AR-News: New York Times gives gruesome details of animal tests for depression drugs - 3/28/04

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From:  interniche-l at interniche.org 
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 8:25 PM
Subject: [interniche-l] DawnWatch: New York Times gives gruesome details of animal tests for depression drugs - 3/28/04



The March 28 Sunday New York Times has an article in the "Ideas and Trends" section, by Gina Kolata, headed "Of Mice and Men; Why Test Animals to Cure Human Depression?" (Section 4, page 3.) It is likely to depress those with compassion for members of other species.

It opens:
"You might think if questions were raised about whether antidepressant drugs can make patients suicidal during the first few weeks of treatment, that scientists would turn to animal testing for further investigation.

"After all, suicides are rare enough that there are no firm human data on whether the drugs can cause them. But you can do experiments with animals -- examining their brains, giving them high doses of drugs -- that you could never do with people."
Because it would hurt people. And they matter. 

She goes on to say that animal experiments on suicide danger are not currently an option because there is no animal model for depression. She writes, "the first generation of antidepressants was discovered by accident." The article says that depression has a strong emotional and cognitive component that is hard to mimic in an animal. 

But, of course, scientists have tried:

"In one popular test, mice are placed in a pool of water and monitored to see how long they swim before giving up. If they are treated with an antidepressant, they swim longer.

"Another experiment involves hanging mice by their tails; those given antidepressants struggle longer before giving up.

"In a third test, mice are taught to avoid an electrical shock by pushing a lever. When the lever is inactivated, the mice continue to push it anyway, even though they still get shocked. Mice under the influence of antidepressants keep pushing it longer."

We have a quote from Robert R. Ruffolo, president of research and development at Wyeth, saying that animals such as mice "don't feel happy or sad."  Yet, they found that the same drugs that made a mouse swim longer alleviate depression in humans.

In other words, Wyeth's president of research wants to assure us, or himself, that other animals do not have emotions like ours, so it is OK to use them in harrowing and even torturous experiments -- yet they are sufficiently like us for the experiments to have enough validity to be funded and carried out.

Ruffolo also said that if researchers stumbled on an animal test that predicted whether an anti-depressant drug might prompt suicide as a rare side effect in people "We would immediately go back and test all of our drugs." One hates to think of the tests scientists might come up with to see if they can induce (and then try to prevent) suicide in members of others species.

Kolata writes of animal tests on existing drugs:
"That cycle produces lots of me-too drugs but little insight into how to produce better antidepressants that could help more people and perhaps even make them more cheerful and optimistic." 

By "me-too" drugs, Kolata means drugs that do much the same thing as those already on the market, thereby offering no benefit in their release to anybody other than the patent holders. All of those new and unexciting drugs are tested on animals. Peter Jennings did a superb story on the wasteful process that you can read on line at:
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/ABCNEWSSpecials/pharmaceuticals_020529_pjr_feature.html

You can read the whole of Kolata's article on line at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/weekinreview/28kola.html

You may have to register but it is easy and free -- you only have to do it once and an online registration to the New York Times is worth having.

The article should serve as a good eye opener to Times readers who have bought the picture sold by the biomedical industry suggesting animal testing is all about curing AIDS and cancer and that the utmost care is taken to limit the suffering of the animals involved. It presents a good opportunity for letters to the editor about the way members of other species are treated by human society.
Never use any of my exact wording when writing to an editor, or attach a sample letter to the editor to any alert. Editors are not interested in publishing letters that appear to result from campaigns -- swamping editors with similarly worded letters is detrimental rather than helpful. However, if the article inspires you to pen a few lines of your own, please take a moment to send them. Many different letters on about the same article will make it highly likely that one or two will be printed. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. 

The New York Times takes letters at: letters at nytimes.com 


Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
www.DawnWatch.com 

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it at www.DawnWatch.com. To subscribe to DawnWatch, email KarenDawn at DawnWatch.com and tell me you'd like to receive alerts.  If at any time you find DawnWatch is not for you, just let me know via email and I'll take you off the subscriber list immediately. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited, leaving DawnWatch in the title and including this tag line.)
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