[ShareTompkins] New ISN Article: The Experiment Is on Us: Science of Animal Testing Thrown into Doubt

[A Wilson]

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Published on May 6th, 2013 in Independent Science News:
The Experiment Is on Us: Science of Animal Testing Thrown into Doubt
by Pat Dutt and Jonathan Latham
URL: http://independentsciencenews.org/news/the-experiment-is-on-us-animal-toxicology-testing-science/

Synopsis: New research strongly suggests that animal testing does not  
meaningfully protect us from unsafe food additives, pesticide  
contaminants, and other industrial chemicals.

National and international regulatory frameworks for protecting humans  
from chemical exposures are heavily dependent on animal testing. A  
premise of animal testing is that mice and other animals mimic human  
responses to carcinogens and other toxins. Yet even though most of  
toxicology and medical research rests on it, the idea of 'concordance'  
between species has not until now been systematically tested. A major  
body of new research, published in the journal Proceedings of the  
National Academy of Science (Seok et al, 2013), concludes that mice  
have negligible usefulness as experimental models for humans in the  
study of inflammation. Inflammatory diseases are an important class of  
human illnesses. But if, as seems probable, the results can be  
extrapolated to other diseases and disorders, then the entirety of  
current toxics testing is deeply flawed. So too is much of medical  
research. Since toxics testing procedures are likely worthless there  
is a strong case that the public should be taking steps to protect  
themselves by avoiding processed and non-organic foods, and non- 
traditional products and materials.
Reference: Seok, J Shaw Warren, H et al, (2013) Genomic responses in  
mouse models poorly mimic human inflammatory diseases. PNAS February  
11, 2013 online edition (PDFavailable free).

Please tweet, post, blog and forward, etc. to interested parties.

Apologies for cross posting

Yours sincerely

Allison Wilson, PhD
Science Director
The Bioscience Resource Project

phone: 1 (607) 319 0279
a.wilson at bioscienceresource.org
www.independentsciencenews.org
and
www.bioscienceresource.org

"Good with Science"

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