The BBC 10 o’clock news on 7th December showed how media coverage of the issue of the use of animals in research has moved on. A report on the Northwick Park drug trial was followed by a report on the conviction of an animal rights bomber
The problem is that the differences between animals and humans always confound the results of these tests and radical new treatments like these desperately need testing with something far more accurate, relevant and reliable than animals.
However this official report states:
pre-clinical tests performed in human and animal cells, and in animal models, failed to predict the human response to the starting dose of TGN1412 given in the trial.
Perhaps the absence of further histrionics from these groups may be because even they realise that logically they should now call for a ban on these cell tests … because these also failed! We await such a BUAV press release with baited breath!
Delve deeper into the report and you are struck by the sheer volume of non-animal data used for safety assessment. Again this rubbishes claims that the pharmaceutical industry does not use these non-animal tests. The reports’ overall conclusion on the use of animals is:
Animal studies taking due regard of the three ‘Rs’, (refinement, reduction and replacement of animals in testing) remain necessary for many aspects of pre-clinical development of novel agents including testing of ‘off-target’ and ‘on-target’ toxicity and understanding the fundamental biology relevant to a new medicine and its target molecules in the human. Most, if not all, new medicines arise from biological insights gained from well-designed animal studies. The key point we want to make is the importance of deciding what can be learned from animal studies in the pre-clinical development of a new medicine, and what limitations there might be when it comes to predicting the response, and dose-response relationship, in humans.
No wonder the media, such as the BBC, now steer well clear of BUAV etc, and realise that including their views is not ‘balance’ but merely promulgates junk science.
Second it is great news about a 12 year sentence for Donald Currie. A dangerous criminal has been taken out of circulation. The sentence of a ‘life sentence with a licence for life’ is exactly what is needed. Anybody who has seen people with his views and approaches (and many have seen this on recent TV programmes ) will realise that they are un-reformable.
Let’s hope the parole board recognises this as well!
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