Mice Aren't Furry Little People: Sloppy Science Fails Humans
Many people, including leading researchers, are highly critical of nonhuman animal (animal) models for learning about human diseases and developing treatments for them. Of course, this is not to say that some drugs that are developed using nonhuman animals don't work on humans, however, in a recent NPR report called "Drugs That Work In Mice Often Fail When Tried In People" we read, "Most potential new drugs fail when they're tested in people. These failures are not only a major disappointment, they sharply drive up the cost of developing new drugs. A major reason for these failures is that most new drugs are first tested out in mice, rats or other animals. Often those animal studies show great promise. But mice aren't simply furry little people, so these studies often lead science astray. Some scientists are now rethinking animal studies to make them more effective for human health."
Much of the NPR essay (available online) is based on Richard Harris' fascinating and extremely important new book titled Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions, the description for which reads:
An award-winning science journalist pulls the alarm on the dysfunction plaguing scientific research--with lethal consequences for us all.Here are a few snippets from the NPR piece to whet your appetite for more.
American taxpayers spend $30 billion annually funding biomedical research. By some estimates, half of the results from these studies can't be replicated elsewhere-the science is simply wrong. Often, research institutes and academia emphasize publishing results over getting the right answers, incentivizing poor experimental design, improper methods, and sloppy statistics. Bad science doesn't just hold back medical progress, it can sign the equivalent of a death sentence. How are those with breast cancer helped when the cell on which 900 papers are based turns out not to be a breast cancer cell at all? How effective could a new treatment for ALS be when it failed to cure even the mice it was initially tested on? In Rigor Mortis, award-winning science journalist Richard F. Harris reveals these urgent issues with vivid anecdotes, personal stories, and interviews with the nation's top biomedical researchers. We need to fix our dysfunctional biomedical system-now.
Rats and humans have been on their own evolutionary paths for tens of millions of years. We've developed our own unique features, and so have the rodents. So it should come as no surprise that a drug that works in a mouse often doesn't work in a person.My humble suggestion is to read the NPR essay and Mr. Harris' book and share them widely. Doing this could save many lives, nonhuman and human animal alike. They are that important. Sloppy science can be a significant killer, and many scientists agree.
The philosophy behind mouse research has been to make everything as uniform as possible, so results from one facility would be the same as the identical experiment elsewhere.
But despite extensive efforts to be consistent, this setup hides a huge amount of variation. Bedding may differ from one facility to the next. So might the diet. Mice respond strongly to individual human handlers. Mice also react differently depending on whether their cage is up near the fluorescent lights or hidden down in the shadows.
But that's exactly what we do in animals. We try to control everything we can possibly think of, and as a result we learn absolutely nothing.
In his field, the assumptions are often poor, or downright misleading. And Petsko says this mindset has been counterproductive. Scientists in his field have 'been led astray for many years by relying so heavily on animal models,' he says.
Marc Bekoff’s latest books are Jasper’s Story: Saving Moon Bears (with Jill Robinson); Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation; Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation; Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence; The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson); and The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with Jessica Pierce). Canine Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to the Best Lives For Dogs and Us will be published in early 2018. Marc's homepage is marcbekoff.com
