"We wish to know when the medical profession will unite in expressing its dissatisfaction at the way it is being misled by the published results of experiments on animals in physiological and pharmacological laboratories." ~Editorial, Medical Times, Apr.1937
HERRINGUS RUFUS
In a 1974 issue of the prestigious medical journal, Lancet, an editorial appeared, wittily summing up the feelings of many physicians and scientists throughout the world__
"It is now quite clear that the best model for human cancer is Herringus rufus. All known chemicals are carcinogenic in this animal - a happy finding, since it is now possible to reconcile all the theories of carcinogenesis advanced in the last century. The tumors can be caused to regress completely by a nutritious diet, surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, and even by immunotherapy (although in this instance the fish die).
The histology of the tumours is identical to that in man but, if necessary, it may be different. Although the Red Herring lives only two years, correction factors can be applied so that a herring aged 18 months is equivalent to a human being aged 20-70 years: the incidence of tumours is then found to be the same as, or different from, that in man.
Work on tissue-culture of Herringus explants has yielded results of great value in spite of the fact that they are intrinsically worthless since there is an instantaneous transformation of all cells to fibroblasts.
All known DNA, RNA, and polystyrene viruses are oncogenic in all organs of this species. Interestingly enough, tumours develop at the same rate in the total absence of virus - which is a splendid demonstration of the oncogene theory in everyday life. The genes have a poisson distribution in this species.
Almost all molecular biologists who are still mobile now work on Herringus. It has been calculated that the cells of this creature contain only 10 to the power of 232 chemical substances. It follows that, once having been identified, synthesized, and their inter-actions elucidated, all known diseases can be cured and several new ones invented. This should be a great encouragement to the clinicians, who are frankly bored to the teeth with the diseases they see today.
The Department of Sickness and Insecurity has appointed 32 new Herring-rufologists to exploit this advance. Asked about the relevance to human cancer, a spokesman for the new group has stated that man is a very poor model for the red herring. He pointed out that vast sums of money were spent fruitlessly on the treatment of cancer and that it would be better to redeploy these resources to the rufologists. Most hospitals could be converted to the new science simply by filling them with sea-water."
Anonymous: "Animals in Cancer Research." Lancet 2:1506, 1974.