The highly regarded cancer specialist Dr. Azra Raza gave her TED Talk in 2015, explaining why we MUST STOP funding mice models of cancer, if we are to help find effective treatments and cures for human patients:
An increasing number of expert doctors and scientists, outside the animal-based research sector, agree that animal models hold no predictive value for patients. Experts who have published on this position are far too numerous to name here, but they include pharmaceutical companies which acknowledge the failure of animal models in their drug development process and write about this openly and often in the scientific literature, and the Editor in Chief of the BMJ, Dr Fiona Godlee, who published her Editor’s Choice in June 2104: How predictive and productive is animal research? This piece concluded by quoting from the paper it cited:
‘If research conducted on animals continues to be unable to reasonably predict what can be expected in humans, the public’s continuing endorsement and funding of preclinical animal research seems misplaced.’ (Emphasis added).
We have collected together 50 referenced examples of animal testing which have led to human deaths; please share this important document via our twitter account. These 50 examples alone should be enough to halt the continued funding of such veterinary principles for human patients!!
But above all, our medical Board has recently delivered Trans-Species Modelling Theory (TSMT) which explains exactly how and why animals are shown, time and time again, to fail the search for effective human treatments and cures. TSMT is founded upon current understanding of evolutionary biology and complex systems. How many people today would risk their lives going to the veterinary clinic, instead of attending a specially trained human medical specialist?
Progress is building in Parliament!
136 MPs have now signed four Parliamentary Early Day Motions, calling for a rigorous scientific debate to stop the continued waste of funding for clearly failing animal models. Please note that this EDM is now closed for the UK election, on June 8th.