News Archive
It Can be Done! Company Introduces Testing Moratorium
(March 1999)
Many people say to us when we are doing our information stalls
around the country "do you think anything will ever get done?"
Well, we have news of a major proponent of animal testing methods who
has declared an immediate moratorium on such tests for its 'personal care'
products.
The company in question is Colgate-Palmolive. The moratorium covers a
wide range of products designed for adults: including deodorants, shampoos,
shaving cream and men's and women's fragrances. In a statement, Colgate
said that 98% of all internal requests for product-safety approval are
currently met using available data and non-animal alternatives. Continued
consultation with industry and scientific groups led to additional opportunities
to reduce animal testing.
A spokesperson said:
"We feel that our moratorium on animal testing of adult personal
care products is a positive step forward, consistent with our overriding
responsibility to consumer and employee safety."
Uncaged Campaigns welcomes the announcement. Campaigns Coordinator Max
Newton said:
"We await further clarification, but this appears to be good
news for countless animals that are tortured and killed in cruel experiments.
We are pleased that at long last Colgate have woken up to the fact that
such tests are not necessary, indeed there are many companies that make
like-for-like products that have not been tested on animals and which
are perfectly safe for human use."
This announcement increases the pressure on Procter & Gamble, who
insist that animal tests are necessary for cosmetic and 'personal care'
products. Now, one of their pro-vivisection cohorts in this industry have
performed the volte-face that all right-minded individuals around the
world are demanding of these corporate giants.
Max Newton, Uncaged Campaigns 31.03.99
Red Herrings and Sick Rats
Perhaps the major news story of the past three months was sparked
by an endorsement of a vivisection experiment conducted at the Rowett
Institute in Aberdeen by Dr Arpad Pusztai. Dr Pusztai force-fed rats with
genetically-modified potatoes, and concluded that the altered potatoes
were toxic to rats.
The issue had first broken into the public domain in August of last year.
Immediately following publicity about the experiments and Dr Pusztai's
appearance on World In Action to explain that his research suggested that
the genetic modification of food is dangerous, the academic was sacked
by his employers and accused of being "confused", his professional
credibility in tatters.
The issue exploded once more when twenty scientists from across the world
spoke up for Dr Pusztai in a letter of support. Claim and counterclaim
then appeared in the pages of the national media: were the experiments
designed and reported properly? Did they really demonstrate that the genetically
modified potatoes damaged the immune systems of rats?
If one is both opposed to vivisection and deeply suspicious of the genetic
meddling of transnational biotechnology companies, the controversy was
strange. Some environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth, seized
on the results of the experiments to back up their claims that genetic
modification of food is unsafe.
However, despite their superficial usefulness to opponents of GM foods,
rat experiments should be criticised on at least two grounds.
Firstly, as many proponents of genetic manipulation pointed out, whatever
the truth about the effects upon rats of being force-fed raw mutant potatoes,
experiments on rats cannot be extrapolated to humans. Many of the commentators
who made this point are the same people who tell the public that animal
experimentation is vital to scientific progress! This shows us that the
confusing and unreliable nature of vivisection means that different lobby
groups can seize upon some set of results to back up their claims.
However, amid the confusion one thing is certain: several sentient, sensitive
creatures were subjected to painful tests - resulting in damage to their
internal organs, including their brains.
While we are only too familiar with profit-crazed biotechnology companies
using results from animal tests to justify the marketing of new products,
it is another thing for supposed "environmental" groups to base
calls for bans on GM food on violent and unreliable "science".
GM foods are completely unnecessary and pose dangerous risks to the environment
as a result of the cross-pollination of GM plants with weeds etc. Their
consumption may even pose a direct threat to human health - although animal
experiments will not cast any light on this risk. These are reasons enough
to oppose GM foods.
Dan Lyons, Uncaged Campaigns 22.03.99
Prospects for Progress...
The Government-appointed committee responsible for advising the
Home Office about animal experiments has set out an agenda for its work
into the next millenium.
The Animal Procedures Committee (APC) made the announcement on December
9 1998, five days before Barry Horne called off his hunger strike.
In the announcement, the new chairperson of the APC, Reverend Professor
Michael Banner (FD Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology, King's
College, London) stated: "In particular, the Committee will be taking
a long, hard look at the issues of household product testing on animals,
scientific testing on primates and the benefit of allowing animal tests
for so-called 'me-too' drugs."
