In the news
6 Sep 2008
12 December 2006
Weatherall primate report slammed by Dr Hadwen Trust
Today’s (December 12 2006) ‘Weatherall Group’ report1 into the use of non-human primates in biological and medical research has been slammed by the Dr Hadwen Trust, the UK’s leading non-animal medical research charity. The charity’s Science Director Dr Gill Langley, who submitted oral and written evidence to the Committee, warned that such “short-sighted” thinking could have dramatic consequences for medical research and animal welfare2.
The Dr Hadwen Trust is particularly disappointed at the lack of vision demonstrated in the report regarding current and future non-animal research, despite a huge range of techniques offering more ethical and biologically relevant scientific approaches.
Dr Langley says:
“This report seriously underplays the importance of non-animal research methods. It adds nothing new to the literature and merely provides a pedestrian and persistently negative interpretation of the opportunities to replace primate use. It lacks creative vision and shows an inability to embrace the potential of new technology. In the 21st Century, this level of scientific and ethical complacency is utterly disgraceful. If this sort of short-sighted, uninspired and misguided thinking is the limit of our aspirations, both for sound medical progress and for the humane treatment of our closest cousins, then it is a sad indictment of us all.”
The Dr Hadwen Trust was particularly outraged at the report’s assertion that non-animal techniques need to be validated on animal models.
Dr Langley says:
“This is outrageous. This retrogressive suggestion ignores reality and reflects an utter inability to see the potential to validate alternatives in new and biologically relevant ways. Developing advanced non-animal techniques by assessing them against animal data is merely perpetuating a cycle of research which fails to target the species of interest.”
More than 4,500 primate experiments were conducted in the UK in 2005, using over 3,000 individual monkeys, the majority of them in toxicity tests. With nearly 12,500 monkeys used in research in Europe every year3, the UK remains Europe’s largest user of primates.
The Weatherall Group concludes that primate experiments are still essential for research into areas such as Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, stroke and infectious illnesses. However, the Dr Hadwen Trust strongly disagrees and warns that new thinking and vision is vital if the potential of non-animal techniques is not to become a missed opportunity.
Dr Langley says:
“Subjecting such highly sentient and sensitive animals to laboratory confinement as well as to painful or distressing experiments is morally bankrupt. Scientifically, it is also highly dubious and often deeply misleading. That level of blunt and honest analysis about primate research is simply missing from this report. That’s nothing short of irresponsible.The Dr Hadwen Trust researches illnesses but without using animals, because species variations between different primates (including humans) occur at the genetic, molecular, cell and physiological levels, and have often misled researchers and delayed medical advances. In drug testing, primates can differ from humans as much as other kinds of animals do, meaning that they can’t be used with confidence to predict how the human body will handle a new drug. The list of drugs tested on primates but later found to act differently, or to be unsafe or ineffective, in humans is testament to that4.”
ENDS
Notes to Editor:
1 The Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences. The enquiry started March 2005. The committee was chaired by the Oxford geneticist Sir David Weatherall.
2 Dr Gill Langley is Science Director at the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research and one of the world’s foremost experts on non-animal research techniques. She is currently a member of the Replacement Advisory Group of the British National Centre for the Three Rs (Replacement, Reduction & Refinement of animal experiments).
3 There were 4652 primate experiments UK in 2005; 3,595 were for toxicology; 3,115 individual primates were used in total. Home Office publication “Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2005” published July 2006. The Dr Hadwen Trust can provide on request an overview of EU animal experiments using the latest available statistics from each Member State.
4 Such as Amrinone (heart drug; haemorrhage in humans); Fenclofenac (anti-inflammatory; caused jaundice in humans); Vioxx (pain-killer; risk of heart attack & stroke in humans); Fialuridine (anti-viral; liver failure in humans); Carbenoxalone (ulcers; caused heart failure in patients); 5FU (cancer; metabolic differences); Benoxaprofen (arthritis; killed some patients);
Flosequinan (heart failure; increased deaths in patients); Nomifensine (anti-depressant; liver damage in humans); Losartan (blood pressure; metabolic differences caused side effects); Methoxyflurane (anaesthetic; caused kidney failure in humans); Indinavir (anti-AIDS drug; metabolic differences); Flosint (arthritis; lethal for humans); Isoprenaline (asthma; unsafe dose for humans).
