The University of Michigan Medical School Ends Live Dog Lab: Now Help End Live Animal Use at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Many of you have probably heard the good news regarding University of Michigan ending its live dog lab. This good news has also been verified via the UM Medical School site at http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=1057

In a letter sent by PCRM, it seems that the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is still caught in the past via its use of live animals - vivisection. If you read the email I pasted below you’ll see how you can help this school step into current non-animal teaching methods.

For those of you who would like to learn more about alternatives to animal testing and vivisection, including what non-animal methods are available, please visit our page on alternatives to animal testing and vivisection at – http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html

One such method mentioned below and used extensively is the TraumaMan System from Simulab. You can learn more about this at http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/gm06spring/life_or_death.html

Please read on below about the use of live animals at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey (UMDNJ) and how you can help end such archaic practices.

You have sent more than 20,000 e-mails to University of Michigan (U-M) administrators, asking them to use nonanimal training methods in their Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course. The school’s Graduate Medical Education Committee recently met and decided that it agrees with you. No dogs or other animals will be killed in the school’s ATLS course, according to a university statement.

Your hard work helped end animal suffering and improve medical education in Michigan. Now we need your help to do the same thing in New Jersey. While more than 90 percent of United States and Canadian facilities no longer use animals for ATLS training, University Hospital in Newark, part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), continues to use live pigs for its course, despite the availability of nonanimal alternatives like the TraumaMan System from Simulab. The hospital’s next ATLS course is scheduled for March 13.

Please e-mail, call, or write to UMDNJ president William Owen Jr., M.D., and politely ask him to end animal use in University Hospital’s ATLS course. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals. Send an automatic e-mail.

William Owen Jr., M.D.
President
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
65 Bergen St., Room 1535
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07107-3007
Phone: 973-972-4400
E-mail: wfowenmd@umdnj.edu

Group Calls for Johns Hopkins University Medical School to Join Majority of Medical Schools and End Live Animal Labs: Calls for End to Live Pig Labs

As the article points out below, “…Hopkins will be the lone holdout among medical schools in U.S. News & World Report's annual Top 20 ranking….Overall, just 10 of the nation's 126 M.D.-granting medical schools use live animals during surgical rotations, according to the physicians' group.”

This by itself proves that live animal labs aren’t necessary in medical training. If it was, the majority of schools would use them. Yet, they don’t. As stated below, "The ethical argument is that you should not use sentient creatures to our purposes unnecessarily," said Dr. John J. Pippin, a Dallas cardiologist affiliated with group. "The reasons to use live animals, whatever they were, are no longer valid."

Article:

Medical use of live pigs criticized

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pigs27mar27,1,3004653.story

A physicians' group takes aim at Johns Hopkins University for using the animals to train its surgical students.

By Jonathan Bor, The Baltimore Sun

March 27, 2008

BALTIMORE -- Taking aim at one of the last bastions of live-animal training for medical students, a physicians' group that champions animal rights renewed its call Wednesday for Johns Hopkins University to stop using live pigs to teach operating-room techniques.

Calling the practice inhumane and unnecessary, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine noted that Hopkins is one of just two top-tier medical schools still convening live-animal labs.

"The ethical argument is that you should not use sentient creatures to our purposes unnecessarily," said Dr. John J. Pippin, a Dallas cardiologist affiliated with group. "The reasons to use live animals, whatever they were, are no longer valid."

With Case Western University's decision to hold its last live-pig labs this semester, Hopkins will be the lone holdout among medical schools in U.S. News & World Report's annual Top 20 ranking.

Overall, just 10 of the nation's 126 M.D.-granting medical schools use live animals during surgical rotations, according to the physicians' group. A larger number of teaching hospitals use animals to train postgraduate surgical residents, and animals are widely used to test medical devices and surgical techniques.

Hopkins said it had no plans to end the use of live pigs, despite a flood of e-mails from animal rights activists and an editorial in the undergraduate student newspaper.

Regulators Make Some Moves Toward Non-Animal Chemical Testing Methods: Alternatives to Using Animals in Testing

We’ll see if this comes through, but good signs. If this does occur, a reduction in the number of animals used in chemical testing will be decreased.