However, many of the areas identified as needing particular attention,
such as "developing a strategy for research on alternatives",
should be routine aspects of the operation of the Animals (Scientific
Procedures) Act 1986. Upon closer analysis, the programme of work outlined
by the APC confirms the charge that has been persistently made by anti-vivisection
pressure groups: that the Act, which is fatally flawed in any case, is
not enforced. It is therefore untrue for the APC to claim that "the
use of animals in scientific procedures is strictly controlled."
It is also worth bearing in mind that the APC is only an advisory body
- it cannot make decisions. The real location of the decision-making process
regarding animal experiments is made by a group of Home Office civil servants,
including the mysterious Home Office Inspectorate. This is the same Inspectorate
that didn't even bother to look at the beagle dogs being abuse at Huntingdon
Life Sciences; the same Inspectorate that licensed the mutilation of beagles
for Viagra; and the same Inspectorate that believed that the "benefits"
of torturing 1300 animals in cosmetic tests were worth the suffering they
endured.
To compound the suspicion that the infrastructure of the Government decision-making
process on animal experiments is completely biased in favour of animal
experimentation, the attitude of Home Office civil servants to opponents
of vivisection is dismissive, patronising and downright rude. Many of
the letters emitted by the Home Office in response to critical enquiries
from the public could have been penned by the pro-vivisection propaganda
group, the Research Defence Society (RDS).
The agenda for work outlined by the APC could even run into opposition
within the Home Office. A new animal rights magazine, Biteback, reports
on a memo circulated by the Director of the RDS, Dr Mark Matfield. Matfield
identifies and criticises a growing emphasis on animal welfare within
the Home Office, fearing that it might place too much restriction on research.
If the vivisectors are complaining about the current situation, how unwilling
will they be to accept any improvements in the future?
While the Government continues to represent the narrow interests of the
animal research lobby, its attitude towards the issue of vivisection will
continue to be hopelessly one-sided and distorted, and any progressive
moves will be unlikely to come to fruition.
Dan Lyons, Uncaged Campaigns 22.03.99
UKXIRA Open Meeting Report
Monday 7th December 1998
UKXIRA (United Kingdom Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority)
was created in March 1997 following the publication of the report, Animal
Tissue into Humans, two months earlier. Its terms of reference are as
follows:
To advise the Secretaries of State of the UK Health Departments on the
action necessary to regulate xenotransplantation, taking into account
the principles outlined in Animal Tissue into Humans, and worldwide developments
in xenotransplantation. In particular to advise:
a. on safety, efficacy and considerations of animal welfare and any
other pre-conditions for xenotransplantation for human use, and whether
these have been met.
b. on research required to assess safety and efficacy factors in xenotransplantation
procedures;
c. on the acceptability of specific applications to proceed with xenotransplantation
in humans; and
d. to provide a focal point on xenotransplantation issues within government.
UKXIRA held its first open meeting on Monday 7th December 1998 at the
Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, to launch its first
Annual Report and provide an opportunity for interested parties to discuss
issues with the panel of UKXIRA members. Alistair Currie and Dan Lyons
from Uncaged Campaigns were amongst an invited audience that included
scientists, representatives from xenotransplantation company Imutran /
Novartis and other animal welfare and animal rights campaigners such as
Joyce D' Silva (Compassion in World Farming) and Dr Gill Langley.
Presentations were given by various UKXIRA members through the afternoon,
and the main issues to surface from the meeting are summarised here:
Impossible to measure risk
Professor Sheila McLean, Professor of Law and Ethics in Medicine, Glasgow
University gave an articulate and well-organised presentation explaining
the criteria by which applications for clinical trials will be assessed.
Although those criteria included an assessment of the safety/risk of the
procedure to both the patient and the wider population, Professor McLean
admitted that there is currently "insufficient information to undertake
microbiological risk assessment." In other words, there is no way
of accurately assessing the risk of a new viral disease emerging via xenotransplantation
procedures: this is the major issue worrying scientists and regulatory
bodies across the world.
Professor McLean revealed that each application to undertake a clinical
trial will be scrutinised by several "independent" assessors,
selected by UKXIRA for their expertise in relevant areas. However, upon
further questioning, Professor McLean confirmed that none of the "independent"
assessors had expertise or a particular interest in safeguarding animal
welfare, despite the requirement to consider issues of animal welfare
when regulating xenotransplantation contained in the terms of reference
of UKXIRA. Already, we sensed that the minimal commitment to consider
animal welfare was more rhetorical that real.
Viral transfer issues remain unanswered
Next on the podium was Professor Herb Sewell, Professor of Immunology
at Nottingham University. Professor Sewell reported to the meeting the
findings of the Workshop on Retroviruses convened by UKXIRA in August.
