AIDS Research Slowed By Animal Tests

My interest in this controversy is from the perspective of a physician and medical researcher. I have concluded that progress against AIDS has been slowed down by the use of animals. Here's why.

Animal experiments provide misleading data. At best, they tell us a good deal about how animals experience disease, but they rarely tell us how humans experience a disease or a virus. Fortunately, the bulk of medical knowledge comes from clinical observations and in vitro research. Animal tests provide additional data, but the data is not necessarily accurate. In fact, the General Accounting Office several years ago concluded that animal experiments do not accurately predict how dangerous a drug will be in humans. Of all new drugs entering the market in a ten year period, over half turned out to have serious dangers that were not predicted by pre-market animal tests. In other words, the animal tests don't protect humans from harmful medications, and may actually hinder the discovery and distribution of good medications.

There are thousands of people living with AIDS in this country with less than a year to live. The AIDS community has asked the federal government to speed up the process of releasing new drugs for AIDS, but safety testing drugs on animals slows down the process and does not make the end result safer. The fastest way to get new drugs to market is to take animals out of the picture. That's one reason why David Pasquarelli of Act Up San Francisco has released numerous statements opposing the use of animals in AIDS experiments.

Regarding the much touted baboon bone marrow failure, Mr. Pasquarelli states that it "proved to be nothing but a brutal effort in futility." He went on to conclude, "In the end I do not accept the notion that the struggle for animal liberation and the demand for an end to AIDS are mutually exclusive endeavors. Those who promote such a fallacy are either irrational, mean-spirited, bought-out, or all of the above."

He is not alone in his opinion. J. Scott Douglas of Washington, D.C. has lived with AIDS for several years. He is "angered because Mr. Getty chose to spread extremely false and misleading information." Those with a vested interest in animal experimentation have tried to exploit people with AIDS, but it is noteworthy how strongly many AIDS activists are speaking out against animal experiments.

The research industry makes money from selling animals, cages, and equipment. And it has not hesitated to stretch the truth to advertise its interests. A recent case in point was an experiment performed 5 years ago which the animal rights community and many scientists opposed. The research trade lobby states that we did not want an experiment performed on monkeys which they claim led to the discovery and blocking of transmission of HIV from mother to fetus. The facts of this so called "great stride" in modern medicine are otherwise:

A researcher petitioned NIH to grant him money to infect pregnant monkeys with SIV, and then document its transmission to the fetus. It was already known that HIV could be transmitted this way. The NIH gave this project such a low priority that it was not even funded. The researcher then petitioned private foundations, received the money, and performed the experiment anyway. He found what was already known at the time. SIV can in fact be transmitted to the fetus. Nothing new was learned. He did not use AZT to block HIV transmission to the fetus -- that was something that began in human studies. Ironically, animal rights groups found out about the whole procedure when the researcher's outraged secretary leaked it to the press.

The organized lobby that defends animal experiments is funded by industries that have a vested interest in preserving the business of animal experimentation. Groups with innocuous names like "Americans for Medical Progress" promote animal experimentation because companies like the U.S. Surgical Corporation pay them to do it. The public needs the facts, and they aren't going to get them from industry groups. Advances in AIDS research have come and will come from studying the human version of the virus. The sooner we step out of the dark ages of animal experimentation and into the modern day of in-vitro, epidemiologic research, and clinical studies, the sooner we will find a cure for AIDS.