The case for alternatives
The number of animals used in laboratories for testing various substances such as cosmetics, detergents and pharmaceutical products as well as for experimental purposes, is enormous. The use of animals has always been a vexed question. Many medical scientists have spoken against it, chiefly because of the uncertainties of extrapolating data from animal experiments to human beings, emphasizing its dangers and uselessness from this point of view. Others have taken moral and ethical considerations into account as well.
Developments which offer alternative techniques can been seen as a practical step forward in a world where the progress of science is regarded as being of the highest importance. One factor, which may help towards these developments, is the rising cost of laboratory animals. We hope this will add some strength to the case put by animal societies throughout the world for more work to be done on research into replacement techniques. Although the field of alternatives is highly specialized and technical, we would like to give a very general picture of the areas in which they are now being used.
Alternatives
Tissue Culture is the cultivation of the living cells outside the organism. This is done by placing the cells in a nutritional medium. In other words, pieces of living flesh can be grown and multiplied in the test tube. Today there are two main categories of tissue culture:
Organ Cultures: Small pieces of tissue are cultured so as to retain the function of the organ from which they where removed. In the opinion of some biologists, organ cultures, to an even greater extent than cell cultures, have considerable potential for future development.
Cell Cultures: Dispersed cells are cultured in a medium that promotes continuous growth. These can produce vast quantities of cells over the course of years. Cell cultures can be produced from normal healthy cells or from cancerous cells. Human cells can be given by a living donor who need suffer no ill effects from losing a few cells.
Micro-organisms
Bacteria are used extensively in biochemical and genetic studies. The use of bacteria to predict cancer-inducing chemicals has aroused great interest. The basis of tests, such as the Ames test, is that if a chemical induces a bacterial mutation it could well cause cancer. It has been estimated that the Ames test has a 92% success rate in predicting carcinogens.
Clinical and epidemiological surveys
Clinical and epidemiological studies involve human volunteers. Case studies, autopsy reports and statistical analysis are linked with environmental factors to provide realistic insights into human diseases.
Audio Visual guides and aids
Film, closed circuit television and video tape can all be used as teaching aids, thus sparing thousands of animals from continued re-runs of the same experiment.
Models
Simulated human anatomical features,
including flesh, muscle and bone structure, make it possible now to pursue,
for example, car crash studies without resorting to animals. Resusci-dog
models are now used extensively in veterinary science.
Mathematical and computer aids
Computer information retrieval systems
offer a quick and comprehensive means of processing scientific literature
and could be used to greater benefit when planning experimental programs.
Access to published research and databases would reduce unnecessary duplication
of experiments and define areas that require further investigation. The
principal application of mathematical and computer models has been in
teaching where they have enabled students to study basic physiological
functions and apply medical treatments to a computer program without recourse
to animals. Mathematics is used to tell space scientists how to build
and guide space ships and is used to designate the living processes of
the body. A medical student using the computer would be trained to think,
not to memorize.
Chromatography and mass spectrometry
These techniques, used in conjunction,
now make possible the detection of minute quantities of substances in
their journey through the body, thus allowing direct study of the action
of new drugs, etc., in humans. Their toxic effects can be noted well before
they become dangerous.
Genetic engineering
Until the early 1980's, insulin was
still produced from cow and pig pancreas, and then the first commercial
human insulin was marketed, made by bacteria, which had been genetically
programmed to produce the human version of the hormone. Now being produced
of a much purer type than previously available using animals, this insulin
is helping to eliminate a great portion of the harmful effects suffered
by about 20% of the users of conventionally produced animal insulin.
Eggs
Bird and reptile eggs and embryos are used to study normal foetal development and the affects of drugs on the foetus. Eggs are also used to cultivate viruses and vaccines, a method proven to be effective. In instances where tests on animals have yielded conflicting or useless results which, employed alone may cause great harm to humans.
Laboratory investigations into human physiology
This can be undertaken by students
and researchers on themselves. This type of investigation is suitable
for tests on blood, the heart, respiration, nerves and sensory processes,
digestion, muscular physiology, cellular and sub-cellular processes, renal
function, regulatory processes.
This list is not exhaustive but it gives a general idea of what could be done if some of the money, funding the use of animals, were available for the new techniques and technologies.
Research into alternatives
The establishment of some form of humane research institute by the Federal Government would obviously help the development of these alternatives more rapidly. If vivisection had never been permitted, these techniques and probably many, many more would have expanded much more quickly. The 20th Century has seen so many amazing scientific developments, yet this important branch of science lags behind using age-old methods, which are unreliable and cruel.