Professor Sewell outlined the evidence obtained from in vitro tests which
established that two known pig retroviruses (PERVs) do indeed infect human
cells in culture, albeit relatively slowly. Another PERV, closely related
to viruses that cause certain cancers in human beings, may infect human
cells. As yet, there is no evidence to confirm that these viruses can
either cause disease in humans, or be transmitted from human-to-human.
Pig-to-monkey experiments cannot provide any answers to these burning
questions because, unlike humans, the monkeys subjected to these experiments
do not have the kind of receptors on their cells that allow these viruses
to infect and replicate.
Studies of previous recipients of pig tissue are currently being undertaken.
However, once more these procedures do not offer any kind of reliable
guidance as to the safety of whole organ xenotransplantation because they
have involved:
- relatively small numbers of cells
- very short term ex vivo perfusion of patients blood with pig organs
- non-genetically-modified pig tissue
- most patients have not been immunosuppressed
- the overall number of patients being studied is small in statistical
terms - approximately 160.
These factors make the transfer of pig viruses into these patients far
less likely to occur than in the case of full-scale xenotransplantation,
especially should the procedure become an established procedure with many
xenografts taking place.
The first three events in a sequence of seven, which would result in
a new virus transferring from pigs to humans, have been fulfilled. Professor
Sewell announced that there are "no clear answers on the safety of
pigs as tissue donor sources," and said that decisions on whether
the risk of viral xenozoonosis were low enough to permit the commencement
of human trials should be taken by "industry, clinicians, scientists
and the public." One of those decisions could be to "abandon
xenotransplantation."
Surveillance cannot be guaranteed
After a short break, Professor George Griffin, Professor of Infectious
Disease at St George's Hospital discussed the work of the newly-formed
Surveillance Working Group. Professor Griffin outlined various measures
designed to monitor patients for the emergence of a new viral disease.
Professor Griffin admitted that the kind of intensive, life-long surveillance
regimes required to monitor recipients of pig tissue that offer the best
hope of containing any pig virus are, it appears, not strictly enforceable:
the legislation to ensure compliance with these strict regimes simply
does not exist at present, apparently. This seems to reveal a gaping hole
in UKXIRA and the Government's plans to regulate xenotransplantation and
protect public health.
Open discussion
The meeting ended with an open discussion of the Authority's work and
xenotransplantation. The discussion was dominated by questions regarding
the animal welfare remit of UKXIRA. It was this discussion which reinforced
the impression that animal welfare was not taken seriously by UKXIRA.
Joyce D'Silva asked the panel a direct question regarding the relevant
difference between pigs and primates which justified the exploitation
of pigs, but not primates, for source tissue, as outlined in Animal Tissue
into Humans. The members of the Authority had great difficulty addressing
this issue. Professor Griffin even went so far as to deny that Animal
Tissue into Humans had ruled out the use of primates on ethical grounds.
This is quite disturbing as UKXIRA is supposed to base its considerations
on that report, which concluded:
" ... it would be ethically unacceptable to use primates as
source animals for xenotransplantation, not least because they would
be exposed to too much suffering." [para.
7 and 4.28].
Professor Griffin also revealed a rather cavalier attitude to the whole
question of animal welfare and primate use. Another member of the Authority,
Mr John Dark, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the Freeman Hospital,
Newcastle appeared openly hostile to the animal welfare viewpoint.
Another area of concern surrounds the issue of how the public were integrated
into the consultation process. When addressing this question, the Chair
of UKXIRA, Lord Habgood of Calverton, expressed scepticism as to whether
the House of Commons was a fit body to be discussing such complicated
matters. Though, to be fair to Lord Habgood, his comment was made rather
tongue-in-cheek, the issue of democratic scrutiny is a very important
one, and once again UKXIRA seem to be paying lip service to the notion
of public involvement, without seriously incorporating it into their deliberations.
The overall impression of UKXIRA that I and others received is of a body
which although it is working within a framework that could allow for a
relatively fair and balanced consideration of xenotransplantation issues,
is composed of members of rather mixed ability and attitudes, and is failing
to meet some of the complex demands required of it, particular in the
area of animal welfare. Too little attention is being paid to the precautionary
principle, and far too much faith is being placed in the ability of science
and technology to assess and control risks which are not understood and
are literally beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. The inevitable
presence of unknown viruses was not mentioned once during the meeting.
Given the immense repercussions of xenotransplantation, any shortcomings
in UKXIRA are a cause for great concern.
Uncaged Campaigns 22.03.99 |
