24/02/05
Newcastle Journal
Scientist: Animal tests don't work
By Paul James, The Journal
A Newcastle scientist is spearheading a campaign
to end medical research on animals.
But Dr Jarrod Bailey is no animal rights activist
and his argument is founded entirely on the belief
that it simply does not work.
As scientific director of Europeans for Medical
Progress, Dr Bailey, 34, said "archaic" animal
methods have either harmed humans or set research
back by decades.
The group say scientists are not making best
use of new technology that would allow the same
experiments to take place using human tissue
rather than mice or apes.
Following last week's defence of animal testing
at Newcastle's Centre for Life by Professor Colin
Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research
Council, he said academics are stifling progress
as much as the major drugs companies.
Dr Bailey, who lives in Corbridge, Northumberland,
and is project development coordinator for the
University of Newcastle's School of Population
and Health Sciences, was appointed to the group
in December.
He said: "We want an end to vivisection
because of its lack of relevance to human medicine.
There are historic examples, like penicillin,
the introduction of which was delayed by 10 years
because it was given to a rabbit and didn't work.
Even after thalidomide had harmed about 15,000
people, they still struggled to show similar
birth defects in animals."
He says research into the likes of cancer, brain
diseases and hormone replacement therapy has
been held back by a reliance on animal methods.
He is now preparing for a series of head-to-head
debates with those who defend animal testing,
including one later this year with Professor
Blakemore.
He said relating results of animal testing to
how drugs will affect humans can be as unreliable
as guessing the result of a coin toss. "The
ethical side is a big dilemma, but that is removed
when you present people with the information
that animal methods are not useful," he
said. "They haven't got us very far at all.
"Colin Blakemore uses examples like Alzheimer's
and Parkinson's to defend the animal model but
never substantiates his claims with any hard
science. What we have learned about Alzheimer's
and Parkinson's has all been from studying human
beings."
After commissioning an independent study that
found 82pc of GPs thought animal data can be
misleading when applied to humans, Europeans
for Medical Progress is now trying to persuade
the Government to launch an independent study
of how effective animal research has been.
* Anyone who would like to find out more can
contact www.safermedicines.org |
