More than eight hundred chemicals have been defined as teratogens
in laboratory animals, but only a few of these, approximately twenty,
have been shown to be teratogenic in humans.
- Trends in Pharmacological Science, vol.8, 1987, p.133
The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work,
it has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that.
- Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., 1986,
Head of the Licensing Board for the State of Illinois
It is often dangerous to assume that data from other species
are applicable to human beings.
- Dr H. Werner Goedde, Geneticist,
from Ethnic Differences in Reactions to Drugs and Xenobiotics,
ed. by W. Karlow, H. W. Goedde and D. P. Agarwal (Alan R. Liss, 1986), p.16
Animal studies can neither prove or guarantee the safety
of any drug. They are not a substitute for testing in humans.
- J. Jennings, Vice President,
Science and Technology of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association.
There is no comprehensive animal model for humankind. The truth is,
and always has been, that the first clinical use of new medication in
human patients provides the first reliable clues as to what can be
expected of it. Pre-marketing research on animals is a lottery;
post marketing surveillance comes too late for
the first human victims of drug side-effects.
- Dr Peter Mansfield,
from Animal Experiments in Medicine:
The Case Against, May 1990.
The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse.
We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply did not work in humans.
-
Dr. Richard Klausner (NIH Director), Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1998