A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation 2018

A very interesting read!  Includes cancer research, AIDS research, toxicity tests, the scientific limitations of animal models, as well as the morality of animal experimentation.

A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation

© Medical Research Modernization Committee, 2018

This booklet was revised by Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D. The prior version of this booklet was prepared by Christopher Anderegg, M.D., Ph.D., Kathy Archibald, B.Sc., Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D., Murry J. Cohen, M.D., Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D., and John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C.

The Medical Research Modernization Committee is a non-profit health advocacy organization composed of medical professionals and scientists who identify and promote efficient, reliable, and cost-effective research methods.

"Increasing numbers of scientists and clinicians are challenging animal experimentation on scientific grounds.^1-2 Considerable evidence demonstrates that animal experimentation is inefficient and unreliable, while newly developed methodologies are more valid and less expensive than animal studies. People should not have their tax dollars spent on activities to which they object on scientific and/or ethical grounds unless there is clear benefit to the general public. Does animal experimentation meet this standard?

"Conclusion

The value of animal experimentation has been grossly exaggerated by those with vested interests in its preservation. Because animal experimentation focuses on artificially created pathology, involves confounding variables, and is undermined by fundamental differences between human and nonhuman anatomy, physiology and pathology, it is an inherently unsound method to investigate human disease processes. Further the tens of millions of animals used and killed each year in American laboratories generally suffer enormously, often from fear and physical pain, and nearly always from the deprivation inflicted by their confinement, which denies their most basic psychological and behavioral needs. Consequently, the general public is uneasy about animal experimentation, and 50% of surveyed Americans oppose it.¹⁷¹

We conclude that the billions of dollars invested annually in animal experimentation would be put to much more efficient, effective, and humane use if redirected to clinical and epidemiological research and public health programs. Those who believe that substantially reducing or eliminating animal experimentation would impede medical progress can take comfort in knowing that, if it were valuable, it would be generously supported by pharmaceutical companies and other private industries that stand to benefit. Taxpayers should not be forced to sponsor activities they reasonably oppose."

http://www.mrmcmed.org/critcv.html

http://www.mrmcmed.org/Critical_Look_Booklet.pdf - (pdf format)