18 August 2020

by Marcia Triunfol

Endometriosis is a debilitating condition in which tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus invades other pelvic organs, resulting in significant pain that can diminish quality of life. The disease afflicts approximately 176 million women and girls globally; in the UK alone, around 1.5 million women (1 in 10) are currently living with the condition. Endometriosis can lead to infertility in up to 40% of women who suffer from it. Despite its prevalence, its causality is not well understood and there is no specific treatment.

An in-depth review by Dr Carla Piccinato and colleagues from Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo, Brazil, examined available preclinical models for endometriosis, including their translational efficacy and limitations. A fundamental challenge the authors identify is continuing scientific reliance on rodents to model a human disorder that does not develop naturally in these animals. Efforts to create an artificial animal model for human endometriosis resort to invasive surgery to transplant endometrial cells into rodents’ abdominal cavity. This approach produces only superficial lesions compared with the clinical manifestations in humans. [Read more…]

23 July 2020

Home Office statistics reveal that the number of animals suffering in invasive, painful and often lethal experiments in British laboratories has stayed broadly the same almost a decade after the government pledged to reduce animal use. Despite the unprecedented availability of high-tech and more human-predictive non-animal techniques, UK laboratories completed a total of 3.4 million procedures in 2019, down by just 8% on 2010 when the government made its now broken promise. Animal protection charity Humane Society International/UK says as the UK exits the European Union, if Britain hopes to lead the world in science innovation, the government must do far more to move away from outdated animal use.

Earlier this month, the UK government published an ambitious R&D roadmap setting out plans to “revitalis[e] our whole system of science, research and innovation to release its potential”. However, achieving that goal will only be possible in biomedical research if we move away from relying on animal-based approaches that don’t translate to humans, and embrace human biology as the true “gold standard”. [Read more…]

7 July 2020

by Humane Society International/ South Korea

Proposed new legislation that would require Korean regulatory and research funding ministries to promote the development and implementation of non-animal alternatives in safety and biomedical sciences were examined at a National Assembly expert forum on June 30. Assembly member In-soon Nam and Humane Society International/Korea co-hosted the forum.

The legislative initiative follows the release of government statistics revealing a shocking spike in the number of animals subjected to painful chemical-poisoning and other experiments in 2019, including forced feeding, inhalation, eye and skin tests without pain relief to assess the toxicity of insecticides (+187%), industrial chemicals (+115%) and pharmaceuticals (+40%).

Assembly member Nam said: “I believe this is a timely subject for discussion. We are living in the 21st century now, so it is only appropriate to discuss a new legal framework that will advance the current science policy for human patients and laboratory animals. As a member of the Health and Welfare committee, I am pleased to support this initiative and invite other science stakeholders to join in the discussion.” [Read more…]

24 June 2020

Humane Society International and the Humane Society of United States have supported a fast-track research grant for non-animal approaches to investigate mechanisms, medicines and vaccines for the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The organizations believe that understanding the biological mechanisms that make humans especially susceptible to COVID-19 is urgently needed to inform the development and evaluation of effective countermeasures.

Laboratory investigations of human disease often attempt to artificially reproduce a condition in animals. Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, a flood of studies have described infecting mice, hamsters, ferrets, monkeys and other animals with COVID-19. Yet most report that the animals used were either immune to the new virus, or manifested symptoms that differ substantially from the human condition, including in the most severe clinical outcomes. In addition, the animal-based approach is limited in its ability to predict the impact of comorbidities— the presence of two chronic diseases—in COVID-19 patients, or how the various treatments could impact or worsen the infection.

“We have great faith in the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing as a source of funding for research with the potential to spare humans, as well as animals in laboratories, from suffering caused by COVID-19,” says Kitty Block, president and CEO of HSUS and CEO of HSI. [Read more…]