiments with non-animal techniques’. If replacement has already been happening, yet with limited success in translating to human benefit, it rather suggests the replacements have not helped that much!

The authors point out that very few systematic reviews of primate research have been conducted. They claim that without such reviews ‘there is little independent evidence of the value of primate experiments for human medicine’. Here, the authors fail to recognise that while systematic reviews are at the top of the hierarchy of evidence, they are not the only type of independent evidence recognised in the world of science.

Furthermore, the authors fail to acknowledge the two-step required process to assess animal or other pre-clinical studies by systematic reviews. Reviews can be used in two ways: (i) to study the results of a particular method or intervention in an animal (or other) model to give a clear conclusion or (ii) to determine whether the animal model is a good predictor of results in humans. No systematic review can be used for the latter purpose unless the response in humans is known.

Finally, on this point, the authors fail to give evidence that the replacement methods they favour, such as cell and molecular methods, have themselves been subject to independent systematic reviews.

The biggest flaw of this report, however, is the usual fare of antivivisection groups. They simply present selective evidence and quotations to support a predetermined position. For example, much of the report is devoted to highlighting the flaws and limitations in animal studies. Of course, these exist. But to omit any mention of the equivalent flaws and limitations of non-animal methods is simply another form of bias. No report can be taken seriously when it is so one-sided.

In the introduction to the report, the authors quote the Chief Executive of the government’s National Centre for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animals in Research, as calling on the government and the funders to ‘develop a national strategy that is not just about the continued use of primates, but which has the clear aim of replacing, refining and reducing that used wherever possible’. We couldn’t agree more. We are pleased to say that that is exactly what is happening.

For the ‘surplus’ they use old estimates produced by Great Britain (80%) and Norway (38%). The authors themselves admit ‘These data are very incomplete and variable, and may not justify a formal extrapolation to worldwide figures’ and that they ‘do not command such high levels of confidence’. Nevertheless, they use this arguably invalid extrapolation to add 59% to the total.

Another assumption which may not be valid is that most countries do not include breeding of GM animals in their official estimates. The authors allude to two countries that do include them; they comprise a significant minority (33%) and a very tiny minority (0.7%) of procedures in Britain and the Netherlands respectively. Based on these wildly disparate and limited figures, they produce an average of 17% and apply this to other countries, ie they add 17% to official estimates.

While examining the ATLA paper, I came across an interesting statistic that relates to rodents bred for research regarded as ‘surplus’. While many are used as breeding stock or humanely killed so that their tissues and organs may be used in research, some are killed and sold as pet food – for raptors and reptiles. According to the Wall Street Journal in 1999 (reproduced by the UK’s Animal Procedures Committee in 2003), some 180 million rodents are killed for this purpose every year in the USA. At least 10 times greater than the number of rodents used in research in that country.

The antivivisectionists must feel that overall numbers are important, as they have clearly spent a long time collecting a mass of data. But without context they are rather meaningless. That context may be ‘social’ as above, or related to the bigger medical research picture. For instance, spending on UK biomedical research has increased by at least 50% since 1995 while animal procedures have increased by only 18%. 

The strict regulatory regime in the UK does provide, on an annual basis, a mass of statistics about animal research. We know that in 2007, 3.2 million procedures were conducted using just over 3 million animals, and that 83% of these procedures used rodents. We also know the numbers of GM mice used in breeding (850,000 in 2007). Of course, this is not news – we covered the latest UK statistics in a recent blog entry.  Such bald figures may not be of much public interest either.

One scientist quoted by Arron cautioned that the risks of nanoparticles could outweigh the benefits. But any debate about the use of mice in medical research was clearly not considered relevant to the piece.

Of course the antivivisectionists are quick to latch onto statistics such as only 1 in 5000 drugs getting approved for human use. Last week our young friends at Speaking of Research (the US counterpart of Pro-Test) were busy debunking the oft-quoted ‘92% of drugs that pass animal tests fail human trials’ statistic. We have addressed such nonsense several times on this blog.

Tom at Speaking of Research points out that you can use statistics allied with assumptions to ‘prove’ anything. He comes up with his own (hypothetical) case that 90.5% of dangerous drugs have been kept out of human trials thanks to animal safety tests.

The book has received reviews both rewarding the openness Conn has shown, and critising the book for not going far enough in explaining animal research (Deborah Blum, New Scientist; Andrew Read, Nature). In any case, it is an initiation into the world animal extremists live in - an acknowledgement of the extent to which they are willing to go in order to get their message across - to stop all research with animals. 

Blogger the Scientific Activist has written about The Animal Research War, and makes an interesting point that this book highlights the web of support different organisations have created – and people who support organisations with links to extremists should be aware of exactly where their support goes; you can read the blog entry here.

The review in New Scientist sums up what needs to be done in the USA, saying the book ‘asks the research community and its supporters to fight back against a well-honed opposition’. The US science community is under threat from the actions of the extremists. With the UK having better laws we have seen their activity die down, and extremists prosecuted. More information on the decline in the UK can be seen in a recent item on the RDS website. For the most part, scientists are able to be proud and loud about the work they do - this needs to be translated across the pond to prevent people being intimidated into abandoning potentially life saving research.

