Posted for Meredith Wadman
A gray, sinister-looking picture of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach appeared in a full-page ad in Tuesday’s Washington Post. “Meet Andrew von Eschenbach,” the caption ran. “On His Watch, `FDA’ Stands for `Federal Dog Abuse.’”
The ad, placed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) goes on to explain, atop a smaller picture of an adorable puppy, that “because the FDA guidelines are antiquated, dogs are still forced to ingest, inhale or be injected with drugs. Those who don’t die outright can suffer for months or even years while their organs fail and they become riddled with cancer and other diseases.”
The ad directs concerned readers to take action at PETA’s website where they can sign and send to von Eschenbach a letter stating that “The FDA should listen to countless scientific experts – including the National Research Council – that have shown that animal tests do not do a good job of predicting the effects of chemicals in humans.” PETA’s press release on the advert is headlined “65,000 Dogs Killed Every Year in Outdated Tests.”
I phoned up Jessica Sandler, the director of PETA’s Regulatory Testing Division, who before coming to PETA worked for a decade as a safety and health professional at the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and then ran the safety office for a branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, to ask where the figures came from…
Sandler, who told me that the group spent nearly $82,000 on the advert, was only too happy to explain how they arrived at the 65,000 number. The United States Department of Agriculture reports on the number of animals (excluding rats and mice) used each year for purposes of experimentation – which runs the gamut from pharmaceutical R&D to pesticide testing overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency to medical students being taught surgery using live animals. In 2006, the most recent year available, USDA reports use of 87,424 dogs, in three categories: 1,340 “with pain, no drugs;” 29,239 “with pain, with drugs;” and 56,845 with “no pain, no drugs.” (The “drugs” referred to are pain relievers and anaesthetics, not pharmaceuticals under test)
However, USDA doesn’t break down the dogs’ use by type of testing, so PETA took a look at figures from the United Kingdom, where the Home Office does report on the percentage – 73% — of dogs used in pharmaceutical experiments. The organization then applied that 73% to the US total of 87,424 dogs to come up with a guesstimate of 65,000 dogs. “These are estimates,” Sandler says, “but we think they are reasonable estimates.”
Among the long list of citations Sandler points to as supporting the claim that “countless experts” have shown that animal tests don’t do a good job of predicting chemical effects in humans is a June 2007 National Research Council study, “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy”.
The report addressed animal testing of commercial chemicals and pesticides, rather than pharmaceuticals, but there are others looking at drug development like this (click on the second abstract) and this.
There is also this from von Eschenbach himself: “Today, nine out of 10 compounds developed in the lab fail in human studies. They fail, in large part because they behave differently in people than they did in animal or laboratory tests.”
I also chatted with Frankie Trull, the president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, a group that defends the use of animals as necessary in some experimentation. Trull noted that dogs are in the main used for testing the toxicity of new pharmaceuticals before they are put in people—and that it’s an FDA requirement that a new drug be tested in a higher species before it is put in humans.
She called the advert “typical PETA, making a very emotional statement not backed up with facts. Dogs are not given cancer. But dogs are used for drug compound studies and they are used because they have digestive systems similar to humans…..There are reasons why the FDA requirements are what they are.”
Trull’s group estimates that about 30 million rodents are used for research annually, which in turn led her to estimate, by including USDA reports of other non-rodent species used, that the 87,000-odd dogs comprise some 0.05% of all animals used in the US.
She added that her take home message is this: “What PETA says is that animal research and testing is archaic and scientists should be using other methods. My response is: terrific, bring us validated alternatives, because using animals in research is an extremely expensive, time-consuming proposition.”
The FDA had this to say:
“FDA supports efforts to reduce the number of animals used in product safety testing, and replacement with laboratory tests where possible. We also require companies to meet Good Laboratory Practices so that animals used in product testing are treated in a humane and compassionate manner. At the present time, there are some necessary animal-based tests for which a suitable laboratory test has not yet been developed. However, FDA, the industry, and scientific organizations continue to seek replacement test methods and we are optimistic that as science continues to advance, we can make further progress in this area.”