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Research methods involving animals has been a relatively small but important part of the research conducted in the past. This research into the development and treatment of diseases has been indispensable for obtaining the high standards of healthcare we have today. In parallel, refinement, reduction and replacement methods where developed and became more effective over the years. For more than a century, from the development of antibiotics and insulin to blood transfusions and treatments for cancer or HIV, virtually every medical achievement has depended directly or indirectly on research with animals. Ample proof of the success of animal research can be found in the vast body of Nobel Prize winning work in physiology and medicine. Although great advances have been made in computer modelling and cell cultures, animal research remains essential to medical progress: seven of the last ten Nobel Prizes in medicine have relied at least in part on animal research. Animal research has advanced the treatment of infections, helped with immunisation, improved cancer treatment and has had a major impact on managing heart disease, brain disorders, arthritis and transplantation. Research on rats, dogs and pigs has helped to find new treatments including bypass surgery and treatments for angina. Polio would still claim hundreds of lives every year without the animal research carried out by the Nobel laureate Albert Sabin. “There could have been no oral polio vaccine without the use of innumerable animals,” he once said. Animals are still needed to test every new batch of polio vaccine produced for today’s children. Work with rabbits changed the understanding of ectopic pregnancy in humans – the commonest cause of maternal death worldwide. These are just a few examples from a long list of case. |