These simplistic comments are a sad reflection of the failure of the Independent to get to grips with how animal research works. Whilst it is understandable that news pieces are short, the Independent is the only quality broadsheet that has repeatedly failed to give a more in-depth analysis. Contrast, for example, with the more sophisticated approach from the Guardian Comment is Free blog.

For all we know, some years in the future the outcomes of these news stories could be very different. If we do ever gain a successful vaccine against HIV, it could be that animal research plays an important role in its development. And it is not impossible that the results of the gene therapy trials for blindness turn out to be less spectacular than first thought—it would not be the first time.

We already know that some animal studies give results which translate reasonably well in to medical advances for people. Inevitably, in other cases, significant differences between the animals and humans, or problems in experimental design, or insufficient animal research, mean the results are less helpful. The Independent could do more to inform readers about the nature and intricacies of medical research. An occasional science column along these lines would be welcome.

In fact, scientists and medical research charities have been trying to engage the public, the media and politicians on this issue for about three years. So I suggest it’s not for lack of trying that the scientists’ voice is not being heard, but that many people have not been listening.

However, I think Fiona would agree with Mary’s analysis that ‘…the British public’s combination of scepticism and susceptibility to simplistic argument is in direct proportion to the failure of our scientists to engage with us .… what the MMR finding shows is the dangerous vacuum that is left when reputable scientists fail to communicate’.

Fiona had actually been on the Today programme to discuss of Andrew Wakefield’s appearance in front of the GMC about his conduct in relation to MMR. She had some very interesting things to say too about media ‘balance’ on difficult scientific and medical issues – definitely worth listening.

But back to the debate over the human embryology bill and hybrid embryos. At last we are beginning to see feature articles that aim to cast more light than heat on the issues. I recommend today’s Guardian G2 piece by Aida Edemariam. Its title ‘A matter of life and death’ is the only slightly immoderate thing about it.

‘Given the current state of knowledge, the use of a limited number of other species of non-human primates remains, however, unavoidable for several vital research programs such as on immune based diseases (eg multiple sclerosis), neuro-degenerative disorders (Parkinson, Alzheimer, etc), infectious diseases (HIV, malaria, TB, hepatitis, SARS, etc) and other serious diseases. 12 out of 17 diseases listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) under the programme to fight epidemics and pandemics require the use non-human primates during the development, production or testing of the related vaccines and medicines.’

and

‘However, it is recognized that, with the current scientific knowledge, not enough alternative methods are yet available to replace the use of non-human primates in all areas of biomedical research today, nor in the near future. The need for their continued use in biomedical research is also highlighted in the opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee in 2002.’

Perhaps the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection hoped to bury this positive and robust statement about the need for primate research by claiming that a freedom of information tribunal had ruled that ‘the Government has been unlawfully withholding details of the animal experiments it licenses in the UK’. BUAV trumpeted ‘This a major victory in [our] long campaign to get the government to be more open and transparent about the animal experiments it licenses in the UK to allow proper and informed public debate.’

This is not quite what the information tribunal said, and to spin this as a ‘major victory’ is surely delusional. This hearing last Wednesday did NOT require the disclosure of anything in addition to that already disclosed in response to the original FoI request (although it’s possible that a future hearing may do so). In summary, it asked that the Home Office reconsider its response the original BUAV information request in preparation for a further hearing to be held on an unknown future date. It gave the Home Office 28 days to lodge an appeal. It seems likely that this will do nothing more than divert Home Office resources away from regulation of animal research.

Today, the antivivs have got themselves in a bit of a lather over the news of a new GM mouse model of the common cold . You might think that any reasonable person would welcome a mouse that has the potential to replace the use of great apes (ie humans and chimpanzees) in research. Not only is there potential for a common cold treatment, which has eluded scientists for over 40 years, but the virus can also cause serious and life-threatening complications such as acute asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.

Leanne Male of the charity Asthma UK said:

‘Ninety per cent of people with asthma tell us that colds and flu triggers their asthma symptoms but as yet there is no specific treatment for virally induced asthma attacks and steroid treatments are only partially effective against them.  We welcome this latest advancement as it will lead to a greater understanding of viral infections and their link with asthma and may help the development of a suitable treatment for virus-induced asthma attacks, thus greatly improving the lives of the 5.2 million people with the condition in the UK.’

Thankfully, not all good news can be buried; once it’s out it’s out. The ensuing debate on the Independent’s Have Your Say is the usual sterile stuff: antivivisectionists denying that animal research works despite the evidence of medical and scientific history, and claiming that it’s all cruel and unnecessary because we have non-animal alternatives. Now who would use animals if it wasn’t necessary in their research …?

If they want a proper, open debate it’s time for the antivivisectionists to get real.

Another story which got some media interest was the announcement by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) of an increase in animal testing for so-called ‘health foods’, reported for example in the Times. As is so often the case, without the relevant facts to hand, it is difficult to comment on the detail. It seems only some of this research is carried out in the UK.

This is one of those cases where the lack of information available to the public can be just as frustrating for RDS as it is to the animal rights groups. It would be nice to match up the claims of the antivivisection groups against the relevant project licence abstracts on the Home Office website. Unfortunately, a lack of user-friendly interface means searching the abstracts is far from straightforward.

We believe 2008 will see the continued demise of animal rights extremism, and the emergence of a more sophisticated and nuanced debate about animal research in the UK instead. Watch this space!