In view of the alarming and escalating numbers of serious adverse drug reactions, drug safety testing is an issue of major public health concern. Whether animal testing of new drugs is sufficiently predictive to ensure human safety has never been systematically evaluated. In the light of examples such as TGN1412 and Vioxx, which caused many thousands of heart attacks and strokes despite being cardio-protective in animals, I believe that an independent and transparent scientific evaluation of the use of animals in drug safety testing is required.
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