ARTICLE WRITTEN IN 2006

THE CASE AGAINST VIVISECTION

For over 200 years cruel and abhorrent experiments have been carried out on animals for the sole purpose of finding cures for Human diseases. Scientists and the powerful pharmaceutical industry have managed to convince public opinion that animals are crucial for finding cures for human diseases. Yet when one looks closely at the facts and figures a completely different picture emerges. Animals make poor guinea pigs in drug tests and human beings are paying a an enormous cost for this essentially bad science. There is a fundamental species difference between humans and animals. Prescription drugs are the fourth biggest killer in the western world and in UK around 100,000 people die every year because of adverse reaction to drugs prescribed to treat ailments such as heart disease and arthritis. A further 280,000 people in UK suffer from serious side effects from drugs which quite often live them great pain. The recent example of trial drugs used on humans with such devastating consequences is further proof that drugs that may work on animals do not work on humans. Almost 92% of drugs prove dangerous or ineffective on people although they work on animals. Let us now look at some examples of differences between humans and animals in their reaction to various drugs

1. Morphin calms people and rats but causes excitement in cats and mice.
2. Aspirin causes birth defects cats and dogs but not in people.
3. The introduction of blood transfusion was delayed by 200 years because of misleading results of animal experiments.
4. The introduction of Corneal transplant was delayed for over 90 years because of misleading animal tests.
5. The heart drug Eraldin was thoroughly studied on animals and satisfied the regulatory authorities.However it caused side effects in people such as blindness and joint pains.
6. Opren the anti-arthritis drug was passed safe in animal tests. It was withdrawn after causing more than 70 deaths and serious side effects to 3.500 other people.
7. Aids, Malaria and Hepatitis kill humans but not chimpanzees.
8. Hormone Replacement Therapy increases women’s risk of heart disease, breast cancer and stroke. However on Monkeys it has the opposite effect.
9. In the 1980’s thousands of people were given HIV contaminated blood because it did not affect chimpanzees.
10. Arthritis pain killer Vioxx which was withdrawn in 2004, caused up to 160,000 heart attacks and strokes,7000 of them fatal. The drug appeared safe on animals.

In spite of so much evidence why are drugs tested on animals? There are several reasons. Pharmaceutical companies have known for decades that animal testimony is scientifically worthless but they use it to provide liability protection when their drug kill or injure people. Juries are easily swayed by volumes of safety data from rats, mice, dogs and monkeys- even though it is meaning less for humans. Secondly the intense competition to find a new drug which may prove effective–a colossal amount of money can be made by a successful drug. The value of drugs prescribed to NHS patients in England in 2002-3 was a whooping £7.2 billion. One reason for the perpetual crisis in the NHS is cost of drugs. In 2004 2.7 million animals were used in animal experiments in UK–rats, rabbits, mice, pigs, dogs ,monkeys and other animals are used. Eight thousand experiments were carried out on dogs some were used more then once. The number of monkeys used was around 3000. In many cases their skulls are opened up they are deliberately brain damaged. These monkeys then suffer from fitting, vomiting, tremors and bleeding head wounds. There is now a race to find a cure for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Monkeys are the unfortunate victims of this race for cure. I am not saying that all drugs experimented on animals have failed–with so much money spent on finding new drugs some are bound to work but the methodology is flawed.So what are the alternatives to the animal model for testing drugs? State of the art computer programmes,coupled with human tissue samples, enable the fate of drugs in the human body to be predicted with accuracy.DNA chips would allow researchers to see who will respond to a drug and who will not respond and may be harmed by it. Scanning individuals Genotypes is the best way to improve drug safety. Prescribing the right drug for the right people is called, ‘Personalised Medicine’. This is the very system on which the Indian Ayur Veda system is based. It makes immense sense that each individual is different and would respond differently to medication hence,’ one fits all model’is flawed.There are many success stories of of cures found without using the animal model:1 John Charney-the inventor of Artificial Hip refused to experiment on animals. The hip which he developed is still regarded the best.2 Introduction of Beta Blockers for blood pressure,digitalis for heart failure, morphine as pain killer,nitrite drug for angina, quinine for malaria and salicylic acid -the active ingredient of Aspirin.The ethos on which western medicine works needs to be changed from finding a cure to diseases to preventing diseases. People should be encouraged to take responsibility for their bodies. A shift away from a meat diet to a plant based vegetarian and vegan diet is crucial for preventing and reducing the impact of many modern day diseases. Yoga and other forms of alternative medicine should be incorporated in the NHS. Mahatma Gandhi called vivisection the blackest of black crimes that humans inflict on animals. Animal cannot speak for themselves, we are deaf to their screams– we must end this terrible suffering for our own moral well being.

Nitin Mehta