The Human Cost of Animal Experiments

[Guest guest]

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/animaltesting.html

 

The Human Cost of Animal Experiments

There is strong scientific evidence that animal-based testing is grossly

inaccurate in evaluating how a drug or product will affect humans, and is a

grave risk to the health and safety of people and animals alike.

 

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Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 8, Number 2

PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor

Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381

From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

 

© 2000-2001 by Katrina Fox (UK)

E-mail: info

Website: www.katrinafox.com

 

 

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THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AGAINST VIVISECTION

Graphic pictures of cats with electrodes clamped to their heads, or monkeys

strapped to chairs with their brains cut open, their eyes filled with pain

and terror, are enough to upset momentarily even the most hardened person.

But most of us put these images out of our mind and accept the situation,

because we're told by the government and medical establishment that such

experiments are for our own good. They insist that without these procedures

there will never be cures for the world's diseases, and that those who

oppose animal experiments are extremists holding back " progress " .

 

Yet, despite the supposed stringency of animal tests on drugs deemed safe

for human consumption and released onto the market, two million Americans

become seriously ill and approximately 100,000 people die every year because

of reactions to medicines they were prescribed.1 This figure exceeds the

number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined, at an annual cost to the

public of more than US$136 billion in health care expenses.2 In England, an

estimated 70,000 deaths and cases of severe disability occur each year

because of adverse reactions to prescription drugs, making this the third

most common cause of death (after heart attack and stroke).3

 

The drug company Ciba-Geigy has estimated that only five per cent of

chemicals found safe and effective in animal tests actually reach the market

as prescription drugs.4 Even so, during 1976 to 1985 the US Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) approved 209 new compounds-102 of which were either

withdrawn or relabelled because of severe unpredicted side-effects including

heart attacks, kidney failure, liver failure and stroke.5

 

The animal rights movement has lobbied for years against animal

experimentation on moral and ethical grounds, but the scientific evidence

against vivisection is far stronger. Researchers who put their careers on

the line and publicly admit that animal-based models are inaccurate for

evaluating the effects of drugs in humans are encouraged or forced to be

silent in a billion-dollar industry.

 

Two such researchers are Dr Ray Greek, an American anaesthesiologist, and

his wife, Jean Swingle Greek, a veterinary dermatologist. Both are

ex-vivisectors who have studied medical and scientific literature which is

largely unavailable and inscrutable to the public. Using the industry's own

data, they expose in their new book, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human

Cost of Animal Experimentation, how we are kept in the dark about the

dangers to our health from animal experiments.

 

WHY ANIMAL MODELS ARE NOT PREDICTIVE

Open up a rat, a dog, a pig and a human and you will find much the same

terrain, but with differences. But it is precisely these differences which

have an impact when it comes to assimilating drugs. For example, rats, the

species most commonly used in vivisection, have no gall bladder and excrete

bile very effectively.

 

" Many drugs are excreted via bile, so this affects the half-life of the

drug, " explain Ray and Jean Greek. " Drugs bind to rat plasma much less

efficiently. Rats always breathe through the nose. Because some chemicals

are absorbed in the nose, some are filtered. So rats get a different mix of

substances entering their systems. Also, they are nocturnal. Their gut flora

are in a different location. Their skin has different absorptive properties

than that of humans. Any one of these discrepancies will alter drug

metabolism. "

 

These differences are only on a gross level. Medications act on a

microscopic level, initiating or interrupting chemical reactions that are

far too small for the human eye to observe.

 

" We differ on the cellular level and molecular level and, importantly, that

is where disease occurs, " the authors explain. " The cells of chimps are very

similar to [the cells of] humans, but the spatial organisation of the cells

is vastly different. "

 

Even those who favour the animal model admit its unpredictability among

their peers.

 

Dr Ralph Heywood, director of Huntingdon Research Center in the United

States, says: " The best guess for the correlation of adverse reactions in

man and animal toxicity data is somewhere between five and 25 per cent. " 6

 

Dr Herbert Hensel, Director of the Institute of Physiology at Marburg

University, goes further: " In the opinion of leading biostatisticians, it is

not possible to transfer the probability predictions from animals to humans.

