Of Mice and Cancer 109
Maximum Prophet points out a series of articles in Slate about the role of mice and rats in the fight against cancer. The first article discusses the problem of using the same type of animal for many tests; the reactions may be consistent, but they can also be different from the reactions a human has to the same treatment. "The inbred, factory-farmed rodents in use today—raised by the millions in germ-free barrier rooms, overfed and understimulated and in some cases pumped through with antibiotics—may be placing unseen constraints on what we know and learn." The second article focuses on one particular type of mouse, bred specifically for consistency and for its suitability to labwork, which has come to dominate biological testing. The final piece examines what researchers are trying to learn from the naked mole rat, a species that doesn't seem to get cancer on its own, and is resistant to attempts to induce cancer. "Buffenstein and her students tried one of these shortcuts. They placed some mole rats in a gamma chamber and blasted their pale, pink bodies with ionizing rays. The animals were unimpressed."
Yeah, we knew that already. (Score:5, Informative)
I worked with mice and rats in oncology research. That this stuff isn't directly translatable to humans is something everyone knows. For someone to comment on that would be like someone saying "Whoa! This room is just FULL of air!" Uh, yeah. And?
They use mice and rats because testing things on people is unethical and testing things on animals a lot more like us (primates, pigs, etc) is either unethical or expensive.
In my experience it wasn't the case that the biological effects were wildly different. A substance that produced a particular effect in rats often would in humans (or other animals) too, but often at a different dose. The problem with mice/rats was their tolerance. You might find a drug that was effective in rats, but its toxic dose in humans is less than or too close to its therapeutic dose.
Much ado about nothing (Score:5, Informative)
", but they can also be different from the reactions a human has"
yeah, no shit. everyone knows that. Mice is just a testing step. It a great way to look at cell interactions, and responce.
"may be placing unseen constraints on what we know and learn."
no, they aren't. We know the constraints. If you find a way to test without those constraints, by all means let researchers know.
" a species that doesn't seem to get cancer on its own, "
can't wait to learn why, might help us all.
Look, having a mouse that gets a specific type of cancer at 3 months, 99.999% of the time(it's actually higher) is very valuable for research.
TO sume up,
Using mice isn't absolutely perfect for all case, and some species have interesting properties we can learn from.
""The inbred, factory-farmed rodents in use today—raised by the millions in germ-free barrier rooms, overfed and understimulated and in some cases pumped through with antibiotics—"
What a bunch of alarmist propaganda. I mean, if you don't have facts or knowledge on your side,. use alarmists word and FUD.
oh and this bit of crap:
""This is important for scientists," says Mattson, "but they don't think about it at all.""
What? every scientist I have ever talked to that does lab work is aware of this. Is this Matterson guy selling something? Clearly he is qualified, but every time I here a scientist talk about lab work with mice, this very subject comes up, and they always point out that just because it happens in mice doesn't mean we will see any affect on people.
And the graph. OMG look at how much more study on rats there is! ahhh!!
well, they are cheaper AND are a first step. So of course they are used. When there is no effect, no other animal is tests so of course it will show fewer of other type of animal is used later in the process.
OTOH, maybe only the scientist I listen to and talk to mention this, and none other do.
The man has the cred:
http://www.grc.nia.nih.gov/branches/irp/mmattson.htm [nih.gov]
But I am confused on his statements on mice as if no one knows about those issues.
I wonder how much the reported misrepresented what he said?