6 ms·

The neverending mouse studies that rarely apply for humans. "Misleading mouse studies waste medical resources" https://www.nature.com/news/misleading-mouse-st

The neverending mouse studies that rarely apply for humans. "Misleading mouse studies waste medical resources" https://www.nature.com/news/misleading-mouse-studies-waste-medical-resources-1.14938 https://www.nature.com/news/misleading-mouse-studies-waste-m... "Why animal studies are often poor predictors of human reactions to exposure" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746847/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746847/ "Drugs That Work In Mice Often Fail When Tried In People" https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/10/522775456/drugs-that-work-in-mice-often-fail-when-tried-in-people https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/10/5227754... Not sure what the answer is to human medical testing and research since experimenting on humans is unethical. But mice shouldn't stand in for humans for human research since mice and humans are very different. I wonder how scientists in the future will look upon using mice for human medical research.

DanBC 7y ago
My current favourite twitter account is https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  Yes, that's a great way of staying on the cutting edge of basic science in mammals.
superpermutat0r 7y ago
It's absolutely idiotic. There's no scientific basis for testing these kinds of stuff on animals yet somehow it is still being done. Also a nice source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  Let's not get carried away. There is plenty of scientific basis for testing on other mammals. Hell, most of our knowledge of genetics comes from work done on fruit flies. Many key immune pathways like TLR (Toll-Like Receptors) would have come to our attention later if it wasn't for research in fruit flies. Obviously though, we have lots more in common with mice than with flies. Hence, it's worth it. The problem you're describing has more to do with journalists over-hyping scientific results than the utility of said results.
  - superpermutat0r 7y ago
    Nope. It's a problem where accuracy is ridiculous, recall and precision too. Big discoveries, never on non-human animal models.
    - pazimzadeh 7y ago
      Nope.
sslayer 7y ago
They will probably think it's crude and ineffective, but it's the best they had at the time, and at least they weren't testing on humans ( at least cruel and/or unnecessary unimportant testing. The real travesty here is sensationalized headline and mis-directed reporting as a relevant correlation for humans. - It's all about the click/eyes, with no real substance for the reader
AFascistWorld 7y ago
Food and health, a lot of totally contradicting studies.
vasco 7y ago
Loads of studies could be ethically performed with humans but it's more expensive to get test subjects. With mice you get a bunch of them and control what they do throughout their whole day without having to pay them anything.
mises 7y ago
As you said, not all studies can be done on humans, and some that could would be cost-prohibitive. My hope is that the ability to "print" organs will give us some increased ability, though we would not be able to see impacts on the entire body. Something that has positive effects on one's heart is no good if it also makes one's head explode. There's still the concern of ethics with individual organs, though. How much of a person can you get without it becoming one? Is the idea of a "soul" reality? Tough questions. For now, mouse studies are imperfect but necessary. Like it or not, they may allow research that is not feasible on humans in terms of safety or cost. We probably need to continue them, albeit taking them with a grain of salt. In mice is worth something, mostly getting the next set of research funded.
lpolzer 7y ago
Moreover, maybe mice shouldn't stand in for humans because it might just be as unethical to experiment on then as it would be experimenting on humans.
deytempo 7y ago
What if alien abduction is just the government conducting human experiments in a way that no one will believe and does not cause people to think they are violating ethics?
pazimzadeh 7y ago
The refrain of "but this was done in mice" is the most predictable and least useful feedback you can give someone about their scientific results. Instead of thinking of the problem, let's start thinking of solutions. For example, can we genetically humanize mice or other mammalian models to more closely resemble human? Presumably you are not suggesting experimenting on humans to answer basic science questions?
- deytempo 7y ago
  Is it ethical genetically humanize mice?
  - pazimzadeh 7y ago
    Why not? Is it ethical to breed dogs for a particular trait? At least in this case it's done to further knowledge. Pigs are already being genetically humanized in order to enable pig to human organ transplant: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287079/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287079/ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientists-grow-bullish-pig-human-transplants https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientists-grow-bull...

DanBC 7y ago

My current favourite twitter account is https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice

pazimzadeh 7y ago
Yes, that's a great way of staying on the cutting edge of basic science in mammals.

superpermutat0r 7y ago

It's absolutely idiotic. There's no scientific basis for testing these kinds of stuff on animals yet somehow it is still being done. Also a nice source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/

pazimzadeh 7y ago
Let's not get carried away. There is plenty of scientific basis for testing on other mammals. Hell, most of our knowledge of genetics comes from work done on fruit flies. Many key immune pathways like TLR (Toll-Like Receptors) would have come to our attention later if it wasn't for research in fruit flies. Obviously though, we have lots more in common with mice than with flies. Hence, it's worth it. The problem you're describing has more to do with journalists over-hyping scientific results than the utility of said results.
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  Nope. It's a problem where accuracy is ridiculous, recall and precision too. Big discoveries, never on non-human animal models.
  - pazimzadeh 7y ago
    Nope.

sslayer 7y ago

They will probably think it's crude and ineffective, but it's the best they had at the time, and at least they weren't testing on humans ( at least cruel and/or unnecessary unimportant testing. The real travesty here is sensationalized headline and mis-directed reporting as a relevant correlation for humans. - It's all about the click/eyes, with no real substance for the reader

AFascistWorld 7y ago

Food and health, a lot of totally contradicting studies.

vasco 7y ago

Loads of studies could be ethically performed with humans but it's more expensive to get test subjects. With mice you get a bunch of them and control what they do throughout their whole day without having to pay them anything.

mises 7y ago

As you said, not all studies can be done on humans, and some that could would be cost-prohibitive. My hope is that the ability to "print" organs will give us some increased ability, though we would not be able to see impacts on the entire body. Something that has positive effects on one's heart is no good if it also makes one's head explode. There's still the concern of ethics with individual organs, though. How much of a person can you get without it becoming one? Is the idea of a "soul" reality? Tough questions. For now, mouse studies are imperfect but necessary. Like it or not, they may allow research that is not feasible on humans in terms of safety or cost. We probably need to continue them, albeit taking them with a grain of salt. In mice is worth something, mostly getting the next set of research funded.

lpolzer 7y ago

Moreover, maybe mice shouldn't stand in for humans because it might just be as unethical to experiment on then as it would be experimenting on humans.

deytempo 7y ago

What if alien abduction is just the government conducting human experiments in a way that no one will believe and does not cause people to think they are violating ethics?

pazimzadeh 7y ago

The refrain of "but this was done in mice" is the most predictable and least useful feedback you can give someone about their scientific results. Instead of thinking of the problem, let's start thinking of solutions. For example, can we genetically humanize mice or other mammalian models to more closely resemble human? Presumably you are not suggesting experimenting on humans to answer basic science questions?

deytempo 7y ago
Is it ethical genetically humanize mice?
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  Why not? Is it ethical to breed dogs for a particular trait? At least in this case it's done to further knowledge. Pigs are already being genetically humanized in order to enable pig to human organ transplant: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287079/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287079/ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientists-grow-bullish-pig-human-transplants https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientists-grow-bull...