Today we'll address yet another absurdity of animal
testing: it not only doesn't help but actually harms, and, in many cases
kills humans. Maybe you could give a shit about animals and don't really care as
long as humanity is benefiting.
Well, animal testing is still something that you should be against.
During this video I'm pulling a good bit of information from
articles posted on or alluded to by safermedicines.org. You my remember
from the second nugget on animal testing, that this organization has nothing to do with animal
rights and everything to do with human safety. So no accusations of animal rights
wingnut-derived information, random YouTube commenter. (there's always that one...)
According to geneticists Kathy Archibald
and pharmacologist Robert Coleman, adverse drug reactions are a major cause of
death killing 197,000 people annually in the European Union
and 106,000 deaths annually in the US according to a study in leading US medical journal
"Journal of the American Medical Association"
And this is for medications that are correctly prescribed and correctly
taken by patients. In the case in the US, that's about 290 deaths
every day, or one every five minutes. The same study also consider patients who
were so badly injured that medication that they needed hospital treatment.
These were calculated to be 2,250,000
hospital admissions each year. That's over 6,000 every day or one every fourteen seconds.
Currently ninety-two percent of new medications fail at clinical trials
even though they have successfully passed animal tests.
In 2008, a study in Theriogenology volume 69
page 2, concluded, "On average the extrapolated results from studies using
tens of millions of animals failed to accurately predict human responses."
In another study in "Regulatory toxicology and pharmacology
volume 64 page 345, shows that animal tests missed
81% of the serious side effects of 43 drugs that went on to harm patients.
Let's look at two specific examples of how animal testing has harmed humans:
The drugs TGN 1412 and Vioxx.
TGN 1412 is often referred to as the "Northwick Park Elephant Man Disaster."
The drug was developed by TeGenero Immuno Therapeutics.
In its first clinical trials, it caused catastrophic systematic organ failure despite being administered at a
supposed subclinical dose, some five hundred times lower
than the dose found safe in animals.
Six volunteers were hospitalized on 13th of March in 2006.
An some, like participant Ryan Wilson had had toes and fingers amputated.
As standard practice in the drug industry
TGN 1412 had been through a rigorous animal trials
and had passed. But no worries! TeGenero Immuno Therapeutics has apologized to the
families involved
And that makes it okay, right?
Now on to Vioxx. Vioxx is an arthritis medication made by the pharmaceutical giant Merck.
It was withdrawn from the market after causing the largest medical disaster in history,
after animal has indicated that it was entirely safe. According to doctor David Graham,
the associate director of the FDA's Office of Drug Safety,
It was estimated that 88,000-139,000 Americans had heart attacks and strokes
as a result in taking Vioxx. As many as 60,000 of them fatal the Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine explained: "9 of 11 studies on mice and rats
had shown Vioxx and other cox-2 inhibitors to be safe for animal hearts and blood vessels.
In fact six different animal studies- in four different species- showed Vioxx
was actually protective against heart attacks and vascular disease.
One researcher in a paper published in the 2002 edition of
"Current Opinions in Lipidology" went so far as to suggest that Vioxx be
considered a treatment for human cardiovascular disease based on these
animal tests. In another study from the American Heart Journal, a group of researchers
who believed that Vioxx could protect the heart stated that "these
findings have raised the possibility that cox-2 inhibitors could actually
decrease the incidence of acute thrombotic events." In layman's terms
animal testing showed that Vioxx was protective for hearts,
yet when it was used on humans,
it caused thousands of fatal heart attacks and strokes.
Merck's falsely optimistic animal tests led the company
to disregard the deadly problems emerging in humans.
Now it's not always bad drugs getting through that is the issue.
There's also the possibility of helpfull drugs not making it market because they have
ill effect in animal trials, while they'd be perfectly suited for humans.
Take for example Penicillin and Aspirin.
Animal testing showed that penicillin was ineffective in
treating infected rabbits and it was toxic to guinea pigs. Yet later if proved safe and
and effective for treating bacterial infections most humans.
And aspirin causes birth defects in mice and rats but is harmless to human embryo.
Had we relied on animal testing as it's conducted today, we would have rejected aspirin.
The craziest part of this whole issue is that there are safer, more
effective alternatives that don't leave
animals and humans paying the price for bad science.
Yet governments continue to mandate animal tests.
So there you have it: yet another layer to the absurdity of animal testing.
Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you soon.
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