Alternatives have been around for years. We have an entire page on alternatives to animal testing at http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html

As stated below, “The screening machines will be inspired by those developed for medical research, which can quickly test thousands of different molecules in a few days to see if any have potential as useful drugs.
Instead of using animals such as rats and mice, scientists will screen suspected toxic chemicals in everything from pesticides to household cleaners using cell cultures and computer models.”

Article:

US to replace animals with robots in toxic chemical tests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/15/animalwelfare

Alok Jha The Guardian, Friday February 15 2008

US regulators have announced plans to reduce the number of animals used to test the safety of everyday chemicals.

Instead of using animals such as rats and mice, scientists will screen suspected toxic chemicals in everything from pesticides to household cleaners using cell cultures and computer models.

According to the Home Office, more than 3.1m experiments in the UK were carried out on animals in 2006. Of these more than 420,000 were done to test the safety of chemicals. According to the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), more than 100 million animals are used annually in experiments in the US, of which 15 million are used in toxicity tests.

The plans to replace animals in the US, announced yesterday in Boston, will see researchers from the national institute of health and the environmental protection agency develop robotic machines to screen the chemicals. They said if successful the robots could test a greater number of chemicals more quickly.

The results of the research could have implications for the EU's Reach legislation, which requires retesting all synthetic chemicals used in member countries. Critics are worried that the new rules will increase the number of animals used.

The screening machines will be inspired by those developed for medical research, which can quickly test thousands of different molecules in a few days to see if any have potential as useful drugs. "We now are seeing tools newly available to us for chemical genomics research deployed for greater refinement, speed and capacity in chemical toxicity screening," said Francis Collins, director of the national human genome research institute and author of a paper, published today in Science, describing the proposed techniques.

Catherine Willett, science policy adviser at Peta, said: "This is a significant change in the perspective of US agencies, which have historically relied heavily on animal testing out of habit and have been resistant to change."

Real Issues Resulting From Problems with the Drugs Vioxx, Galvus, Lunesta and TGN1412 Point To the Limitations of Animal Testing

Difficult To Precisely Translate From Animal to Human Results

The fact that the Wall Street Journal produced this piece signifies that this is a problem that is real. For years, campaigners against animal testing and the waste of resources and lives it results in have exposed the same truth – that literally, the physiological differences between species are different enough that animal testing is never a clear indicator of how a drug or chemical will react in the human body.

Hence, moving to more reliable non-animal tests such as Synthetic skin called Corrositex, Computer modeling, Improved statistical design, The Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA) and genetic arrays -- chips that can give a snapshot of the genetic effects of a drug (as mentioned below) or microarray chips, is not only more humane, but economical.

For more on the alternatives to the use of animals in drug testing, chemical testing, vivisection, etc. see http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html and The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at http://caat.jhsph.edu/.

To sum it up further, take a look at these quotes form the article below. You will clearly see real examples of drugs that passed animal tests, but that failed when tried on humans:

“Scientists agree, there's no way to precisely and consistently translate from animal to human results. After the withdrawals of the painkiller Vioxx and other medicines with side effects that didn't fully reveal themselves during years of testing, the need for such a translation looms particularly large.”

“In the case of the new Novartis drug Galvus, James Shannon, the company's global head of pharmaceutical development, told investors that Novartis researchers "do not understand -- do not know -- the mechanism of the skin findings" in monkeys. They do know that "humans appear to react to Galvus in a very different way."

“Another example of the confusing disparities that can arise in testing is the case of the popular sleep drug Lunesta. It won FDA approval despite the fact that tumors appeared when rats and mice took huge doses of a closely related chemical cousin of the medication. Some FDA reviewers were concerned enough initially to recommend rejection of Lunesta. After further analyses, however, agency officials concluded the data from human testing didn't suggest a signal for cancer in people. But you won't see the issue highlighted in the company's ubiquitous green-moth commercials for the drug.”

“It can happen that a product doesn't hurt animals, but turns out to be poisonous to patients. That occurred with the catastrophic British trial of an experimental biotech drug called TGN1412, meant to treat leukemia and other diseases. It didn't cause problems when given to monkeys and other species. Then six people took it in a small initial study and had life-threatening convulsions and organ failure. British regulators blamed an "unpredicted biological action of the drug in humans" that wasn't foretold by the "apparently adequate" preclinical studies.”


