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In North London this week 6 men are fighting for their lives following administration of drugs as the first human trial of a new drug for treating inflamation and leukemia. The men suffered an almost instant catastrophic reaction to the drug vital organ shutdown etc.

Horrific thing to happen to those 6 people.

But the question I have is this:

Would more extensive animal testing have avoided this catastrophe or is this what the anti animal testing folks would like to see happening on a more regular basis?

This isnt a pro-animal testing thread... i'm just interested in peoples general thoughts and opinions.

Please try to keep this as an open discussion and avoidance of flames for people expressing thier opinions would be greatly appreciated.

I think the key word is "consent".
If someone chooses to take a risk, having weighed up the dangers, then that's his/her responsibiity. If you decide to go swimming in shark-infested waters and you know that there is a risk of being fatally attacked by a shark, then who has the authority to prevent you from doing it?
So, even though the affects of the drugs testings proved to be catastrophic (and I fully sympathise with the predicament the six men are now in) as long as those 6 people were informed of the possible side-effects and gave their consent to be "guinea-pigs", then that's their choice.

Testing on animals is different, because animals don't have a choice. They can't sign a "consent form".

I'm not saying that what has happened is right or wrong, but highlighting the way some people may look at it.

Personally this is one of those regrettable incidents that reinforce my existing views.

I am fully in favour of animal testing. I think it is a necessary evil. There should be strict controls and testing should be used a sparingly as possible, and that is where I think the real debate lies. What testing is necessary?

I think testing should be limited, as much as possible, to a "final check" before Human testing. Whatever is being tested should be the intended final product that is expected to be tested on humans.

From the information available this drug went through the animal testing without a problem. The extreme reaction would therefore reinforce the point that animal testing isn't a guarantee of safety for Humans, but I am sure there are many more cases where animal testing saves human lives by finding these reactions before human testing.

I respect all life (except spiders!), but I do put a little more concern over human life.

As horrific and awful as it is (Well, not for everyone I'm sure the MoD will no doubt enjoy researching the potential for their new accidently discovered biological weapon...) the fact is those people do the testing for a reason, and if they were willing to do it they have to accept the potential consequences. I know personally I'd never do it no matter how many times it's usually safe because I'm not a gambling person, particularly not with my life. After all, we've repeatedly heard on the news that these students do it because it's easy cash, fact is, there's no such thing as easy cash, the cash is good because there's a risk, these unfortunate souls were the ones who fell victim to the risk but again, I can't help but think it's entirely their own fault. Their greed got the better of them when they could've done a normal hard working job instead and they suffered the consequences. Again you have to bare in mind that the whole point of these trials is to make sure that the drugs they're testing are safe for human consumption. Basically when you cut out all the media blurb and sensationalism you get the headline:

"Drugs test volunteers find out that new drug doesn't work as intended"

Not really much of a story if you ask me.

More animal testing wouldn't have mattered, it seems very likely in this case we've managed to prove that animals are not the same as humans, shock horror, imagine that? I think the best thing to do is realise that humans aren't meant to be invulnerable to everything and hence occupy every single square foot of the planet.

I'm all for medical advancements and such but people have to begin to realise there are limits and there are definetely dangers. When you start playing with the body without fully understanding it things are bound to go wrong and when Mr Smith comes along complaining that the stem cell surgery to regrow missing skin on his forhead has in fact caused 7x 12 inch penises to grow on his head I'm sure I wont be the only one to say "I told you so".

theyve known for ages that rabbits mice etc are very dissimalar from humans.
Theyre just used now cuz theyve always been used and monkeys/dolphin have a better spokesperson

At the end of the day the peeps chose to take the drugs. They knew it was an experimental one and nasty things could happen to them.
It was their choice.
Rodents and other such testing animals dont get the choice.

I suppose on the plus side they've found a drug to cure the world of people stupid enough to do medical testing.

Xest wrote:Their greed got the better of them

Xest wrote:I suppose on the plus side they've found a drug to cure the world of people stupid enough to do medical testing.

I imagine motives for volunteering to help test drugs vary. Some may do it for the money, some because it may help their own medical condition, some because someone they care about may in future be helped by the drug, and some in the naive belief they should try and help others. Any one, or a combination of these and other motives could apply.

Oddly enough, I've just found out I have a very rare medical condition. People are researching this, but have a problem because its so rare they have few cases to study. So its possible I may be asked to help in the research. Doing so would not help me personally in any way. If I agreed then money would not be a factor, it would be because it might help others who get this condition as adults, and because it would help pure research into understanding the function of the human brain. Since I am not totally without self interest, I think I might be happy to do some things to help research, but I would draw the line at others that I would regard as potentially risky.

Kallima wrote:I imagine motives for volunteering to help test drugs vary. Some may do it for the money, some because it may help their own medical condition, some because someone they care about may in future be helped by the drug, and some in the naive belief they should try and help others. Any one, or a combination of these and other motives could apply.

Oddly enough, I've just found out I have a very rare medical condition. People are researching this, but have a problem because its so rare they have few cases to study. So its possible I may be asked to help in the research. Doing so would not help me personally in any way. If I agreed then money would not be a factor, it would be because it might help others who get this condition as adults, and because it would help pure research into understanding the function of the human brain. Since I am not totally without self interest, I think I might be happy to do some things to help research, but I would draw the line at others that I would regard as potentially risky.

Yeah that's a good point, I was pretty ignorant to those kind of situations in my original post - I was focussing entirely on the people in the case in question who were all students who'd previously told their friends about how good the money was and such. Likewise take the guy who cured himself of AIDs naturally, whilst if I was him I wouldn't start taking test pills and such I'd be more than happy to donate my blood for research and for other safe tests. Although again curing AIDs is something I'm not entirely sure about, I'd much rather see the AIDs situation resolved through education because it CAN be resolved that way. If we found a cure for AIDs/Malaria tommorrow and then vaccinated everyone in Africa for it we'd have an even bigger potential for mass-starvation and drought than we have now, as well as that, a starving person will do anything for food, hence mass starvation also opens up the potential for vastly more conflict in the region than we have even now.

Certainly if you're in a situation where you're extremely ill for example you may feel you have little to lose by handing your body to research but on a side note I also feel these people shouldn't be made out to be heroes either, particularly if you look at someone like Christopher Reeve who only became interested in things like stem cell research when it benefitted him. Whilst I understand his situation (I'd do the same) I don't think he should be made out to be the hero he was made out to be seeing as it was all purely self interest, after all, he didn't invest a penny into things like that before he himself became a victim of paralysis.

Well before launching into a discussion about the hows and whys, we best wait for the actual result of what caused the problem.

Personally I think it was more likely that human error has resulted in incorrect administration of dose, or a problem during the manufacturing process and/or purification process, perhaps resulting in the presence of different antibodies being present in the administered samples (i think its an antibody treatment).

We'll have to wait and see I guess.

Banana wrote:theyve known for ages that rabbits mice etc are very dissimalar from humans.

Mice strangely enough, are supposed to be very good models for testing in many cases.