"If one declares vivisection to be indispensible, that is a matter of OPINION. But it is a FACT that the results of animal experiments have continually proved to be dubious, contradictory, often misleading and even harmful. As a dividing line between experimentation and cruelty to animals also hardly seems possible in the case of vivisection, and since the profession of doctor cannot be identified with that of the executioner, I am, in keeping with the intentions of my widely-renowned teacher Hyrte, for the unconditional abolition of vivisection, since it only spreads dangerous brutalization on the one hand and barbarous destruction on the other." - Med. Dr. Hieronymous Svetineich, GP, Mauer (Lower Austria). Oct.5, 1909. Declaration to Parliament

OF MICE AND MEN

Ray Greek, MD
President, Americans For Medical Progress
 Vice-President, Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine (DLRM)

I read with amusement an article by Nicholas Wade (Of Men and Mice: Here They Come To Save the Day), which states that mice are the same as humans on every level, "from gene, to cell, to physiology". Perhaps he could explain the following:

  1. Morphine causes convulsions in mice, not in humans. 
  2. Cortisone is teratogenic, causing birth defects in mice, not in humans. 
  3. Tumours common in rodents, such as pituitary, liver and thyroid, are uncommon in humans, while common human tumours such as prostate, colon and rectal are rare in mice. 
  4. Scientists who conduct cancer experiments on mice and rats have concluded that "The lifetime feeding study in mice and rats appears to have less than a 50% probability of finding known human carcinogens [...] we would have been better off to toss a coin". 
  5. The ‘onco-mouse’ has been a failure in predicting the cures for human cancer, as scientists acknowledge:1 "In the course of tumour progression it has been known for many years that mice and men are totally different [...] tumour-suppressor genes and oncogenes behave very differently in mouse and man". And Tyler Jacks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology states:2 "One might expect that these animals would mimic human symptoms, not just the genetic mutations. In fact, that is usually the exception, not the rule [...] the genetic wiring for growth control (cancer growth) in mice and humans is subtly different". 
  6. The National Cancer Institute tested 12 anti-cancer drugs, currently used in humans, on mice. They took mice that were growing 48 different kinds of human cancers and treated them with the 12 drugs. In 30 out of the 48 the drugs did not work: 63% of the time, therefore, the data which the mouse models provided was wrong. 
  7. In 15 strains of mice on which thalidomide was tested, birth defects were noted only occasionally. 
  8. Benzene causes leukaemia in humans but not in mice. 
  9. Nitrophenol produces cataracts in humans but not in mice. 
  10. Aspirin causes birth defects in mice but not in humans. 
  11. Of 30 chemicals which tested positive in mice for inhibiting mouse retroviruses, only one, AZT, was effective in humans with HIV - and it had already been used for years. 
  12. Dr Richard Klausner of the National Cancer Institute states:3 "The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse ... we have cured mice of cancer for decades - and none of those 'cures' worked in humans." 
  13. Nobel Laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel states that mice have "only very remote analogies with man". 

Considering this partial list of differences between humans and mice, I am curious as to how Nicholas Wade can honestly maintain that mice "work the same way humans do". Mice have contributed only confusion to the medical-research process. The scientists who use them have diverted funding away from models of human disease and from the medical advances that have contributed to the advancement of knowledge concerning human disease.

These include the following methods:

Mice have not saved the day.

REFERENCES:

1. "Nature", 26 Nov. 1992.
2. Jacks, Tyler. "Science", Vol. 278, 7 Nov. 1997: 1041.
3. Sharpe, Robert. "The Cruel Deception", ref. 114:119.

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