Dr Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH: the world’s largest supporter of medical research) from 2002-2008, laments that researchers have over-relied on animal data, saying:
“The problem is that it hasn’t worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing around the problem…We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.”
Ref: http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2013/06_21_2013/story1.htm
Dr Francis Collins, current NIH Director, has frequently criticised animal testing for being expensive, time consuming and unreliable. He says:
“With earlier and more rigorous target validation in human tissues, it may be justifiable to skip the animal model assessment of efficacy altogether.”
World Patient Safety Day is grounded in the most fundamental principle of medicine – first do no harm “Medication Safety” is the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2022. Safer Medicines Trust is a patient safety charity whose mission is to improve the safety of medicines, so we very much support calls for “Medication Without Harm”. The World […]
The crisis of Alzheimer’s disease research: it’s time to embrace a new approach to help patientsThe problem Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a leading cause of death in the UK and along with other dementias, is responsible for almost 11% of all deaths in England.1 More than 209,000 new cases are diagnosed each year across the UK.2 It remains a leading cause of death and disability worldwide3, affecting nearly 50 million […]
