Talking Figures "The moral is that animal model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans."---from an article in Fundamental and Applied Toxicology, November 1982, Dr. Irwin Bross, former Director of the largest cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute

Studies suggest that human beings and mice have 90-99% of their genome in common, each genome encoding 30,000 similar proteins. It seems to be 300 genes that humans and mice do not have in common. Conclusion: DNA or protein structural similarities among species do not account for the phenotypic differences. What is critical is the regulatory processes of DNA and protein functions. That's what really makes the cat different from the mouse, which is different from the man. The Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium cost around $140 million dollars to came to that conclusion. So much money that could have served a much better purpose: finding treatments and cures based on human-based studies. In 1994, Toxicologist Michael F. W. Festing of the University of Leicesteir, U.K., reported that in a study of the effects of ethanol on blood following chronic absorption of alcohol, reassessment of the statistical analysis concluded that the experiment could have been done with 24 instead of 46 dogs. Another reviewed experiment, proposing to investigate the response of two strains of mice to a toxic agent causing bladder injury, concluded that the same experiment could have led to the same results with 80 mice rather than 180. (1) In 1978, Frieman and co-workers reviewed 71 clinical trials involving human patients and found that non-significant results were published in renowned journals. After recalculations of the statistics, 67 out of 71 trials had insufficient patients to detect a 25% therapeutic effect and that 50 out of 71 could not detect a 50% benefit. (2) Despite the use of 144 million laboratory animals in Great Britain since 1890, life expectancy in this country has little changed until now. Although the great majority of those animals, was killed between the 1950s and the 1990s, the fall in human mortality during those 40 years was already 92 percent complete by 1950. Logically, during that period, there is no possible way human life expectancy could be attributed to animal experimentation, as it is claimed by animal experimenters to justify vivisection. (See the figures provided by the U.K.Department for Health and Social Security) The drop of mortality is due mainly to better hygiene, nutrition, housing, better working conditions and it is also due to a natural decline of infectious diseases. At least 70% of colon cancer, stroke, coronary heart disease and type-2 diabetes are preventable by a change of life style and diet. For the major diseases in the Western world, non genetic factors responsible for high risk incidence amount between 80 to 90% of all cases. This result stresses the long-known importance of prevention. (3) If considering strict animal or human based-research over a period of almost 25 years-grants may be running until 2010, animal-based investigation will have cost Canadian taxpayers three times more money than human-based research, which accounts for only 34% of the research done when comparing the two categories of research. See the figures given by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Human Based Research only Number of Grant Projects Total $ Funded 6897 $524,235,042.33 Animal Based Research only Number of Grant Projects Total $ Funded 23493 $1,524,926,313.73 Both Animal and Human Based Research Number of Grant Projects Total $ Funded 3868 $276,196,282.10 The Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Zurich spends more than 400,000 euros (US$337,000) a year, just to maintain its mice colonies. The NIH invests millions of dollars per year to sponsor the collection and distribution of mutant mice. Interestingly, not a single transgenic mouse has helped to cure a human disease yet. (4) Between 1990 and 1994 the number of transgenic animals used in scientific procedures increased by 300% in the U.K. alone. (5) In 1985, 63 percent of American respondents agreed that scientists should be allowed to do research that causes pain and injury to animals like dogs and chimpanzees if it produces new information about human health problems: in 1995, 53 percent agreed. Even in disciplines that have traditionally used animals, the trend is the same. A survey by Scott Plous of Wesleyan University finds that psychologists with PhDs earned in the 1990s are half as likely to express strong support for animal research as those with PhDs from before 1970. (6) The British Government's decision to honour the director of a controversial animal research laboratory in the Queen's Jubilee Birthday Honours list has caused turmoil. Brian Cass, a 54-year-old managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), who admitted his company kills 75,000 animals a year, was given a prize for his services to medical research. About 750 dogs and 190 primates are tested and killed in a typical year. The animals are destroyed in tests of medicines, chemicals, food products, food additives and pesticides produced by big pharma. (7) 1. Festing F.W. "Reduction of Animal Use: Experimental design and quality of experiments." Laboratory Animals 28, 212-221(1994) 2. Frieman J.A. et al. "The importance of beta, the type II error and sample size in the design and interpretation of the randomised control trial." New Engl. J. Med. 299:690-694. 3. Science. "Balancing life-style and Genomics research for disease prevention," vol 296 (2002) 4. Nature vol 417 (2002) 5. Science. "Humane science finds sharper and kinder tools," vol 286 (1999) 6. "Trends in Animal Research: Increased concern for animals, among scientists as well as the public, is changing the ways in which animals are used for research and safety testing." Online article of the American scientific http://www.sciam.com/0297issue/0297trends.html 7. "Fury at CBE for Huntingdon boss" by Lucy McDonald, Mail on Sunday 16 June 2002