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Laboratory mice have been sacrificial lambs for research

Re: Custom- made mice have served men for decades, Weekend Review, Sept. 1

A statement in this article should not go unchallenged: “ The usefulness of these animals [ laboratory mice] is hard to overstate.”

In opposition to this view stand a different breed, so to speak, of scientists who realize that the mouse is of little use to the study of human beings’ ills and possible cures. In fact, the little fellow has been playing havoc with researchers all along.

Chairman David Korn of the U. S. National Cancer Institute’s advisory board reported that: “ For many years, we have injected more than 400,000 chemicals into leukemic mice, hoping to find chemotherapies that would help solve the riddles of cancer . . . We’ve been using the wrong system as the screening device. Many potential cancer- fighting drugs currently being tested on real human cancer cells failed in the past when tested on mice.”

In a recent TMS Healthcare survey of family practitioners in the United Kingdom, 82 per cent were concerned that animal-based data can be misleading when applied to the human patient. Serious adverse drug reactions are now recognized as the fourth leading cause of death in that country. Little wonder that scientists themselves are finally questioning the validity of relying on animal testing, no matter how refined a strain of mouse may be involved, given the superior, human- based methods that are increasingly available.
ANNE BIRTHISTLE