AFMA Americans
for Medical Advancement
March 2006
Don't all doctors support the concept of animal experimentation?
No, but many medical professionals endorse lab animal research, as a
matter of principle rather than informed conviction. With busy specialized
careers and only thin information to the contrary, few physicians are
willing to shoulder the burden of publicly dissenting with their peers. This
dissent requires too much research and too much risk. However, if consulted
privately, they will admit that they study human data, not animal data to
determine how best to treat their patients. The Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine and The Medical Research Modernization Committee are
two physician-based organization that agree with AFMA that experiments on
animals do not lead to cures for human disease.
Animal experimentation is part of the curricula at some medical schools.
Moreover, many medical schools are associated with research institutes;
these rely on animal experimentation for grant money. This style of
education, therefore, leads physicians to believe that experiments on
animals are associated with medical progress. Note, this does not mean
animals are responsible for medical progress. Animal experiments provide
results; however, physicians themselves will have to admit that the results
they themselves were exposed to did not provide new data of relevance to
humans. When pressed to provide examples of how animal experimentation has
contributed to their field, these professionals invariably come up short.
They may hold onto the possibility that the animal model, though not germane
to their field, is of use in other disciplines.
In this litigious climate, doctors would be reluctant to prescribe drugs if
they knew that the animal-testing aspect of the drug's development worked
against, rather than for, patient health. Hence, pharmaceutical companies
promote the belief that animal testing assures the safety and effectiveness
of medications that physicians rely upon. This "bill of goods" is another
reason why physicians support animal experimentation.
It must be added that physicians, if not proactively in pursuit of facts to
the contrary, are also very easily persuaded by the steady influx of public
relations perpetrated by animal experimenters. Animal experimentation has a
long history, and with tens of thousands of people and some of the world's
largest corporations entirely devoted to maintaining the status quo, it
would take a brave physician, and one with a lot of time on his or her
hands, to speak out against it.
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