Moving Away From Animal Testing (finally)

In the past few weeks, a couple of articles have been in the news regarding animal testing. And for once they’re articles reporting on things moving in a positive direction – away from animal use.

One of the stumbling blocks has been the regulations from the various authorities that require animal testing. The requirement has never been logical. It has been known for decades that tests on animals do not predict an outcome in humans (or, for that matter, any species other than the one the test was performed on), but through archaic mindsets and a fearful public who has never understood that animal testing is a failure on many levels, these tests continued to be a requirement. The EU has had a Directive since 1986 mandating that non-animal methods be used when available and approved, but until now the U.S’s FDA accepted no alternatives to only animal testing.

“International Body Approves Landmark Nonanimal Test“

After more than a decade of scientific research and lobbying by animal protection groups, the world will soon see a dramatic reduction in the use of the Draize skin test. The test is conducted by smearing potentially harmful materials onto rabbits’ shaved skin.

In April, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the international body that coordinates testing programs and guidelines from various countries, made history by approving the first complete replacement for the Draize skin test. The guideline was adopted in July and it is now available for use by companies and governments worldwide.

The next article is similar, but about U.S. testing. It was published in Bloomberg, a financial publication.

“Pfizer May Gain as U.S. Devises Speedy Alternative to Animal Safety Tests”

Drugmakers led by Pfizer Inc. will soon gain access to a new testing system that can shrink by months to years the time needed to determine an experimental drug’s safety, potentially adding millions of dollars in research savings and revenue.

…

About 30 percent of potential drugs that pass animal testing make it through the first two of three phases of human trials usually needed for U.S. regulatory approval. Almost a third of those medicines typically fail in the final phase, according to Joseph DiMasi, a researcher at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and Henry Grabowski, of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, in a 2003 study published in the Journal of Health Economics.

The cost of failure is high. Drugmakers on average spent $86 million in 2000 for final-phase human testing, according to the study. Jacobson-Kram said the new system is likely to decrease the number of bad drugs that make it to final testing.

Using animal data to predict what will happen in humans has been shown to be “a jump,” because of the vast differences in species, said David Dix, acting deputy director of the EPA’s national center for computational toxicology.

…

Using the new system, made possible by recent advances in robotics and software and the sequencing of the human genome, can take one to five days, compared with animal testing that often lasts a month and may involve about 80 animals, said Bob Chapin, a senior research fellow at New York-based Pfizer, in a telephone interview.

Longer-term animal studies, such as those used to assess cancer risk, may take two years and involve 800 mice and rats, the FDA’s Jacobson-Kram said. The average cost of a longer-term animal test was $5.2 million in 2000, according to the Journal of Health Economics.

“We want to migrate away from animal testing,” Jacobson- Kram said. “We also want to see drug development become more efficient so that fewer resources are wasted.”

…

While animal testing has been mandated by law for more than seven decades, use of alternative methods would be allowed since the data provided would be equal to or better than the findings from living creatures, the FDA said in May, in response to a request from the advocacy group Mandatory Alternatives Petition Coalition to eliminate animal testing.

Words I never thought I’d be alive to see attributed to someone at the FDA include the quote from Jacobson-Kram, “we want to migrate away from animal testing.”

It is clear that the primary motivation is money. For a long time the drug companies were profiting from the animal tests, as well as from the drugs. Campaigns like SHAC and WAR have based their campaigns on the theory that if you put pressure on the pocketbooks of the animal testing companies you’ll end animal testing.

It is also clear that at least some people in the FDA are trying to move in a new direction, and I am frankly thrilled that a publication that has nothing to do with animal rights is using a quote about the unreliability of animal testing.

That unreliability should be front and center in the news, and it’s a shame that the Drs Greek, authors of “Sacred Cows and Golden Geese” and “Specious Science” have been ignored for so long.

I have hope that this is the start of a long positive trend away from animal use. Once society is finally aware that there are alternatives non-animal tests available (and that they are more accurate and increase safety), there will be a societal shift condemning animal testing. These two articles are only talking about the possibilities – there has been no banning of animal tests, but that will come…and perhaps sooner than we expected.

Note: I changed my wording to not use “alternatives”. Why? Read this comment.