Removing the bias from the sources.

The purpose of this research paper was not to come out of the gate with an opinion.  I was not supposed to already have a side picked that I was going to support or attack.  This research paper was about finding the truth to the very important question, “Does animal experimentation in medical research have merit?”  When considering this question, I feel I must disclose what criteria I am using.  First, I have to determine if animal research has been associated with any significant advances in medicine.  Next, I have to determine if these claims are fact or myth.  Lastly, I have to determine if the animal research conducted actually provided useable knowledge toward the medical advance that it has been associated with.  As previously stated in the Andrew Knight article, just because animal research was conducted and a medical advance was found, does not mean that the animal research was of any research significance.  Some of those animal experiments resulted in dead ends but were reported nonetheless resulting in biased statics with respect to the success of animal research.  In short, I had to remove the bias in the sources I was researching which is much more difficult than it sounds.

Difficulty in establishing initial conditions for reseach

I have come across a paper titled: “TheValidity of Animal Experiments in Medical Research” in which the author Gill Langley points out another interesting limitation of animal experiments.  “There are other important discrepancies: the condition in otherwise healthy marmosets starts suddenly and improves variably over time, while in humans the onset of Parkinson’s disease is gradual, of unknown cause and there is no spontaneous recovery. The marmoset model is simplistic compared to the human condition, involving a more limited number and type of brain cells. And marmosets do not develop the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, the clumps of abnormal protein called Lewy bodies that develop in cells of the brain.”  Langley is citing the fact that not only are animals not suitable models for human medical research on account of their physiological and genetic differences from humans, but also because of the limitation associated with the scientific approach to the scientific method.  That limitation is the fact that when we are researching a human affliction about which we have limited knowledge, such as Parkinson’s disease, it is next to impossible to replicate completely and accurately in animals.  At this point in time, science still does not know what causes Parkinson’s disease, and so all researchers can do is cause an animal to have many of the same symptoms and hope it is the marmoset’s version of Parkinson’s.  At this point, it requires a leap of faith that scientists are actually treating marmoset Parkinson’s disease and not a simple infection, and in the field of science, faith alone is not good enough.

Challenges Faced by Animal Researchers

Today, I have decided to look a little deeper into the common flaws with the scientific method commonly used with animal research as identified by C.R. Hoojimans in his article, “Progress in Using Systematic Reviews of Animal Studies to Improve Translational Research”.  In his article, he identified five common problems that stand in the way of researchers translating animal testing results to human applications:

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           (1) Biological differences between species and strains

Genetic and species differences between animals and humans, but also within animal species, strains, and cell lines are often disregarded in the design of animal studies. Ignoring biological differences between species and strains results in flawed design and unreliable outcomes, incurs unnecessary costs, and uses more experimental animals than necessary.

·         (2) Poor methodological quality of animal experiments

In many animal experiments, important methodological issues, such as randomization and blinding, are neglected. In addition, the statistical methods used to analyze results are often flawed. These failures mean that basic research cannot be replicated and may cause an overestimation of the efficacy of interventions. Although clinical trials in humans also suffer from biases, preclinical animal studies appear to be associated with even greater risks.

·         (3) Differences in the design of experimental animal studies and clinical trials

Animal studies designed to decide whether or not to take an intervention forward to clinical trials, use study protocols that differ from clinical studies. For example, many of the animal studies investigating the effect of probiotics on pancreatitis administered probiotics before inducing pancreatitis, whereas in the clinical trial probiotics were given to patients already presenting with signs of pancreatitis.

·         (4) Insufficient reporting of details of animals, methods, and materials

Characteristics of the design of animal studies, such as the strain, gender, age and weight, and housing conditions of the animals used, are known to influence results. Failures in reporting these details skew the interpretation of study results and subsequent translation into clinical benefits.

·         (5) Publication bias

Not reporting experiments with negative or neutral results leads to an overestimation of the effect of an intervention. Publication bias plays a role in both clinical trials and animal studies, but is believed to be more problematic in animal studies. In experimental stroke studies, for example, an estimated 14% of animal studies are unreported.

Each of these challenges are very real concerns.  If most of what we know from animal research suffers from practices such as these, how can we consider them reliable?  I do not doubt that these challenges exist, but I believe most of them are avoidable.  Challenge 1 is obviously never going to go away as long as there is animal research.  Challenge 2 is just poor application of the scientific method and very avoidable.  Perhaps this challenge exits because of the considerable cost associated with using several animals all at once to establish things like control groups.  Challenge 3 addresses the fact that we are trying to replicate conditions experienced by humans and so it only makes sense that those same conditions must also be experienced by the animals as well.  However, it may be impossible to replicate real world human conditions for an animal.  Challenge 4 is one of the things I question immediately when some kind of new revealing study emerges because I think there are always more factors at play then just the single factor being focused on.  Challenge 5 is probably the most threatening in my opinion.  All the other challenges can be over overcome, but if the reporting of the results is done so with bias or prejudice, the results can be nullified or altered.

