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 very happy that Caduceus magazine has printed a glowing review of Rat Trap in its Autumn issue.
Read review here…
Reprinted from Caduceus, issue 112, Autumn, 2024; see www.caduceus.info .
On September 19th, Dr Pandora Pound gave a keynote lecture at the European Society for Alternatives to Animal Testing (EUSAAT) Congress in Linz, Austria, September 19th 2024. Drawing upon the arguments set out in Rat Trap, she talked about the limitations of animal research and the urgent need to transition to human-relevant methodologies in drug development and testing. And on October 15th she delivered an online webinar to a joint meeting of the Green Party’s Animal Rights Policy Working Group and Greens for Animal Protection, making the case that animal research is not just an animal welfare issue but has significant consequences for humans and for science.
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.