At present, therefore, there exists no possibility at all of a

scientifically based prediction. In this respect, the situation is even less

favourable than a game of chance. " 7

 

Even the most widely respected textbook on animal experimentation states:

" Uncritical reliance on the results of animal tests can be dangerously

misleading and has cost the health and lives of tens of thousands of

humans. " 8

 

The best-known example of this is thalidomide. Mothers who took this drug to

ameliorate morning sickness gave birth to children with shocking

deformities, with most lacking developed limbs. Animal tests had not

predicted this. The first recorded case of side effects occurred on

Christmas Day 1956, but in 1957 the drug was released anyway.9

 

QUESTIONABLE ACCURACY OF TOXICITY TESTS

One of the reasons why so many drugs cause adverse reactions in

humans-reactions which were not predicted in animals-is because of the

inaccuracy of the toxicity tests carried out.

 

The most notorious of these is the LD50 Draize test ( " LD50 " stands for

" Lethal Dose 50 per cent " ), where animals-usually dogs and rats-are

force-fed, forced to inhale or are injected with a chemical until 50 per

cent of them die. That dosage is then designated as the LD50. Its

unreliability is obvious when we consider the huge variables such as the

age, weight and gender of the animals, not to mention the environmental

conditions under which the test takes place. These variables render the

results invalid even for the species tested, let alone for humans.

 

The LD50 test was still part of almost all regulatory guidelines for the

safety assessment of chemicals worldwide until 10 years ago. In the United

States, although the FDA no longer requires the test and will accept in

vitro and other non-animal-based alternatives, it still accepts the LD50-so

the testing continues.

 

In November 2000, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development

(OECD), which comprises 29 member countries, agreed to abolish the LD50 test

and phase it out during 2001.16 But the alternatives which will take its

place are merely a refinement of the original; they still involve the use of

animals and therefore are still wholly unreliable indicators for human

health.

 

In the United States, the Voluntary Children's Health Chemical Testing

Program is being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and

it involves extensive animal testing to determine the " safe " amount of toxic

poisons to which children can be exposed.

 

WHAT DOESN'T WORK FOR ANIMALS MAY WORK FOR HUMANS

As well as animal tests allowing unsafe drugs onto the market, the flip side

is that human health is also compromised when drugs which may be beneficial

to humans are prevented from being released. Most drugs have side effects,

some of which are more acute than others, but many useful medications used

to save lives would not have reached clinical trials if they had first been

tested on animals.

 

We only have to look in our own medicine cabinets for examples. Today,

around 29 billion aspirin per year are sold in the United States and twice

that number worldwide, yet aspirin causes birth defects in mice and rats and

results in such extensive blood abnormalities in cats that they can only

take 20 per cent of the human dosage every third day.20 Another painkiller,

ibuprofen, causes kidney failure in dogs, even at low doses.

 

Other prescription drugs were initially unavailable to people because animal

studies predicted side effects not found in humans. They include:

 

a.. Corticosteroids: These have been shown to cause cancer in some

rodents, despite their being used safely by humans for years.

b.. Depo-Provera: This contraceptive was barred from release in the US in

1973 because it caused cancer in dogs and baboons.

c.. FK506: This anti-rejection drug was almost shelved before it proceeded

to clinical trials. After experimenting on dogs, researchers said animal

toxicity was too severe to proceed to the clinical trial stage.

d.. Furosemide: Mice, rats and hamsters suffer liver damage from this

diuretic, but humans do not. It is widely prescribed for the treatment of

high blood pressure and heart disease.

e.. Isoniazid: This medication, commonly used for treating tuberculosis,

caused cancer in animals.

f.. Penicillin: The release of penicillin was delayed when its discoverer,

Alexander Fleming, put it to one side because it did not work in rabbits.

This is because rabbits excrete penicillin in their urine. Only when Fleming

had a sick human patient and nothing else to try, did he administer

penicillin -- with excellent results.

g.. Prilosec: The release of this gastrointestinal medication was delayed

for 12 years because of an effect in animals which did not occur in humans.

h.. Streptomycin: This popular antibiotic caused birth defects such as

limb malformations in the offspring of rats.

