The Grumpy Vegan wonders why this (“Flaws in use of animal tests for new drugs”) important development of research scientists using animals criticising the way in which animals are used didn’t receive the attention it should have. Surely, this isn’t anti-vivisection propaganda, is it?
The use of animal tests in drug development is fundamentally flawed, according to new evidence presented at the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) Festival of Science in York on Friday.
As a result, many animal studies “overstate how effective drugs really are”, said Malcolm Macleod, a consultant neurologist at Edinburgh university. These drug candidates then fail to work when given to humans in clinical trials – and could even put patients’ health at risk. The main issue is experimenters’ unconscious bias. Researchers do not routinely divide animals at random into treatment and control groups and, when they analyse results, they know which animals have been treated and which have not.
And the award to understatement goes to … Derek Fry, a senior Home Office animal inspector, and Simon Festing, head of the Research Defence Society
Those of us [who] defend animal research accept that there is a problem here.
