Animal Testing

Many Americans would be surprised to learn that chimpanzees are still being used in biomedical research and that millions of other animals are utilized in consumer product and toxicity testing. Others may find a sense of security in knowing that this practice continues to provide information on which chemicals and products are deemed safe. The fact is that it doesn't have to be this way, and there are a number of public health, economic and animal welfare reasons to change our ways. The evolving process by which the U.S. regulates chemicals is important to every American household.

Many Americans would be surprised to learn that chimpanzees are still being used in biomedical research and that millions of other animals are utilized in consumer product and toxicity testing. Others may find a sense of security in knowing that this practice continues to provide information on which chemicals and products are deemed safe. The fact is that it doesn't have to be this way, and there are a number of public health, economic and animal welfare reasons to change our ways. The evolving process by which the U.S. regulates chemicals is important to every American household.

The pharmaceutical industry and the National Institutes of Health spend billions of dollars annually on medical research techniques that have been rendered obsolete by technological advances. Adult stem cell research is key to our status as the world's leader in medical research. The continued use of animals to test the effectiveness of medications and health interventions for humans is akin to using smoke signals instead of e-mail as a method of communication. Animal testing has never really worked.

New drugs and consumer products are almost always tested for safety on rats, rabbits, chimpanzees and other animals, but advances in technology could bring an end to such experiments. Testing on animals could be phased out over the next couple of decades — putting to rest ethical, efficiency and reliability questions — if new systems are accepted by researchers and government regulators, according to several experts gathering to debate the subject this week. "We're trying to find out how we can save animals and make risk assessment of consumer products more reliable," said Dr. Thomas Hartung, director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, a co-sponsor of the Washington conference called Animals, Research, and Alternatives: Measuring Progress 50 Years Later.

Friends thought Paul Silber had bet the farm when he ditched a secure job as a toxicologist with Dallas-based Mary Kay Cosmetics, packed everything into a U-Haul van and headed for Maryland to start a company based on an obscure, yet promising, field of biotechnology.Five years later, Mr. Silber relishes the memory as his Baltimore-based company, In Vitro Technologies, announced that in 1995 it turned a profit for the first time on revenues of almost $1 million. And he's expecting big growth in the next several years.

NORFOLK, Va. -- If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women were pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend.We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways. But Mr. Gore is calling for an equally senseless animal-bashing by pushing a scientifically flawed testing program, in which thousands of chemicals that have been on the market for years will be retested on animals.Mr. Gore and some friends in the Environmental Protection Agency started out claiming a "vacuum" of information on these substances.

New drugs and consumer products are almost always tested for safety on rats, rabbits, chimpanzees and other animals, but advances in technology could bring an end to such experiments. Testing on animals could be phased out over the next couple of decades — putting to rest ethical, efficiency and reliability questions — if new systems are accepted by researchers and government regulators, according to several experts gathering to debate the subject this week. "We're trying to find out how we can save animals and make risk assessment of consumer products more reliable," said Dr. Thomas Hartung, director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, a co-sponsor of the Washington conference called Animals, Research, and Alternatives: Measuring Progress 50 Years Later.

A ban of animal tests in the production of cosmetics will jeopardizethe health of Maryland residents as well as stifle the state's emerging biotech industries, opponents said yesterday.State health andeconomic development officials joined industry leaders opposing two bills introduced by Delegate George W. Owings, D-Owings, that would prohibit laboratories from subjecting live animals to eye irritancy and acute toxicity tests.Owings and supporters of his bills told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the testing causes unnecessary suffering and death among laboratory animals.

THE PUBLIC will believe a simple lie rather than a complex truth," said 19th century social critic Alexis de Tocqueville. That aphorism could well have been written about the controversy over animal rights.Front-page headlines in national newspapers recently heralded two reports questioning methods used in animal cancer tests. The reports, written by scientists, were printed in the Aug. 31 issue of the journal Science. In conjunction with the articles' release, one of the lead authors issued a statement that he "didn't think animal tests are useful in saying anything about human cancer.