THE CANCER WAR

According to Dr Ray and Jean Swingle Greek, 40 per cent of us will have a

diagnosis of cancer at some time in our lives. It is the one disease which

most of us will have had some encounter with, whether personally or through

contact with friends or family. But despite billions of dollars poured into

" cancer research " , the medical establishment is not winning its war against

the Big C. Deaths from the disease are increasing; for example, from 1973 to

1992 they went up by 6.3 per cent in the United States.

 

The Greeks reveal in their book that despite thousands of substances being

fed to, painted on and injected into hundreds of millions of animals, we are

no closer to saving lives. " In many cases, it [animal experimentation] has

actually led to more life loss and introduced new dangers, " they argue.

 

There are more than 200 different forms of human cancer. Some of these have

counterparts in animals, although even these differ greatly from those in

humans in terms of cause, effect, treatment and prognosis. An histiocytoma

is fatal in humans but benign in dogs, as all cancers have species-specific

effects.

 

Ironically, in the 1950s the only known carcinogens were those found by

studying humans epidemiologically, the authors explain. " A study of

dyeworkers showed a high incidence of bladder cancer, " they write. " Droves

of dyed lab animals failed to prove the rule. Chromium was found to be

carcinogenic in humans but not in animals. The link between radiation and

cancer was also reported from clinical studies by that time. In 1956,

British doctors warned of carcinogenic effects of X-rays given during

pregnancy, resulting in childhood cancers. But no amount of irradiated

pregnant quadrupeds necessarily produced the same effect.

 

" In these instances and many others, the inability to validate

carcinogenicity in animals kept cancer-causing agents legal for a much

longer time. "

 

Asbestos is another example. The link between cancer and asbestos was made

as long ago as 1907; but, after scientists failed to induce the disease in

animals, it took more than 30 years before the human-model evidence became

irrefutable.

 

Ray and Jean Greek point out that, between 1970 and 1985, researchers

subjected an estimated 300 to 400 million animals to more than half a

million compounds to check for anticancer effects. Based on these animal

experiments, only 80 compounds progressed to clinical trials. Just 24 proved

to have any anticancer activity in humans, and, of these, 12 went on to have

a substantial role in chemotherapy. But, all 12 of these compounds were

chemical variations of previously known chemotherapeutic agents. The fact

that these chemicals could be used to fight cancer had already been

predicted by their chemical structure.21 In other words, for 15 years,

billions of dollars of investment money was ploughed into subjecting

millions of animals to the most painful, cruel and barbaric procedures and

then killing them, all of which proved nothing new.

 

Even the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has admitted its failures. In

the Los Angeles Times of 6 May 1998, NCI Director Dr Richard Klausner was

quoted as saying: " The history of cancer research has been a history of

curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it

simply didn't work in humans. "

 

In the United States in the 1990s, scientists came up with the idea of

genetically engineering rats to accept human cancers. But in 63 per cent of

cases, according to the Greeks, the human tumours in the rats did not

respond to chemotherapies which are " currently and effectively " used in

humans, because the way cancers grow in animals is different from how they

grow in humans. It begs the question as to how many anticancer drugs which

could be successful in treating human cancers have been missed because they

did not work in mice or rats. Chemotherapeutic agents which have been

successful in humans have all come from non-animal means, according to the

Greeks.

 

The next time any of us is tempted to put money into a tin shaken by cancer

research charities which fund research using animal models, we would do well

to remember the words of Dr Irwin Bross, formerly of the Roswell Park

Memorial Institute for Cancer Research, in testimony before the US Congress

in 1981: " While conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered

advances in the war on cancer, they have never produced a single substantial

advance in either the prevention or treatment of human cancer. "

 

WHY ANIMAL-BASED RESEARCH CONTINUES, DESPITE THE EVIDENCE

If even the proponents of the vivisection lobby admit that animal studies

are inaccurate and produce little reliable data for human extrapolation, why

on earth do they continue to employ these methods?