Article:

Recent Cases Point To the Limitations Of Animal Drug Tests

http://online.wsj.com/preview_login.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB117519602221153510.html%3Fmod%3Dyahoo_hs%26ru%3Dyahoo

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

March 30, 2007; Page B1

The promising diabetes drug Galvus recently got turned back by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

About 5,500 patients had taken the medicine in clinical trials at that point, but the problem apparently wasn't with them. The agency was worried because some monkeys who were given high doses of Galvus developed skin lesions. Humans who took normal amounts of the drug for as long as two years didn't get the sores, but the FDA refused to approve the drug until it saw more testing in people who might be at higher risk.

The decision spotlighted an important unresolved scientific question: What do the results of animal studies really tell us about humans? That question still puzzles researchers even though guinea pigs, lab rats and their brethren have long been part of experiments.

The FDA encourages work that could lead to a better understanding of human and animal genetics, and someday reduce the need for animal studies. Already, genetic arrays -- chips that can give a snapshot of the genetic effects of a drug -- allow researchers a broad, early-stage picture of what a drug does to an animal by illustrating which of its genes are "expressing," or activated, as a result of the medicine. Such signs typically show up well before the actual physical damage.

These genetic road maps can give a better idea of what's causing a safety worry in animal tests, and whether it is likely to affect people the same way. Still, the question remains: "Does that guarantee it won't have a toxic impact in humans?" asks Maneesh Jain, an executive at Affymetrix, a company that makes the microarray chips. "No."

In the pharmaceutical world, animal tests provide vital clues about experimental drugs and help prevent humans from being exposed to serious dangers. The animals are given far bigger doses than a person could likely tolerate, and are tested under circumstances that would be impossible with a human volunteer -- such as during pregnancy. That's why animal trials are still done, despite the concerns of animal-rights activists and others about the distastefulness and expense of sacrificing so many blameless critters.

Currently, the FDA is looking at results showing some anesthetic drugs led to neurological damage in young primates.

Before regulators approve a drug, it typically has been tested on hundreds of animals. The FDA requires initial testing in at least two species: one rodent, one nonrodent. By the end of the process, mice, pigs, rabbits, dogs, monkeys and other animals may have been used.

Animal tests at least give a broad sense of the effects of a drug. In one famous early example, a pancreatic extract successfully tested in diabetic dogs in 1921 helped to illuminate how insulin would help people with the disease. And many experimental medications are eliminated after very serious side effects show up.

Many times, however, subtle results in animals are unclear and scientists just don't know what to make of them.

In the case of the new Novartis drug Galvus, James Shannon, the company's global head of pharmaceutical development, told investors that Novartis researchers "do not understand -- do not know -- the mechanism of the skin findings" in monkeys. They do know that "humans appear to react to Galvus in a very different way."

Another example of the confusing disparities that can arise in testing is the case of the popular sleep drug Lunesta. It won FDA approval despite the fact that tumors appeared when rats and mice took huge doses of a closely related chemical cousin of the medication. Some FDA reviewers were concerned enough initially to recommend rejection of Lunesta. After further analyses, however, agency officials concluded the data from human testing didn't suggest a signal for cancer in people. But you won't see the issue highlighted in the company's ubiquitous green-moth commercials for the drug.

It can happen that a product doesn't hurt animals, but turns out to be poisonous to patients. That occurred with the catastrophic British trial of an experimental biotech drug called TGN1412, meant to treat leukemia and other diseases. It didn't cause problems when given to monkeys and other species. Then six people took it in a small initial study and had life-threatening convulsions and organ failure. British regulators blamed an "unpredicted biological action of the drug in humans" that wasn't foretold by the "apparently adequate" preclinical studies.

It isn't clear how to avoid such fiascos. For now, regulators aren't likely to dial back preclinical study requirements. "At the moment, we don't have a better way of doing it," says David Jacobson-Kram, associate director of pharmacology and toxicology in the FDA's drug center. Neither has the agency increased its focus on animal studies, despite drug-industry concerns sparked by the Galvus decision.

Scientists agree, there's no way to precisely and consistently translate from animal to human results. After the withdrawals of the painkiller Vioxx and other medicines with side effects that didn't fully reveal themselves during years of testing, the need for such a translation looms particularly large.