National Antivisection Society
Futile attempts to replicate human conditions in animals
The NAVS has repeatedly cited experiments which are unreliable, unethical and unnecessary.
A single example should be enough to call the system into question, yet the list seems endless. Often so great are the differences between ourselves and other animals that diseases simply cannot be replicated, so a bizarre approximation may be used instead.
At St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School (St Bart’s), air was injected behind the shoulder blades of mice and an irritant added to cause inflammation in an attempt to mimic arthritis. Yet the researcher responsible conceded, “It is possible that the mechanisms that produce the air pouch reaction and arthritis are not the same..."
At the same lab, we filmed rats dragging their disabled hind legs behind them in a multiple sclerosis experiment; but the animals did not have multiple sclerosis. They had a laboratory-manufactured disease know as EAE; despite that the crucial differences between this and human multiple sclerosis are known.
At Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (CXWMS), pacemakers were fitted into dogs to induce heart failure. The dogs in these experiments suffer swollen abdomens and paws, loss of appetite, and fluid-filled lungs. Yet the results even differ between breeds of dog, let alone attempting to extrapolate them across the species, to humans.
It is recognised that the rat is a poor model for human epilepsy, but that didn’t save the rats at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. A NAVS Field Officer filmed a rat which squinted as he repeatedly clutched at the large implant permanently fixed into his brain. Even worse, the type of drugs being studied were known to produce different reactions between rats and monkeys. Which results might the researchers attempt to apply to people? Probably neither.