 

Dr Werner Hartinger, a German surgeon, surmised in 1989: " There are, in

fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to

vivisection: those who don't know enough about it, and those who make money

from it. "

 

The latter in particular, according to Ray and Jean Greek, is the main

reason. " Scientists are just like the rest of us, materialistic and

opportunistic. They, too, struggle to survive and excel in a competitive

world, " they argue.

 

Dr Irwin Bross agrees. In 1986 he was quoted in Cancer Research on Animals

as saying: " They [scientists] may claim to love truth; but when it is a

matter of truth versus dollars, they love the dollars more. "

 

To get grants for research and stay employed, you must churn out papers with

the utmost regularity. And the fastest and easiest way to get papers

published is to use animal experimentation.

 

" Animal experimentation is tidy, " the Greeks explain. " The lovely thing

about rats is that you can go home on Friday night and rest assured that

they will still be in their cages when you get back on Monday. On the other

hand, clinical research on humans can be tricky. Clinicians have no control

over patients who may not return for follow-up appointments. Human subjects

may even be dishonest about their lifestyles. You can addict monkeys to

crack cocaine or heroin in your nice, clean lab. If you want to study human

crack or heroin addicts, you may have to interact with potentially nasty

people. "

 

Time is also of the essence. " A rat's generation time is weeks, not decades.

By the time a clinician publishes one good paper, an animal experimenter can

publish at least five. The easiest way to publish is to take a concept

already published and change something, the type of animal used, the dose of

the drug, the method of assessing the results or some other variable. " It is

the number, as opposed to the value of research, that is important to those

wishing to get on in their scientific career.

 

Acceptance of the status quo, not rocking the boat, is also a key factor.

The pressure on students and young doctors to publish should not be

underestimated. It has led to a proliferation of scientific journals which

are often edited by researchers using animal experiments. This means that

vivisectionists are able to put forward their work, but those who are

against animal studies can find no place to publish-despite there being an

estimated 100,000 scientific journals in print today. Many of these journals

rely on advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies and others who

make products for animal experimenters.

 

Mainstream media also collude to keep anti-vivisectionists' work out of the

public eye. At the UK press conference of the Greeks' new book, not one

journalist from a national newspaper attended, despite novelist Jilly Cooper

being there to promote it.

 

Reporters and editors soon realise that if they want to hang onto their jobs

and maintain a steady flow of breaking news, they must keep their contacts

happy. Most of these scientific contacts will be part of the animal

experimentation lobby who will not take too kindly to the prospect of having

their industry exposed as a money-making fraud.

 

This money, by the way, is yours. The US Government spends around $10

billion of taxpayers' money each year on animal-based research, according to

the Greeks. The largest single provider of funds to medical research

institutions in the United States is the National Institutes of Health

(NIH). But only one-third of NIH competing research grant applications

includes human subjects.22 So it is not hard to see why animal studies are

the preferred option of researchers with career ambitions and mortgages to

pay.

 

Then there is the grip of corporations to contend with. The animal

experimentation industry grosses between an estimated 100 billion and one

trillion dollars a year worldwide. This figure includes the employment of

hundreds of thousands of people, including those who manufacture and sell

jackets for immobilising animals and pumps for force-feeding them, needles,

cages, scalpels and equipment used to kill animals in a specific way, not to

mention the sales of animals themselves. Take Cedar River Laboratories, for

example, which specialises in selling cats; its price is usually $225 for

animals less than 16 weeks old.

 

Pharmaceutical firms benefit from the industry, too. According to its 1999

annual report, Merck's sales for the year came in at $32,714 million.