Sources in Review

When formulating my research topic, I had to avoid any bias or preconceived opinions which led me to believe that this was also the manner in which our research paper was to be written.  I was wrong.  Our research paper is really more of a thesis in which we have a point which we try to prove, which is not what our research proposal was supposed to reflect, hence my confusion.  I think it was for the best because I did my best to approach the research topic with as much objectivity as I possibly could and treat the subject, not as a point I was trying to prove, but as a mystery I was trying to solve.  This meant that for every source I studied in support, I had to study a source that was against.  For every point, a counter point.  Objectivity is usually not difficult given that my mind is always trying to understand both sides of a topic because I believe that only when you can see a subject from all angles can you really say you understand it.  In the end, after all the sources have been studied, I must draw a conclusion based on what I have found and decide on which side of the fence I will stand.  My topic is the validity of animal research.  My conclusion.......will be revealed on the final paper next week.    :::cue the dramatic music:::

Computer modeling still requires animal research

While searching for evidence of the necessity of animal research in the medical field, I came across a video at Brainfacts.org, called “Research Questions and Technique”.  This video addresses some of the alternatives to animal research.  In the video, researchers Michael E. Goldberg MD and Sharon L. Juliano PhD are interviewed regarding the various possible approaches to conducting medical research.  Both Dr. Goldberg and Dr. Juliano acknowledge that medical research data can be obtained using computer modeling, but it is not as simple as turning on the computer and clicking the “run simulation” button.  Dr. Goldberg put it this way, “Computer modeling requires data.  In order to understand our data, we often have to get help from computational neuroscientists, but they can’t do anything without us.  You can’t model data if you don’t know what the data is.  And so biologist, who work in wet labs, who work with organisms, who work with cells, who work with behaving animals, provide the data so that computational neuroscientists can help us understand.”  What he means by this is that computer modeling is built by people who rely on data obtained by people who conduct the hands on research, which includes animal research.  In a nut shell, computer modeling depends on animal research.  Dr. Juliano put it this way, “Data (computer) modeling is a very important tool that we can use in conducting research, but data modeling has a limited set of inputs and outputs, and when we do data modeling, we always have to bring it back to the real organism, to the real cell, or the real animal in order to understand if that (computer modeling result) is something that has worked.”  What she was saying is that computer modeling, although a legitimate research tool, is still very limited in its complexity.  The results from those models still must be verified in the real thing.  Dr. Juliano also added that while conducting a set of experiments on a cell culture, it yielded very different results than when they conducted the same experiments on the same cells on an intact animal. “So you needed the whole animal in order to have the proper response…..I think it’s very important to understanding how we do research and why using a whole entire animal is important.”  Cell cultures just do not produce the same results as when the whole animal is used and so the information obtained from cell cultures is limited by comparison.

Flaws in the reporting of animal testing success.

I have come across a source that calls into question the validity of animal testing for the purpose of human utility.  “Human utility” refers to how usable specific information is in the field of human medicine.  It was originally featured in the “Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation” newsletter and is written by Andrew Knight, titled “Systematic reviews of animal experiments demonstrate poor human utility”.  In this article, Knight asserts that systematic review of animal related research is necessary to determine the relevance of the acquired data due the possibility that past reviews of this kind may have been biased in favor of animal research. Simply put, the effectiveness of animal research itself needs to be researched.   He also asserts that the number of such case studies conducted in the past are limited and also may have been biased.  Research on this very topic that has already been conducted typically only took into account a very small number of cases, where the basis of selection for inclusion for such studies may have also been biased.  By conducting systematic studies, Knight believes this will reveal the truth about the effectiveness of animal testing by eliminating the bias.  In his own words, “Experiments included in such reviews are selected without bias, via randomization or similarly methodical and impartial means.”  Knight hopes to determine the rate at which animal testing actually provides usable results, not just cite specific tests that have.

An advantage of animal testing and one of its counterpoints.

So I think I will revise my research topic even further as I believe that my research topic is more of a statement that I’m trying to prove and at this point, I’m not supposed to prove anything, but define a question and committing myself to finding the answer.  By making a statement and setting out to prove it, I compromise my objectivity.  

At any rate, I have found an interesting book called “Novel Systems For The Study Of Human Disease: From Basic Research To Application” while searching through the UB Library database.  Although I haven’t had time to examine all the chapters yet, chapter pages forty-nine through sixty-nine give detailed descriptions of how lab rats are manipulated on the genetic level to create a genetically homogenous test subject population.  The book also explains within these pages how working with a genetically homogenous population allows researchers to isolate specific genes.  The reason researchers would want to isolate genes is to determine if health problems such as cancer or obesity are genetic or environmental.  If these health problems can be determine to be genetic, researchers can experiment with gene modification to either introduce new genes that combat the harmful ones, or eliminate the harmful ones altogether.   A counterpoint to this methodology as pointed out by the article by Ian Roberts, is that this will not directly produce some kind of gene therapy for humans since animal test subjects and humans are biologically different on almost every level, however, it provides us with a scientific model with which finding some kind of gene modifier that IS compatible with humans DNA.