What to do with nuclear scientistsThe United States and Russia agreed today to establish an international center to help nuclear scientists from the former Soviet Union turn their skills to peaceful uses.The countries also agreed that the United States would provide Russia with 25 rail cars and other tools to transport nuclear weapons to storage and eventual destruction.Russia will get several hundred special containers for transporting the weapons and their components from the United States, said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The pharmaceutical industry and the National Institutes of Health spend billions of dollars annually on medical research techniques that have been rendered obsolete by technological advances. Adult stem cell research is key to our status as the world's leader in medical research. The continued use of animals to test the effectiveness of medications and health interventions for humans is akin to using smoke signals instead of e-mail as a method of communication. Animal testing has never really worked.

WASHINGTON - A cow that died of complications from calving in April might have been infected with mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday. There is no danger to the human or animal food supply, said Dr. John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian, because the carcass was destroyed where the cow died after tissue samples were collected. Clifford said a sample of brain tissue was submitted by a veterinarian who treats animals in "a remote area," which he did not identify.

SAN FRANCISCO - Shares of EntreMed Inc. fell nearly 21 percent yesterday after results of the first human tests of its two anti-tumor drugs failed to ignite investors' enthusiasm. The scientific presentations Sunday and yesterday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's meeting here marked the first release of complete results from Phase I clinical trials for Endostatin and Angiostatin. Investors reacted negatively, despite what the company and independent scientific investigators described as positive results.

There is ample evidence in American popular culture of a powerful conflict about the moral status of animals. Americans eat them and we keep them as pets. We save the whales and look down our noses at unenlightened women who wear fur while buying leather handbags, shoes and belts in record numbers. We applaud Hollywood personalities in their lobbying for more monies for AIDS research, while we watch some of the same celebrities reprimand scientists for using animals in the very research under way to find a cure for HIV infection.

NORFOLK, Va. -- If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women were pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend.We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways. But Mr. Gore is calling for an equally senseless animal-bashing by pushing a scientifically flawed testing program, in which thousands of chemicals that have been on the market for years will be retested on animals.Mr. Gore and some friends in the Environmental Protection Agency started out claiming a "vacuum" of information on these substances.

March is hard to dress for. It rains, it snows, it's warm, it's cold. It's a month of mud and puddles, a season for wet feet and March hair, frizzled or flattened by the damp.Fanciful chapeaux like those by Sally Di Marco are one possible palliative, lifting the spirits and protecting the 'do. Di Marco uses interesting fabrics -- tapestries, velvets, vintage brocades, cotton and linen -- and she likes to combine different patterns and textures in the same hat. Some, like the one shown here on Crystal Harrison, a student of Di Marco, are trimmed with fabric rosettes.

SAN FRANCISCO - Shares of EntreMed Inc. fell nearly 21 percent yesterday after results of the first human tests of its two anti-tumor drugs failed to ignite investors' enthusiasm. The scientific presentations Sunday and yesterday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's meeting here marked the first release of complete results from Phase I clinical trials for Endostatin and Angiostatin. Investors reacted negatively, despite what the company and independent scientific investigators described as positive results.

March is hard to dress for. It rains, it snows, it's warm, it's cold. It's a month of mud and puddles, a season for wet feet and March hair, frizzled or flattened by the damp.Fanciful chapeaux like those by Sally Di Marco are one possible palliative, lifting the spirits and protecting the 'do. Di Marco uses interesting fabrics -- tapestries, velvets, vintage brocades, cotton and linen -- and she likes to combine different patterns and textures in the same hat. Some, like the one shown here on Crystal Harrison, a student of Di Marco, are trimmed with fabric rosettes.

Friends thought Paul Silber had bet the farm when he ditched a secure job as a toxicologist with Dallas-based Mary Kay Cosmetics, packed everything into a U-Haul van and headed for Maryland to start a company based on an obscure, yet promising, field of biotechnology.Five years later, Mr. Silber relishes the memory as his Baltimore-based company, In Vitro Technologies, announced that in 1995 it turned a profit for the first time on revenues of almost $1 million. And he's expecting big growth in the next several years.

He may be on life No. 8, but Kvetch is still alive -- and thriving."He's fatter and meaner than ever," said Dr. Marian Siegel, a cat veterinarian who has been treating the big brown-striped tabby for deadly feline leukemia with dilute alpha interferon for three years."