 

Animal experimentation is the quickest way of getting a new drug onto the

market. Researchers given grant money by pharmaceutical companies are far

more likely to come out with a positive review of the drug than those who

are not receiving financial support. The Journal of the American Medical

Association reported that 43 per cent of more than 2,000 researchers

surveyed at the top 50 research universities said they had received gifts,

including cash, even when the giver required prior approval of the results

of the research being conducted.23

 

Even charities are not exempt from the profit-making loop. Many of them --

such as the American Institute for Cancer Research, the American Diabetes

Association and the American Heart Association, and the Imperial Cancer

Research Fund and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) in the UK -- fund or

carry out animal-based research. Out of a total income of £56 million in

1998, the BHF spent £34.9 million on research, with only £5.1 million going

into educational programs. In one test, dogs' chests were cut open and their

blood was circulated out of their bodies and back again in order to allow

blood pressure to change quickly in the neck arteries. The experimenters

then came to the conclusion that a person bending down and suddenly standing

up could experience dizziness and fainting.24

 

Animal testing also provides pharmaceutical firms with a weapon to protect

themselves from being sued by people who have been damaged by their

products. In Europe, all medications when they reach the final product stage

are legally required to be tested on animals for carcinogenicity and birth

defects. But, explains Wendy Higgins, campaigns director of the British

Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, this is not the case in the

developmental stages of a drug, which is where most animal testing goes on.

 

The situation in the United States is similar. According to Dr Ray Greek:

" Most pharmaceutical firms do more testing than the government requires, so

they can say in court that they saw no effects like the one that killed the

plaintiff's wife. Officials will tell you off the record that they rely on

animal testing and think that it is a big factor in protection from

lawsuits. " Or, the companies can turn around and dismiss the animal tests as

being unreliable in humans. Either way, it is extremely hard for victims to

take legal action against them.

 

ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL-BASED RESEARCH

Real developments always arise from a human-modelled foundation, Ray and

Jean Greek assert. The potent painkiller morphine, for example, is extracted

from poppy flowers. Quinine, used to treat malaria, comes from cinchona

bark. Aspirin, the most widely used medication in the world, was first

prescribed by Hippocrates in the form of willow bark. None of these owes

anything to animal experiments.

 

Clinical studies of patients and good old-fashioned observation have led to

the successful treatment of childhood leukaemia and thyroid disease. Our

present HIV and AIDS therapies and a number of heart drugs have also been

developed in this way.

 

In vitro or test-tube study has revolutionised medical research. Cell and

tissue preservation technology is now so advanced that many different types

of cells can be kept alive almost indefinitely, giving far more accurate

results when studying disease on the microscopic level at which it occurs.

 

Autopsies and epidemiology are other key areas of research, with technology

today allowing thousands of patients at multiple institutions to be tracked.

Ray and Jean Greek point out that epidemiological studies discovered the

link between folic acid deficiency and spina bifida. Epidemiological studies

also showed the cause/effect relationship between smoking and cancer, cancer

and diet, heart disease and cholesterol, coal dust and black lung disease,

smoking and heart disease, among many other diseases. It was epidemiology

that proved the link between smoking and lung disease, despite the tobacco

industry arguing for years that this was not the case because animal-based

models said so. Experimenters had tried unsuccessfully for more than half a

century to give animals cancer with tobacco smoke. They reasoned that since

animals do not get cancer from tobacco, there is no proof that it causes

cancer. The tobacco industry even paid doctors in the 1950s and 1960s to

advertise cigarettes.

 

Breast cancer is an area that has benefited from mathematical modelling

where computers simulate parts of the human body. This is a relatively new

area of research, as is computer-assisted research where molecules can be

studied on screen using computer graphics which mimic the body's systems.

 

The Dr Hadwen Trust is a UK-based charity established to come up with

alternative research techniques. It funded the development of a new

brain-scanning technique for studying vision, which replaced the need for

invasive experiments on cats and led to a revolution in the understanding of

the human brain with untold potential. The Trust also funded a pioneering 3D

computer model of human teeth which is used to predict the results of

corrective dental procedures such as braces.

 

These alternatives are not prohibitively expensive, either. Many are in fact

cheaper than using animals. An initial cost of implementing new procedures

would have to be incurred, but the long-term savings would justify the

investment.

 

MORAL, ETHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC CONCERNS

The moral and ethical objections to vivisection will continue to rage on. If

you are not interested in " animal rights " , the use of animals in experiments

will probably not bother you. But the scientific evidence against this

practice should worry every single one of us who cares about our health.

