Scientists admit what AR people have been saying for years!
Scientists admit what animal campaigners have been saying for years - using animals to model Multiple Sclerosis doesn't work!
An article in the New Scientist (Nov 16 2002) reveals that a group of scientists have declared that the medical world is wrong about the causes of multiple sclerosis (an inflammatory and progressive disease of the human nervous system).
Leading anti-vivisection campaigners, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) welcome the news but say animal campaigners have been criticising the scientific validity of animal models for years.
Scientists have long contended that MS is the result of immune system cells attacking and destroying the myelin protein which sheaths nerves and helps them transmit signals.
Three neurologists (from the University of Glasgow and the Leiden University Medical Centre) have disagreed, arguing that the autoimmune theory of MS is based on inaccurate conclusions drawn from misleading animal experiments carried out in some cases in the 19th century.
They argue that MS is actually caused when support cells called astrocytes malfunction - perhaps as a result of genetic and envvironmental triggers. In the past, animal researchers discovered that injecting nerve or brain tissue into animals triggers their immune system to attack their nervous system. They called this experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), and decided the same process was responsible for MS in humans. All subsequent treatments have been based on this theory.
Differences between EAE and MS *
EAE either kills animals or leaves them with permanent disabilities. In humans, MS attacks subside and reoccur. * Animals with EAE also suffer severe nerve inflammation, whereas in MS, inflammation is usually mild, if present at all. The time course of EAE is also entirely different to MS. * The EAE model is not induced in a way which mirrors the rise of MS nor does it show the range of clinical symptoms and progression of the human disease. * Despite extensive research and a vast research literature (where more animals have been given EAE than there have been cases of human MS) the cause of the clinical condition remains unknown.
There is, to date, no effective treatment. Chris Nay, the BUAV's Scientific Officer, says: "These three neurologists have confirmed what animal groups like the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection have been saying for years - using animals as a model of human disease is fundamentally flawed because experimentally inducing symptoms in animals which only have broad similarity to the symptoms of a given human disease is not a scientifically robust methodology. Furthermore, because research into MS has for centuries been based on these misleading animal experiments, vital research into the human condition has actually been delayed.
It's time researchers stopped delaying progress by experimenting on animals and switched to more modern non-animal methods instead."
Notes:
1. Contact the BUAV at 020 7700 4888 or email [email protected]
2. Release includes extracts taken from BBC On-line
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