Alternatives to Animal Testing - Overview
Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection - An Animal
Rights Article from All-Creatures.org
FROM
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA)
February 2016
Because experiments on animals are cruel, expensive,
and generally inapplicable to humans—the world’s most forward-thinking
scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases
and testing products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human
health.
During a government meeting about funding for research, former U.S.
National Institutes of Health director Dr. Elias Zerhouni admitted that
experimenting on animals to help humans has been a major failure. He told
his colleagues:
We have moved away from studying human disease in humans.
… We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. … The problem is that
[animal testing] hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the
problem. … We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans
to understand disease biology in humans.
—Dr. Elias Zerhouni
Today—because experiments on animals are cruel, expensive, and generally
inapplicable to humans—the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have
moved on to develop and use methods for studying diseases and testing
products that replace animals and are actually relevant to human health.
These modern methods include sophisticated tests using human cells and
tissues (also known as in vitro methods), advanced computer-modeling
techniques (often referred to as in silico models), and studies with human
volunteers. These and other non-animal methods are not hindered by species
differences that make applying animal test results to humans difficult or
impossible, and they usually take less time and money to complete.
PETA and its affiliates fund the development of many of these non-animal
methods, vigorously promote their use to governments and companies around
the world, and publish research on their superiority to traditional animal
tests.
Here are just a few examples of the range of state-of-the-art non-animal
research methods available and their demonstrated benefits:
- Harvard’s Wyss Institute has created “organs-on-chips” that contain
human cells grown in a state-of-the-art system to mimic the structure
and function of human organs and organ systems. The chips can be used
instead of animals in disease research, drug testing, and toxicity
testing and have been shown to replicate human physiology, diseases, and
drug responses more accurately than crude animal experiments do. Some
companies, such as the HµRel Corporation, have already turned these
chips into products that other researchers can use in place of animals.
- A variety of cell-based tests and tissue models can be used to
assess the safety of drugs, chemicals, cosmetics, and consumer products.
CeeTox (bought by Cyprotex) developed a method to assess the potential
of a substance to cause a skin allergy in humans that incorporates
MatTek’s EpiDermTM Tissue Model—a 3-dimensional, human cell–derived skin
model that replicates key traits of normal human skin. It replaces the
use of guinea pigs or mice, who would have been injected with a
substance or had it applied to their shaved skin to determine an
allergic response. MatTek’s EpiDerm™ is also being used to replace
rabbits in painful, prolonged experiments that have traditionally been
used to evaluate chemicals for their ability to corrode or irritate the
skin.
- Researchers at the European Union Reference Library for alternatives
to animal testing developed five different tests that use human blood
cells to detect contaminants in drugs that cause a potentially dangerous
fever response when they enter the body. The non-animal methods replace
the crude use of rabbits in this painful procedure.
Computer (in silico) Modeling
- Researchers have developed a wide range of sophisticated computer
models that simulate human biology and the progression of developing
diseases. Studies show that these models can accurately predict the ways
that new drugs will react in the human body and replace the use of
animals in exploratory research and many standard drug tests.
- Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) are
computer-based techniques that can replace animal tests by making
sophisticated estimates of a substance’s likelihood of being hazardous,
based on its similarity to existing substances and our knowledge of
human biology. Companies and governments are increasingly using QSAR
tools to avoid animal testing of chemicals, and PETA actively promotes
and funds their use internationally.
Research With Human Volunteers
- A method called “microdosing” can provide vital information on the
safety of an experimental drug and how it is metabolized in humans prior
to large-scale human trials. Volunteers are given an extremely small
one-time drug dose, and sophisticated imaging techniques are used to
monitor how the drug behaves in the body. Microdosing can replace
certain tests on animals and help screen out drug compounds that won’t
work in humans so that they won’t needlessly advance to
government-required animal testing.
- Advanced brain imaging and recording techniques—such as functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)—with human volunteers can be used to
replace archaic experiments in which rats, cats, and monkeys have their
brains damaged. These modern techniques allow the human brain to be
safely studied down to the level of a single neuron (as in the case of
intracranial electroencephalography), and researchers can even
temporarily and reversibly induce brain disorders using transcranial
magnetic stimulation.
Human-Patient Simulators
- Strikingly life-like computerized human-patient simulators that
breathe, bleed, convulse, talk, and even “die” have been shown to teach
students physiology and pharmacology better than crude exercises that
involve cutting up animals. The most high-tech simulators mimic
illnesses and injuries and give the appropriate biological response to
medical interventions and injections of medications. Ninety-seven
percent of medical schools across the U.S. have completely replaced the
use of animal laboratories in medical training with simulators like
this, as well as virtual-reality systems, computer simulators, and
supervised clinical experience.
- For more advanced medical training, systems like TraumaMan—which
replicates a breathing, bleeding human torso and has realistic layers of
skin and tissue, ribs, and internal organs—are widely used to teach
emergency surgical procedures and have been shown in numerous studies to
impart lifesaving skills better than courses that require students to
cut into live pigs, goats, or dogs.
Visit the PETA
International Science Consortium website for more information on the
global work of PETA and its affiliates to promote the development and use of
modern non-animal research and testing methods.
A list of alternative toxicity-testing methods approved by regulators
can be found here, and a list of organizations involved in the
development of non-animal methods
can be
found here.
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