KP Stoller, MD speaks to the Abolitionist-Online.

Abolitionist: In an article “Activists Force The Pigs To Fly To Asia” Michael Blackman wrote that it’s been estimated that 10-15% of the costs of drug discovery in the US and Britain goes towards animal testing. The total cost of bringing a new drug to the market can be more than us 1 billion dollars (AUS.1.3 billion) and that this business has been increasingly outsourced to Asia. China already supplies most of the world’s primates for animal testing, big tax and up-front incentives have attracted several leading researchers to Singapore and as shown by GlaxoSmithCline’s new venture 115 million dollars has gone into their new Research and Development facility which will further promote this trend. Blackman concludes by saying “…the West continues to strip itself of tasks that are dirty, boring and now, controversial”. I’d like to hear your views please.

KP Stoller: I am not surprised to learn about this out-sourcing, but it doesn't change the underlying problems with using animal models in medical and pharma research. They are not cost-effective, nor information effective. Cruelty is another issue, but not one that would impact on those that are so involved. Using animal models is a lot like using torture to get information from people. You can get them to say just about anything, but the information is not useful.

Read the full interview at: Abolitionist Online #5 Issue 5: November 2006

http://www.abolitionist-online.com/interview-issue05_aids.ebola.sars.kp-stoller.shtml