In Rat Trap, our Research Director, Dr Pandora Pound ends the debate about animal research once and for all. She shows that, far from being a necessary evil, it is one of the most important and urgent scientific issues of our time.
Animal research harms patients and holds back medical progress. Superior technologies based on human biology could transform medicine if not for the iron grip of animal research.
Rat Trap is dynamite! It blows the lid off decades of dogma.
Read it, share it, and help speed the revolution that will benefit us all
We are delighted that Nexus Magazine has featured a 5-page excerpt of Rat Trap in its August-September issue. The excerpt (Chapter 1) is available for download for a small fee here
We are delighted that the BMJ has published an Opinion article by our research director, Dr Pandora Pound and Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga, professor of evidence-based transition to animal-free innovations at Utrecht University.
You can read the article here: https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1600.
The opening and closing paragraphs are below:
We must develop a funded, evidence based transition programme to enable a shift to safe and effective human biology based approaches in research
In February 2024, the Conservative government announced its intention to accelerate the development and uptake of technologies to reduce the use of animals in science, promising publication of a transition strategy this summer.1 Hopes are high that Labour will honour this commitment since, according to its manifesto, the party aim to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing.” In our view, a transition away from reliance on animals in research cannot happen soon enough; we believe that pre-clinical animal research is impeding medical progress, wasting resources, and resulting in enormous unmet need for patients.
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The notion that animal research saves human lives has become part of our collective belief system. But this belief is not based on scientific evidence. The debate about animal research has traditionally been portrayed as an animal welfare issue, but we need to grasp that this is about human health too. This is a public health issue. Let’s hope the new government recognises this and acts accordingly.
Safer Medicines Trust is part of the Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias, otherwise known as COLAAB, so we were delighted when COLAAB was recently recognised for its important work with a Lush Prize in the category of Major Science Collaboration!
COLAAB is an international coalition of researchers and advocates from a range of organisations, charities and universities worldwide. It was formed in 2022 following a workshop to discuss how the bias towards using animal methods plays out within scientific publishing. Workshop attendees from publishing, academia, industry, government, and non-governmental organisations discussed this phenomenon and the impact it could have on scientists’ research and their careers. Two years later, COLAAB held another workshop, this one to explore the issue of bias in reviews of academic funding proposals.
There has long been anecdotal evidence of a bias towards using animals within academia. But what COLAAB has done is two things. First, and importantly, it has named the phenomenon. Being able to talk about ‘animal methods bias’ makes the issue much easier to discuss and helps people recognise it and – crucially – challenge it when it arises. Second, the coalition is collecting empirical evidence about how this bias plays out and how it affects scientists’ ability to get their studies published if they do not use animals. Not content with anecdote, COLAAB has conducted two surveys of scientists’ experiences of animal methods bias in academic publishing. The first was an initial foray into this field and the second, which should be published later this year, is a much larger survey, together with an analysis of biomedical publications. Further research is planned, including a qualitative study of the experiences of PhD students and early career researchers, and – hopefully – an investigation into animal methods bias within biomedical funding.
It’s wonderful that Lush Prize has recognised the importance of this collaboration. Congratulations to everyone involved!
For our first blog of 2024, we summarise five key messages from Safer Medicines Trust’s landmark new book, Rat Trap by Dr. Pandora Pound which we are delighted has been shortlisted for a 2024 Lush Prize in ‘Public Awareness’.
See more reviews and information on Rat Trap – the spark for a revolution in science – here
as well as media coverage of the book and interviews with Dr. Pandora Pound
It can be bought direct from the publisher Troubador here
Or from online bookshops, including Amazon here
