Animal Experimentation - Frequently Asked Questions: Isn't it true that animals are just like people on a cellular level?
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org
FROM
AFMA Americans
for Medical Advancement
March 2006
Isn't it true that animals are just like people on a cellular level?
Whereas all animal cells have properties in common - a nucleus,
ribosomes, mitochondira and so forth - we now know that even smaller
idiosyncrasies distinguish the way the cells of different species react to
food, environment and medications. These idiosyncrasies, visible only
through an electron microscope, are both the cause and the result of the
evolution that created dissimilar creatures.
Failed animal experimentation has irrevocably proven that tiny differences
can prevent or enable disease. White blood cell surface receptors, for
example, leave humans vulnerable to AIDS. Among primates, only humans have
sialic acid, a glycoprotein molecule on the cell surface. Scientists now
suggest that this explains why other primates are so immune to diseases like
malaria, prostate cancer, and cholera.
In struggling to learn why animal experimentation does not lead to the same
results, scientists are slowly defining the microscopic factors - such as
enzymes, glycoproteins receptors, and beta-chemokines - that create
variability between human and non-human cells. All cells do not act alike
because they are different. And very small differences between humans and
animals lead to lethal errors when applying animal data to humans.
Even the book widely regarded as a sort of Bible for animal experimenters,
The Handbook of Laboratory Animal Science, states,
It is impossible to give reliable general rules for the validity of
extrapolation from one species to another. This... can often only be
verified after the first trials in the target species (humans)...
Extrapolation from animal models... will always remain a matter of
hindsight....
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