Use this form to send an EMAIL TO WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY.
With news of vaping associated health problems growing, scientists are
seeing this as an opportunity to expand animal research.
This includes a group of undergraduate students working in a neuroscience
lab at Weber State University in Utah, who are exposing mice to noxious
vaping fumes in a misguided attempt to learn more about the potentially
addictive effects of vaping on humans.
In the experiments, mice are placed in “vape chambers” or clear boxes the
size of a shoebox. At predetermined intervals vaping fumes are pumped into
the chamber, filling the boxes with chemical fumes.
During one experiment the mice looked so distressed that the students
interrupted a 30-minute long planned exposure.
Current scientific studies are increasingly demonstrating that mice are
inadequate models for studying human health, due to the vast differences in
mice and human physiology.
These differences are particularly evident in neuroscience research. A
recent study in the prestigious journal Nature demonstrated that differences
in the brains of mice and humans result in a tenfold difference in the
synthesis of neurotransmitter receptors. [Nature. Sept 2019. PMID:31435019].
This can explain why hundreds of drugs that scientists believe cure mice of
diseases like Alzheimer’s, depression and schizophrenia have failed to treat
a single person.
Mouse studies are not only poor predictors of psychiatric disorders and drug
treatments, they have been shown to predict human toxicity in only 43% of
cases. [Curr Pathobiol Rep. 2015. PMID: 26246962]
This failure rate is so pronounced that in 2018 the U.S. National Toxicology
Program in conjunction with 16 other federal agencies, released a “Strategic
Roadmap” recommending “new approaches to safety and risk assessment of
chemicals and medical products that improve human relevance and replace or
reduce the use of animals.” This builds upon the U.S. Government’s Tox21
program, started in 2008, that also aims to decrease reliance on animal
testing.
Additionally, inhalation studies on animals are unreliable for studying
human outcomes due to key differences in the anatomy and physiology of the
respiratory tracts of humans and animals. These differences greatly impact
the deposition, clearance and retention of inhaled substances and resulting
pathophysiology.
Given the demonstrated failure of animal studies to provide human relevant
information, Weber State’s use of mice to study the effects of vaping in
humans is cruel and incompatible with best scientific practices.
Accordingly, I respectfully request that Weber State end these unjustifiable
experiments on mice.
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
Return to 2020 Action Alerts
Find
area codes
Find zip
codes
Find your United States Congressional Representative
Find
your United States Senators
Find your state legislators
Find Embassies Worldwide