The animal rights group SPEAK, campaigning against the new Oxford University biomedical research centre, is currently exercised by lack of support from the local Green party. They wrote recently to the Green party candidate, Chris Goodall, whose reply included the following: 

‘All [members] agree that we should focus strongly on advancing the methods used for testing so that we get rid of the need for animal experimentation soon…. I do stress that some members believe that a good portion of the work to be done in the [Oxford University] Lab is ethically imperative…. The Party feels that the moral and scientific case against the Lab, or some of its experiments, is undermined by the tactics used by some protestors. At certain times, the protests have been intimidatory and frightening, both to scientists and bystanders…. In particular, we understand that Martin [sic] Broughton has refused to rule out violence in the pursuit of the closure of the Lab.’

On a more light-hearted note (perhaps the animal rights groups do have a sense of humour after all?) Wendy the Windy Cow (I kid you not) launched Animal Aid’s Vegan Month on 1 November. Wendy will be:

‘farting her way across the country, stopping in other UK cities to deliver the message that animal farming has a massive impact on global warming. As part of her tour, she will be encouraging local people to take the veggie or vegan challenge.’

So animal rights groups like to colour themselves green, but only when it suits them. In fact, in relation to safety testing of chemicals that can affect the environment, the antivivisection and green agendas are poles apart.

Antivivisection groups continue to churn out pseudoscientific reports at an astonishing rate. One organisation, the National Anti Vivisection Society, must be very confident of its expertise, since it has recently challenged in some depth in a written report a scientific opinion paper produced in 2002 by the European Union’s Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) on the use of non-human primates (NHP) in biomedical research.

But scratch the surface of this report, and it is obvious that it’s just the same old arguments that the antivivisectionists have been using for decades. Sweeping assertions that no animal research can be relevant to humans because of species differences, and broad claims that there are already alternatives for any type of animal research, are the standard fare.

Some time ago we highlighted the nonsense written by the NAVS about ‘quantum pharmacology’ in one of their research papers.

Perhaps an even more bizarre example of the lack of scientific credibility, however, comes from a report exactly 20 years ago entitled ‘Biohazard’. In this document the antivivisectionists claimed that ‘AIDS came out of research on animals’, and was ‘created by people in a laboratory’. The report is still referred to on the NAVS website, where it is described as ‘a two-year investigation into the hazards of the creation of new diseases in animal laboratories, and in particular the story of the simian and human versions of the AIDS viruses’.

NAVS claim that the report ‘shocked MPs and scientists alike’. They are right. Shocked at the sheer absurdity would be a good description. Perhaps not surprisingly, we don’t hear much about that report anymore!

Hot off the press:
Two British-born scientists, Sir Martin J Evans and Oliver Smithies, and an Italian-born colleague, Mario R Capecchi, share this year’s Nobel ’for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells‘.

In layman’s terms, they developed a way to make ‘designer mice’ that meant that the role of different genes in human development and disease could be tracked. The technique could be used (i) to discover the function of a gene, and (ii) to create of animal models of human disease such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes and heart disease.

This incredibly powerful technology – referred to as a ‘magic wand’ by Prof Ira Herskowitz in 2001 when she presented the Lasker prize to the trio – has had a revolutionary impact on medical research:

A new Centre for Integrative Mammalian Physiology and Pharmacology opened recently at Imperial College London. The aim of the Centre is to provide a focus within the College for the development of in vivo research and to provide postgraduate training in in vivo physiology and pharmacology.

The enormous expansion in molecular biology over the last 15 years has been accompanied by a slowdown in the rate of development of new medicines. The concern is that we may have lost sight of how molecular components and cells act together in whole living systems—hence the funding of these new centres around the country.

So whilst molecular biology can shed light on structures and interactions of genes and proteins, integrative studies using animals are key in translating information from the genome into advances in understanding of human and animal disease and in developing the next generation of new medicines.

The National Research Council (NRC) recently produced a report titled Toxicity Testing in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision and a Strategy. In it, they outline a plan for utilising new technology to streamline toxicity testing.  The plan’s aim is to increase efficiency whilst decreasing costs, time, and numbers of animals used.

The report notes that one of the ‘challenges’ of developing an in vitro test system to evaluate toxicity is "The current inability of cell assays to mirror metabolism in the integrated whole animal." (p5)

They go on to note that targeted testing in the future may be in vitro or vivo:

Friday morning at the BA Festival of Science in York saw a whole morning devoted to improving the robustness, relevance and transferability of data from animal experiments which are intended to evaluate potential clinical interventions.

