1. Full citation.
Archibald, Kathy. "Animal Testing." Global Action Network: : Articles on Animal Research: : Science or Fiction? N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?
Kathy Archibald is the director of Europeans for Medical Progress and wrote this piece for Ecological Online.
3. What are the topics of the text?
Animal testing, cancer, risk, effectiveness
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Current animal testing procedures are seriously flawed and testing on animals can pose even more risk to human health.
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
The Arthritis drug Vioxx, withdrawn from the global market in September 2004, appeared to be safe and even beneficial to the heart in animals, but caused as many as 140,000 heart attacks and strokes in the US alone.
One review of human-animal correlation in drugs that had been withdrawn because of adverse reactions found that animal tests predicted the human side effects only six out of 114 times.
Hormone-replacement therapy (HRT), prescribed to many millions of women because it lowered monkeys’ risk of heart disease and stroke, increases women’s risks of these conditions significantly.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
Dr Richard Klausner, former director of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), lamented: ‘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.’
Penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, was delayed for more than 10 years by misleading results from experiments in rabbits, and would have been shelved forever had it been tested on guinea pigs, which it kills. Sir Alexander Fleming himself said: ‘How fortunate we didn’t have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never have been granted a licence, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realised.’
In 1964 Dr J Gallagher, the medical director of Lederle Laboratories, admitted: ‘Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons.’
There are excellent in silico and in vitro testing methods available today. Many companies specialise in virtual screening of drugs for potentially toxic effects. A wide range of predictive software is available, including complete clinical trial simulations. Other companies focus on safety and efficacy assessments in human tissues. A 10-year international study proved that human cell culture tests are more accurate and yield more useful information about toxic mechanisms than traditional animal tests.
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
Who needs to be convinced that animal testing is useless before it can be outlawed?
How common is it that animal testing has been proven to not be effective?
What are other alternatives to risk assessment that do not involve animal testing?
Archibald, Kathy. "Animal Testing." Global Action Network: : Articles on Animal Research: : Science or Fiction? N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?
Kathy Archibald is the director of Europeans for Medical Progress and wrote this piece for Ecological Online.
3. What are the topics of the text?
Animal testing, cancer, risk, effectiveness
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Current animal testing procedures are seriously flawed and testing on animals can pose even more risk to human health.
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?