 

Anyone who is yet to be convinced should take note of the section in Ray and

Jean Greeks' book which outlines the results of a 1998 survey conducted by

the Public Citizens' Health Research Group (PCHRG) in the United States. In

the survey, 19 medical officers at the FDA said that 27 new drugs approved

by the agency in the past three years should not have been. " Dr Sidney

Wolfe, Director of the PCHRG, said that standards are going down because the

agency has been under pressure from Congress to approve products more

quickly. Of 172 officers interviewed, eight said there were 14 instances in

the past three years where they had been told not to present their opinion

to an advisory committee if it would reduce the likelihood of a drug's

approval. " 25, 26

 

So, contrary to the propaganda put forward by the medical establishment to

justify its work, animal experimentation does not save human lives. As the

industry's own evidence proves, it does just the opposite.

 

 

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Author's Note:

This article is based on information contained in Sacred Cows and Golden

Geese: The Human Cost of Animal Experimentation, by C. Ray Greek, MD, and

Jean Swingle Greek (Continuum Publishing, London and New York, 2000,

www.continuumbooks.com).

 

Endnotes

1. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), April 1998; 279:1200.

2. JAMA 1997; 277:301-6; and PharmacoEconomics 1994; 5:482-504.

3. Nature Medicine 2000; 6:502-503.

4. Medical World News 1965; 6:168.

5. GAO/PEMD-90-15 FDA Drug Review: Postapproval Risks 1976-1985.

6. Lumley, C.E. and S.R. Walker (eds), Animal Toxicity Studies: Their

Relevance for Man, Quay Publishing, 1989; Clinical Pharmacology &

Therapeutics 1962; 3:665-672.

7. In the supplement to the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (New Legal

Weekly), in Zeitschrif für Rechtspolitik, issue 2, 1975.

8. Svendsen, Per, " Laboratory Animal Anaesthesia " , in Handbook of Laboratory

Animal Science (P. Svendsen and J. Hau, editors), CRC Press, vol. 1, p. 4.

9. Teratology 1988; 28:221-226.

10. Nature 1 April 1982, pp. 387-90.

11. Spriet-Pourra, C. and M. Auriche, Drug Withdrawal from Sale, PJB

Publications (Scrip Report), 1988, 2nd edition.

12. Lancet 1992; 340:1145-1147.

13. International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Monographs on

Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk of Chemicals to Humans, 1996, pp. 253-635.

14. Weatherall, M., Safety Testing of New Drugs: Laboratory Predictions and

Clinical Performance, Academic Press, 1984, pp. 157-158.

15. See Breast Cancer Action website, www.bcaction.org; also Christiane

Northrup's book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, Piatkus, UK, 1998.

16. OECD press release, 29 November 2000, www.oecd.org/media.

19. Visit website www.stopeuchemicaltests. com.

20. Lancet 1962; 599-600.

21. PPO, Updates of Cancer, 10 October 1989.

22. Clinical Research 1991; 39:145-156.

23. JAMA 1998; 279:995.

24. Britishheartlessfoundation.com (affiliate website of People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals), 2000.

25. Reuters News Service, 3 December 1998.

26. Reuters Health, " FDA Reviewers Say Drug Approval Standards Too Low " , 3

December 1998, www.reuters.com.

 

UNSAFE FOR HUMANS

The following, taken from Dr Ray and Jean Greek's book, are just some

examples of pharmaceutical drugs which have been deemed safe for human use

after extensive animal testing, but which were later found to cause serious

side effects.

 

.Amrinone: Use of this drug for treating heart failure led to 20 per

cent of patients developing thrombocytopenia (a lack of blood cells needed

for clotting), despite a comprehensive program of animal studies in mice,

rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs and rhesus monkeys. Some of these patients

died.

 

.Birth control pills: These are known to cause life-threatening blood

clots in some women, yet scientists have still not been able to reproduce

this finding in animals. In fact, dog testing predicted that the pill would

decrease the likelihood of clotting.

 

.Chloramphenicol: This antibiotic caused life-threatening anaemia in

humans. Chloramphenicol is an example of a drug whose effects vary from

species to species: dogs do well with it, cats die from it, cows tolerate it

but horses do not. It is so toxic to susceptible humans that its use has

been outlawed in animals used for food. The tiny amount consumed from

ingesting a hamburger made from a treated cow will cause death in such a

person unless they receive a bone marrow transplant.

