A major problem with animal experiments is that the results frequently do not apply to humans. For example, Irwin Bross, Ph.D., former director of biostatistics at the Roswell Institute for Cancer Research, testified before Congress in 1981 that "[w]hile conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered advances in the war on cancer, they have never produced a single substantial advance either in the prevention or treatment of human cancer." A 1980 editorial in Clinical Oncology asks why so much attention is devoted to the study of animal tumors when "it is ... hard to find a single common solid human neoplasm [cancer] where management and expectation of cure have been markedly influenced by the results of laboratory research." The writer D.F.N. Harrison explains …show more content…
A 1981 U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Report on the causes of cancer placed more weight on epidemiological data than on animal experiments because its authors argued that animal tests "cannot provide reliable risk assessments." According to a 1977 Nature article, of all the agents known to cause cancer in humans, the vast majority were first identified by observation of human populations. Neurological diseases are another major cause of death and disability in the United States. Again, animal experiments in this area have not correlated well with human disease. A 1990 editorial in the journal Stroke noted that of 25 compounds "proven" effective for treating strokes in animal models over the last 10 years, none have proven effective for use in humans. Stephen Kaufman, M.D., reviewed animal models of such degenerative neurological diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and concluded that "animal models designed to improve our understanding and treatment of these conditions have had little impact, and their future value is highly dubious." Dennis Maiman, M.D., Ph.D., of