Interesting points were raised by several speakers, particularly about the importance of properly designed experiments. Not only should sample sizes be correctly calculated to ensure that the data produced are statistically significant, but randomisation(1) and double-blinding(2) should be standard practice.

Investigations into the published literature on stroke showed that the majority of studies have not fulfilled these criteria, and it is likely that other areas of research are similarly afflicted.

This is similar to the state of human clinical trials 10-15 years ago, and we can only hope that experimental design is improved as quickly as possible.  Recognition of the issues is the key first step. The speakers at the event are doing the vital job of highlighting these problems, whilst stressing exactly what this does and does not mean.

Just as historical bad design did not render the concept of clinical trials as being flawed, the speakers noted that this did not mean that animal models were not a valuable tool in biomedical research:

"This isn’t to say that animal models of stroke are bad… it’s that we can do them better and we must make substantial efforts to improve the quality and reporting of those studies.”
- Dr Malcom Macleod, CAMARADES

Dr Ian Roberts, who spoke on the important of statistical analysis, recognised in a BMJ article that analysis of information is currently limited to stroke research. Based on such limited information he wrote,

"it would be inappropriate to make general statements about the value of animal research"

RDS supports every effort to improve the quality of data gained from animal studies.

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(1) Where allocation of which animals get the trial substance and which get the placebo is randomly determined.
(2) Where those giving the substances as well as those monitoring the results do not know which animals have received the trial substance or placebo.

A frequent claim of the antivivisectionists is that animal research is scientifically invalid because of species differences. They claim no useful information can ever be gained from animals because they are so different to us.

The antivivisectionists seem to fail to understand how research works, or the concept of modelling certain aspects of function or disease. A model must be different from the original object. There are times when a model is actually better to study than the original, because of some particular feature. A good example is a zebra fish embryo, in which it is especially easy to study the early stages of development because it is transparent.

But can results from primitive species such as worms ever be valuable information relevant to man?

The Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King FRS, said today:

‘Although rare, the use of primates in medical research and testing is invaluable, as an essential aspect of work which provides the best hope for breakthroughs in important areas such as neurodegenerative disorders and for aspects of immune and reproductive functions.’

He was quoted in an MRC press release responding to the Weatherall Report on non-human primate research. He also said the government backed a national strategy for the use of non-human primates in science, as do the public bodies that fund primate research in the UK.

The antivivisection groups campaigning so hard to abolish primate research must be rather depressed today.

Will the day come when the Independent starts to get embarrassed about the scientific illiteracy of their columnist Julia Stephenson—otherwise known as the Green Goddess? In this weeks bad science blog, which also appears in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre highlights the ‘ludicrous false information and claims’ she makes in her article on electromagnetic sensitivity.

This is the same Julia Stephenson who both promotes and is promoted by ‘Europeans for Medical Progress’ (EMP). We have exposed this organisation many times as an animal rights group masquerading as a medical body. Stephenson has claimed in various articles that animal experiments are ineffective and ‘put people in danger’. Most recently, she made the standard animal-rights claims last month that there was a link between animal testing and the thalidomide disaster, the Northwick Park tragedy of the trial of TGN1412, and the side-effects of Vioxx.

All of these false claims have been systematically rebutted many times over. In the case of thalidomide, a letter to the Independent showed the true story—that the disaster could almost certainly have been averted if proper animal tests had been carried out. The findings of the expert committee relating to animal testing and the clinical trial of TGN1412 were posted on this blog, as were the facts about Vioxx.

But it is not just how wrong the animal rights campaigners get their facts that put them to shame. Their arguments are riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions which speak for themselves. 

After a period of dominating the headlines, news on the bird flu front has been quiet for the last few months. However, this hasn’t signalled a corresponding hiatus in efforts to combat and deal with a future H5N1 outbreak.

Scientists and researchers have been diligently working away from the media glare, and it seems to have paid off. Antibodies isolated from the blood of Vietnamese survivors may simultaneously offer protection against several strains.  This is great news since no one can be sure how effective current vaccinations and drugs such as Tamiflu (designed for ‘traditional’, less virulent strains), would be against bird flu.

The antibodies have already proven effective in the lab and in mice, and the researchers are confident that they could be used in humans. The antibodies could be used to protect key workers, such as nurses and doctors, in countries where a bird flu epidemic strikes. The researchers say it could also be used as an emergency antidote in people who have already been infected with bird flu – if administered within a few days.

Human trials will hopefully happen soon; watch this space.

BBC online, Scientists find bird flu antibody, 29th May 2007

EMP is peddling yet more erroneous pseudoscience(1), and Tony Benn is fronting their latest drivel.