 

.Clioquinol: This anti-diarrhoeal passed tests in rats, cats, dogs and

rabbits. It was pulled off the shelves all over the world in 1982 after it

was found to cause blindness and paralysis in humans.

 

.Diethylstilbestrol: This synthetic oestrogen was designed to prevent

miscarriage, but it did just the opposite by increasing the rate of

spontaneous abortions, premature births and neo-natal deaths. No human

trials were done; all the safety data were collected from animals.

 

.Eraldin: This heart drug was withdrawn in 1975 after causing serious

side effects in an estimated 7,000 victims, 23 of whom died. It had been

tested for six years in mice, rats, dogs and monkeys and when introduced on

the market was " particularly notable for the thoroughness with which its

toxicity was studied in animals, to the satisfaction of the authorities " .10

Even long after the drug was withdrawn, scientists failed to reproduce these

results in animals.

 

.Floxin: This antibiotic progressed through animal testing, only to

cause seizures and psychosis when used by humans.

 

.Isuprel: A medication used to treat asthma, it proved devastatingly

toxic to humans in the amounts recommended based on animal studies. In Great

Britain alone, 3,500 asthmatics died from using the medication.

 

.Manoplax: This heart drug, which had been tested on rats, mice,

rabbits, cats and guinea-pigs, was withdrawn worldwide in 1993 after

analysis of patients showed that those taking it were at increased risk of

hospitalisation and/or death.

 

.Methysergide: This treatment for migraine led to severe scarring of

the heart, kidneys and blood vessels in the abdomen, although scientists

have been unable to reproduce these effects in animals.

 

.Opren: This treatment for rheumatism and arthritis killed 61 people

and caused 3,500 adverse reactions. Withdrawn in 1982, the drug had been

tested on monkeys and other animals for nine years with no adverse side

effects.

 

.Phenylpropanolamine (PPA): This drug, found in many common cold and

flu remedies, was banned by the FDA in the US after it was linked to causing

between 200 and 500 strokes in young women a year.

 

.Primacor: This medication, given when the heart is not pumping enough

blood, worked well in rats but increased deaths in humans by 30 per cent.

 

.Ritodrine: This drug, prescribed to avert premature labour, induced

pulmonary oedema (fluid in the lungs, causing breathing difficulties and

possibly death).

 

.Suprofen: This arthritis drug was withdrawn from the market when

patients suffered kidney toxicity. Prior to its release, researchers said

this about the animal tests: " ...excellent safety profile. No.cardiac, renal

[kidney] or central nervous system [side effects] in any species. " 11

 

.Tamoxifen: This drug, used to treat and prevent breast cancer in

women, caused liver tumours in rats but not in mice or hamsters.12 The drug

has been shown to be harmless to the developing foetus of rabbits and

monkeys, but to cause bone abnormalities in rat foetuses.13 One of the side

effects is nausea and vomiting, but this was not predicted in animal

studies, even though high doses were tested in dogs -- the species

considered most predictive of vomiting in humans.14 The drug has also been

implicated in uterine cancer, blood clots, memory loss, absence of periods,

and eye damage such as cataracts.15

 

.Zomax: This arthritis drug killed 14 people and caused many more to

suffer.

 

 

Resources:

a.. Americans for Medical Advancement (website of Ray and Jean Greek):

www.curedisease.com.

b.. British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection: www.buav.org.

c.. Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research: www.drhadwentrust.org.uk.

d.. For more information on the EU's chemical testing program, see

www.stopeuchemicaltests. com.

e.. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA):

www.peta-online.org, for a full list of charities which fund and do not fund

animal-based research and for more information on chemicals testing programs

in the US.

About the Author:

Katrina Fox is a freelance journalist whose specialist subjects include

alternative health, hypnosis and direct action. She is also the author and

editor of three books, the latest of which is Self-Hypnosis for Life: Mind,

Body & Spiritual Excellence. For more information, visit website

www.katrinafox.com or e-mail info.

 

 

 

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