Tissues are the Way to Go
The exclusion of animals in the
field of scientific experimentation does not mean that advances in the field
will not be blocked. Cures for human diseases, reactions to certain substances
can still be discovered through experimentation by other means. The goal is to
keep the momentum of science without leaving millions of innocent animals in
its wake. To achieve this, the solution is to experiment on humans, whose intentions
are to find cures to ailments and other diseases for their own species.
However, I am not proposing that experimentation should be on live humans--too
many complications would arise in that scenario. The best solution to this
problem of replacing animals for advances in science is the use of human
tissues.
Experimentation on human tissues
offer the best results to see how the human body would react to certain
substances. There is no better way to see how a human heart would react to a
chemical than by injecting that chemical into some human heart tissue. Given
the uniformity in the human heart cells, how the individual tissue reacts to a
chemical is a good indicator of how the entire heart would react, producing
better results in medicine. The same cannot be said when it comes to
experimenting on animals. Alan Dove, in his piece "The Search for Animal
Alternatives, writes, "they are often poor
predictors of human results. Besides interspecies differences in physiology,
animal studies rely on uniform populations, virtually guaranteeing that they will
miss idiosyncratic reactions". It seems nonsensical that a rat heart and
human heart would react to the substance in the same way. If a rat heart reacts
positively to a chemical, how does that indicate whether a human heart would
react positively to the same chemical? The only way to see how a human heart
reacts to a substance is to experiment on the heart. Human tissues are the best
solution for that, producing better results on experiments while protecting the
integrity of a fully operational heart.
Getting better results for
experiments is another incentive for large drug companies looking to minimize
costs. One of the biggest costs for drug companies is research and lawsuits. Testing
on human tissues is much faster than compared to testing on animals. Compared
to how a liver tissue reacts to toxic levels, the same test for animals would
cause drug companies " to use
much more of the drug, wait a lot longer and pay for the upkeep and eventual
autopsies of the animals it used" (Feder). Overtime, the cost starts to
add up for these large drug companies, increasing their burden in their
research costs. Human tissues, while not the only solution, are key for drug
companies trying to reduce costs. Another way to reduce costs for major drug
companies is to minimize payments from litigation. This can be accomplished be
using human tissue as opposed to animals due to the better results they yield.
Executives in the industry estimate that "as much as 25 percent of the
drugs tested on animals [fail] to show side effects that later proved serious
enough to prevent the drugs from being marketed" (Feder). Better results
from experimentation will make it harder for consumers to sue these large
companies. In the marketplace, these large drug companies are incentivized to
produce the best products. It would behoove companies to lower that 25 percent
number, reducing their chances of getting sued by a litigation frenzy
environment. Experiments on human tissues can offer that as they lower the
costs for large drug companies.
Human tissue should be a replacement
of animal use in experimentation because of the abundance of the material.
Tissue does not refer to any part of the body, all tissue is a collection of
cells that comprise an organ or blood. Humans have an ample amount of tissue
that can be spared for the advances in science. Tissues that are experimented
on frequently come in different types, including "collections
of blood from healthy donors, collections of diseased tissue (especially
tumors), removed during the course of diagnosis or treatment, and collections
of tissue removed during postmortem examination" (Lipworth, Forsyth,
Kerrige). This wide array of different tissues gives scientists different
options to work with. Cancer research can become much more successful using the
tissue as opposed to an animal. Seeing how eyes react to a chemical can be more
effective in predicting how successful that chemical will we when it is mass
produced to the human population. Another luxury is the ever-present supply of
the tissue bank. In the postmortem examination, healthy tissues and diseased
tissues from different organs can be extracted to fight future problems.
Because of how many different types of tissue there are, they are a great
replacement for animals when it comes to experimentation.
Some may say the testing on live
humans is the best solution if we are going to exclude animals. I tend to agree
that live humans is a viable solution that seriously needs to be considered.
However I cannot envision that point at which this makes both the researcher
and the subject happy. From the researcher's perspective, it could be very
difficult to find subjects where they would inject possibly deadly chemicals
into one's body. Live subjects would also charge fees, something that
researchers at large companies want to keep at a minimum level. If things were
to go bad, the subject would likely seek a monetary reward on top of the
payment to participate in the experiment. Experimentation is a risky business
with many failures more than successes. Human life can be greatly affected from
the inherent risk that comes with scientific research.
To reduce that risk, human tissue is
the clear answer to the problem of research on living organisms while not on
animals. Because of the abundance of human tissue and the variety that it comes
in, our experiments become that more accurate at a level that cannot be
achieved through animal experiments. How an animal reacts to a chemical is
completely different than that of a human. If we are searching for solutions to
human medical problems, then the human body logically needs to be the source of
the experiment, with the best solution being tissue. Science can still proceed
without animals; in fact, it will take off with the use of more human tissue.
Works
Cited
Dove, Alan. "The
Search for Animal Alternatives." Drug
Discovery and Development 13.4 (2010):
10-13. Web. 5 August 2013
Feder, Barnaby. "Saving
the Animals: New Ways to Test Products." New York Times, 12 September 2007.
Web. 5 August 2013
Forseyth, Rowena,
Ian Kerridge, Wendy Lipworth. "Tissue Donations to Biobank: A Review of
Sociological Studies." Sociology of Health & Illness 33.5 (2011):
792-811. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 August 2013
