5 ms·
FDA no longer needs to require animal tests before human drug trials
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago[dead]
- tracker1 4y agoI wonder how many more recalls will happen with the FDA process after this change. edit: and still probably better tested than the covid vax. /sarcasm
- mikewarot 4y agoAccording to Eric Weinstein, the breeding of lab animals specifically for use in testing drugs resulted in non-typical genetics, which invalidates most of the testing they were used in anyway. Wild mice have different genetics than those fed mouse chow for generations, and bred for economic production.
- _Wintermute 4y agoThat doesn't make much sense, you're not testing for efficacy in general mice populations. Both wild and lab-bred mice have different genetics to humans anyway.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoWho is Eric Weinstein?
- Our_Benefactors 4y agoA member of the USA intelligentsia.
- mikewarot 4y agoThe wrong brother... I should have said Bret Weinstein oops
- witheld 4y agoWell, just get an intern to put out traps and get some wild ones!
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> the breeding of lab animals specifically for use in testing drugs resulted in non-typical genetics, which invalidates most of the testing they were used in anyway I thought they were bred atypically so that they could serve as a uniform test environment? (Zero expertise in this field.)
- Vecr 4y agoYes, lab mice are inbred and you can get ones very similar in most places, to replicate studies, etc. Similar to standard cell cultures.
- refurb 4y agoThese are safety not efficacy studies. Unless inbreeding somehow made these lab animals immune from toxicity they are still good models.
- mikewarot 4y agoThe breeding DID increase their ability to repair damage to toxicity, at the cost of all getting cancer, but after the age at which they were bred to live to. If you take a wild mouse, and feed it, it'll live a long time, the lab mice will eventually get cancer everywhere, and die of cancer. (or so the claim goes)
- refurb 4y agoDo you have a source to show that inbreed mice have higher resistance to toxic drugs? I’d be interested to read it.
- mikewarot 4y agoI'm relaying what I understand to be the truth, which obviously could be wrong. The pieces seem to be out there, as near as I (a person who never studied biology) can tell Example: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10915818211009844 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10915818211009... Telomere Length and Arsenic: Improving Animal Models of Toxicity by Choosing Mice With Shorter Telomeres The abstract discusses telomere length and sensitivity to arsenic toxicity. If my understanding is wrong, I'd be interested in guidance to correct it. I'm interested in understanding how things really work, and Weinstein's explanations (before the Covid thing hit) made sense of otherwise paradoxical facts.
- refurb 4y ago“Animal models are wrong more often than they are right,” says Don Ingber, a Harvard University bioengineer whose lab developed organ chip technology now being commercialized by the company Emulate, where he sits on the board and owns stock. I’m shocked! Shocked this guy would be against animal testing and prefer people use his product.
- vibrio 4y agoit is conceptually possible that such a product could improve drug development?(eg, lower failure rates, lower costs, speed studies) Inventing something to solve a problem and pitching it isn't a sole reason to be suspected of foul play.
- burnished 4y agoAnd? This seems internally consistent and understandable.
- onetokeoverthe 4y ago[dead]
- LatteLazy 4y agoWe already have some major issues with drug efficacy (and maybe safety) in certain populations. This is because the vast majority of drugs are only tested on 20-something males, (usually white middle class ones, college attending, otherwise healthy ones). I wonder how that issue will be impacted by further reducing other forms of testing. And I wonder if this will make drug testing more difficult to recruit for (asking someone to try a new drug that has been tested in animals vs one that has not).
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago[dead]
- vibrio 4y agoI'm not sure how to interpret 'the vast majority of drugs' as it is a pretty broad brush including everything from over the counter itch creams to genetically engineered cell therapies. For the subset of "cancer therapy drugs" I would guess that demographic bias does not hold, as first in human is generally people who have had all available drugs fail them and are often considering toxic chemotherapy or palliation. recruiting there is generally easier. I hope that elimination of animal data doesn't decrease safety- there are flaws in animal models and use for sure.