Tell NHMRC to stop funding animal experimentation

  • by: Everyone
  • recipient: Prof Warwick Anderson of NHMRC

Please tell the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to stop funding millions of taxpayer's money into animal testing. 

Over 10 million animals a year are used as models in medical research, most funded by taxpayer's money. These animals are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act and are subjected to torturous experimentation which are often inconclusive and unscientific.

Putting aside the cruelty, animals and humans differ genetically, anatomically and metabolically therefore animals are inappropriate models for medical research. 9 out of 10 drugs that work successfully on animals failed on humans.

Please urge NHMRC to stop funding this cruel, expensive and inconclusive practice and invest in alternative methods such as computer modelling, Corrositex, improved statistical design, the Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA), etc.

Thank you 

We the undersigned, implore you to stop all funding to medical experiments involving animal models as they are expensive, inconclusive and cruel.   

For example: as you may know the University of Sydney has received over one million Australian Taxpayer’s money through NHMRC grants for a nine year experiment using kittens as models for an eye disease called Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), which can result in loss of vision in infants.

In an effort to recreate the effects of ROP the kittens were put in a hyperoxic chamber for up to 4 days for researchers to observe changes in cells and blood vessels. According to researchers, the reason for these experiments is that depending on the level of oxygen administered, the ensuing hyperoxia can result in severe vessel constriction and delay the process of body tissues developing capillaries (vascularisation).

However according to US human eye specialist Dr Stephen Kaufman, the method of induction of the disease differs from kittens to humans, rendering the use of animal models unreliable. He further states that: “The research protocol involves “localized vessel regression”, whereas in ROP this is not the problem: it involves failure of normal blood vessels to develop in the first place. While the kitten and human condition might resemble each other, even subtle differences in pathogenesis can result in differences in disease manifestation at the cellular level at which these studies are focused. Any further differences between cats and humans in normal retinal structure at an anatomic or cellular level would compromise the application of animal data to humans.”

This is just one example of taxpayer’s money going to waste and millions of animals subjected to a life of suffering, with nothing to show for it.  

I urge you and your colleagues to stop funding research involving animals and invest in epidemiological research or superior alternative methods such as, computer modelling, Corrositex, improved statistical design, the Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA), etc.

Thank you for your time

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