AIA has launched a petition to ask the UK government to implement, without delay, 21st century human based test methods for the sake of good science, patient safety and animal welfare.
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The UK government recently announced a £400 million public-private collaboration to kickstart economic growth and build an NHS fit for the future.
It seems ironic to invest £400 million to support faster patient access to cutting-edge treatments, while continuing to allow the pharmaceutical industry to use completely out of date and unreliable animal tests as the backbone of preclinical studies.
According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), out of ten drugs that successfully pass animal tests, nine will fail during clinical trials, either as a result of adverse reactions not seen in the animals or else due to lack of efficacy in humans. No other comparable industry would tolerate such a failure rate and yet the Government and the MHRA continue to accept animal testing as the ‘gold standard’, despite the availability of modern technologies that far surpass animal tests in terms of reliability and relevance to human health.
As one example, the human ‘liver on a chip’ is far more reliable than animal tests at detecting drug induced liver injury (DILI for short). This is hugely significant because the ‘liver on a chip’ will prevent dangerous drugs from ever reaching clinical trials, whereas animal testing is notoriously unreliable at detecting and predicting DILI.
Not only is DILI the leading cause of prescription drug withdrawal from the market, but such liver damage can result in a patient requiring a liver transplant. One single liver transplant costs the NHS around £121,000. This represents a huge economic burden on the NHS, in addition to avoidable human suffering.
Clinical trials must no longer be linked to results obtained from animal tests in the 21st century. Human based test methods, such as ‘liver on a chip’ should be incorporated into the preclinical test phase without delay. Anything less could constitute a dereliction of patient and consumer safety.
We ask the government to implement, without delay, these and similar human based test methods for the sake of good science, patient safety and animal welfare.
Animal Interfaith Alliance 