Science teaches us to always ask questions.
An answer should never be accepted unless there is abundant evidence to prove its veracity.
This very principle has guided the scientific process through generations of research. It was this principle that caused me to rethink and ultimately repudiate my nearly two decades in animal research.
I started doing animal research, like so many of my colleagues, with the presumption that my research was somehow going to save lives.
I was uncomfortable with using animals to simulate human conditions, but I believed the benefits outweighed the harm that I was causing to the animals. I believed that as a veterinarian, I would be best able to understand the animal condition and provide the best care possible.
There were many proud moments in those years. I had a tremendous sense of accomplishment after successfully defending my dissertation.
Whenever I worked with the many engineers and surgeons, as they developed artificial organs, I felt as if I were on the very edge of medical advancement.
The first time I saw someone who was alive thanks to an artificial heart that I had helped test still remains one of best moments in my career.
In the beginning, there was a scientific question: How could the animal model be improved to better simulate the human condition?
Again, I believed that as a veterinarian, I would best be able to understand how to create a disease in the animal that would sufficiently mimic the human disease, without unduly harming the animal.
I carefully monitored and treated the animals to minimize any pain. I did what I could to improve their conditions.
In retrospect, I was fooling myself. The similarities between a human disease and an artificially manufactured animal disease are akin to a plastic lawn flamingo and the real bird; they are both pink, but any closer examination reveals how truly different they are.
Then came the realization that no amount of improvement and no amount of transformation could ever make an animal disease model be anything but the palest reflection of the human condition.
It was at that moment that I was able to step back and understand how animal research has misinformed medicine. By focusing on disease models that look similar, but are very different, science has forgotten to ask the questions.
Those questions necessarily make us uncomfortable. Any time we are forced to consider that our assumptions are wrong, it is difficult.
Animal research is built on a pyramid of assumptions. It is assumed that if humans and animals have the same gene, it has the same triggers and same actions.
It is assumed that artificially created heart failure in a dog will inform our ability to manage heart failure in people.
It is assumed that when a rat becomes diabetic after being fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet, it can be used to improve our ability to treat the condition in people.
At first glance, all of those seem reasonable.
Each describes an animal model that is being used to test new human therapies.
Each of those models, and every other artificially constructed animal model of human disease, are built upon so many assumptions that the end results only serve to mislead medical therapy.
If heart disease in humans develops over decades, why is it assumed that we will learn how to treat the condition based upon results of a dog that was normal one day and in heart failure the next?
If the therapies we use for Alzheimer’s disease are based upon the results of animal research, where drugs are injected into the animals to produce similar symptoms to the human condition, what exactly are we learning how to treat?
Does it make sense that our approach to diabetes is based upon animals that are inbred, have had multiple gene manipulations and are fed toxic levels of cholesterol and fat?
The answers to those questions and any others, related to the current use of animals in research, lead to the same conclusion.
Animal research is based upon so many flawed premises that it has only served to mislead and misinform medical progress.
The pyramid of assumptions in animal research does not have a solid base in scientific fact; rather it has been built on a Ponzi scheme of ever-increasing conjecture and chance.
Human beings have near-infinite creativity in solving problems. We should not be wasting it on the stifling approach to medical breakthroughs that animal research presents us.
Kenneth Litwak is a former laboratory animal veterinarian. He is currently on the staff of the US nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, based in Washington.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says he knows how to fix the problems facing Indonesia. Yet his economic mismanagement and authoritarian tendencies are steering the nation toward a familiar mix of currency instability and political chaos. The world’s fourth-most populous nation risks reversing the hard-won democratic and business reforms that came after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. At that time, the rupiah collapsed and the political upheaval that followed forced former president Haji Mohamed Suharto from power. Prabowo’s administration is ignoring similar warning signs. That disconnect was apparent in a national address on Wednesday, when Prabowo projected the swagger that has
“Of course you can choose not to be Taiwanese, just do not stay here,” chairwoman of Taipei 101 operator Taipei Financial Center Corp Janet Chia (賈永婕) said in an online interview with local entertainer Tai Chih-yuan (邰智源), triggering intense discussion on social media, with politicians across party lines weighing in. In the interview, which was aired on May 14, Chia and Tai’s discussion over a meal in Taipei 101 covered Chia’s career change from entertainer to chairwoman and US climber Alex Honnold’s free solo climb up the Taipei 101 building. During the interview, Chia said, “Being on this land, we
RSS