Benn is a long-time advocate of animal rights and abolishing animal research, but he has more reason than your average joe to be grateful for research involving animals – he had a pacemaker fitted in 2005.

Pacemakers have depended quite heavily on animal research. In the 1950s animal studies demonstrated the restoration of heart rate, cardiac output and mean aortic pressures with complete heart block through the use of a myocardial electrode. The first pacemakers (1950) were crude, painful and powered from an AC wall socket; a potential hazard of electrocution of the patient by inducing ventricular fibrillation. However, by 1957 control of post-surgical heart block was a significant contribution to decreasing mortality of open heart surgery. Further animal research led to the development of implantable pacemakers (1960), leading to Mr Benn’s life-saving treatment.

Now in this democratic society I respect Mr Benn’s right to disagree with animal research, but I certainly don’t respect hypocrisy.

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(1) a film about medicines – I’ve been told it’s deathly dull as well as riddled with pseudoscientific inaccuracies, but have been put off so thoroughly by the press release (where they say "Watch this film for an insight into just how far scientific methods have come since thalidomide" – a strange comment since one of the main ways scientific methods progressed was increasing the rigour of animal testing and legislative requirements that would have averted the thalidomide tragedy) that I just haven’t been able to bring myself to sit through it yet… I’ll report back next week on what I think.

The way some people talk about human rights for chimps these days you might think that chimpanzees were identical to humans. A Professor Sommer was quoted in an Observer article recently as claiming that ’it’s untenable to talk of dividing humans and humanoid apes because there are no clear-cut criteria—neither biological, nor mental, nor social‘.

That’s strange. We thought chimpanzees were a different species to humans. That is surely a clear-cut biological difference. And even if there is not, that does not mean chimps are identical to humans. Even on the continuous electromagnetic spectrum there is no clear-cut point at which green becomes blue. But it is still possible to make a distinction between green and blue.

The misuse of science by campaign groups to promote their cause is all around us. But it has not gone unnoticed. Debates about the weight of evidence for or against scientific topics such as climate change, homeopathy or the safety of vaccinations are widespread. See for example the excellent column and blog by Guardian writer Ben Goldacre on ‘bad science’. This week, Goldacre points out that ‘as long as you cherry pick the data and keep one eye half closed, you can prove anything with science’.

But what happens when the objectives of groups campaigning on different themes are in conflict. This is the messy situation highlighted in a recent Political Update from the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). The Update complains about a Greenpeace commissioned study which has concluded that a strain of genetically modified (GM) maize, approved for sale by the European commission, has shown signs of toxicity in laboratory rats. Greenpeace is claiming that such GM food poses significant health risks, but the BUAV responds that this study demonstrates little more than the supposed limitations of animal tests.

Both parties are guilty of distorting science by simply interpreting evidence as they wish to see it.

At last, a science documentary that’s engaging, doesn’t dumb down science too much and doesn’t create fake controversy (see last week’s New Scientist article about technological populism - we see all too many examples of that). And the mini series is mostly about animals – not natural history, but the science of genetic modification.

Animal Farm is the sort of programme that perhaps only Channel 4 has the guts to commission. It avoids the Brave New World and Frankenstein cliches, although it does include some weird and wonderful animals (mostly used in food production). The concept involves two presenters who investigate GM from different perspectives but in a very straightforward way. Dr Olivia Judson is an enthusiastic scientist, while Giles Coren is a sceptical foodie. I loved Sam Wollaston’s review in today’s Guardian which characterised both of them as GM creatures.

But there should have been more rigorous testing of the GM food. It’s all very well Giles Coren appealing to the yuk factor and having his prejudices confirmed by the apparently bland taste of his ‘GM’ steak, but where was the blind taste test?

Next week I’m hoping to see some cute mice instead of featherless chickens and muscle bound cattle. The real benefits of genetically modifying animals are in medical research, which uses close to one million GM mice every year in the UK alone.

The topic of discussion for a meeting tomorrow of an organisation known as the Laboratory Animal Science Association seemed to me initially to be taking welfare to slightly crazy heights.

After all, although zebrafish are fast becoming the model of choice for many biologists, I thought that they were primarily used for study of the embryo and development – not too much scope for pond weed and treasure chests there. Even if adult fish are in labs there’s hot debate about whether fish actually perceive pain or discomfort as we know it; and how much enrichment does a fish need?

I was soon educated: one of the fastest Google searches I’ve ever done (’zebrafish’ and ‘enrichment’) returned a very pertinent article among the top hits, Evolution of Standards in the Care and Use of Zebrafish in the Jan 2007 issue of Animal Lab News. 

It turns out that zebrafish use is expanding because (i):