2004 - Fondazione Hans Ruesch

Una campagna pubblicitaria all'inizio di
aprile del 2012
25 settembre 2013
26 settembre 2013
milano.corriere.it, 30 novembre 2013
«According to the European Commission, little
safety information exists for 99 percent of the
tens of thousands of chemicals placed on the
market before 1981.[4] There were 100,106
chemicals in use in the EU in 1981, when the last
survey was performed. Of these only 3,000 have
been tested and over 800 are known to be
carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to
reproduction. These are listed in the Annex 1 of
the Dangerous Substances Directive (now Annex VI
of the CLP Regulation)».
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_R
estriction_of_Chemicals
Editorial, NATURE|Vol 438|10 November 2005
«Scientists at the European Centre for the Validation
of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) in northern Italy —
which was set up by the European Commission to
develop alternatives to animal testing — argue that
animal tests are badly flawed. They say the new drive
for alternative methods will improve the science of toxicity
testing. And public safety demands that the new tests are
shown to be better predictors of toxicity than the existing
methods.»
«Perhaps the most difficult point in the action plan
concerns its call for the release of more information on
the performance of animal tests: how robust,
reproducible and relevant are they? The data so far
give grounds for concern. Yet industry has been
resistant to this.
If the gold standard of animal tests against which
new tests are to be compared turns out to be made of
tin, the political fallout would be considerable. Public
trust in the ability of regulatory authorities and
industry to address safety issues would be damaged.
But in the interests of a thorough, economically viable
and scientifically valid product-safety testing regime,
information about the methods used in the past needs to
be shared, and fairly investigated.»
143,000
chemicals preregistered
by December 1, 2008
those to be tested
reduced to 30,000
those to be be tested
further reduced to 5,500
(less than 4%)
T. Hartung, Nature, vol. 460 (2009), pp. 208-12
...for a cost estimated as
8.8 billion eu
1.6 million eu for each chemical,
each test requiring 3,200 animals
Convenzione terminologica
Con il termine “vivisezione” si intende
storicamente, e tuttora, la
sperimentazione invasiva su animali vivi
(anche senza “sezione”).
1882
Lawson Tait [1845-1899]
The Uselessness of
Vivisection upon Animals
as a method of scientific
research
1975 – Princeton University Press
1990 – Routledge
2004 – Routledge (3 voll., 1144 pp.)
La vivisezione è da due secoli
contestata
al tempo stesso come
1) una pratica
crudele
e
2) una metodica
inaffidabile.
1975
“Maternal deprivation experiments”,
NIH, Poolesville, Maryland (negli ultimi
trent'anni)
«Animal testing horror: Scientists cut open kittens' skulls and
stuck electrodes in their BRAINS» Jun 02, 2014 13:17
University College London
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (7 anni di
investigazione sotto copertura) - 2014
Covance Laboratory, Münster, Germany (2003)
and Vienna, Virginia (2005)
I National Institutes of Health statunitensi danno
alla vivisezione ogni anno
quasi la metà della loro dotazione:
$ 15 miliardi
L'anno scorso (2013) hanno tagliato di 4 milioni di
dollari il finanziamento di uno dei più importanti
studi epidemiologici, il Framinghan Heart Study, in
corso da 65 anni:
$ 9 milioni → $ 5 milioni
Hanno invece mantenuto il finanziamento (per
circa 12,7 milioni) sul
comportamento sessuale di roditori
dopo lesioni, mutilazioni e avvelenamenti
Esempio
The most important aspect of the Amsterdam
Treaty (1997-1999), in terms of animal welfare,
was the inclusion of a Protocol on animal welfare.
«Desiring to ensure improved protection and
respect for the welfare of animals as sentient
beings, [...]»
Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European
Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union [...]
Official Journal C 326 , 26/10/2012 P. 0001 - 0390
«Article 13
In formulating and implementing the Union's
agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market,
research and technological development and
space policies, the Union and the Member
States shall, since animals are sentient
beings, pay full regard to the welfare
requirements of animals, while respecting the
legislative or administrative provisions and
customs of the Member States relating in
particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and
regional heritage.»
«on the protection of animals
used for scientific purposes»
La precedente direttiva
DIRETTIVA DEL CONSIGLIO
del 24 novembre 1986 concernente il
ravvicinamento delle disposizioni legislative,
regolamentari e amministrative degli Stati
membri relative alla protezione degli animali
utilizzati a fini sperimentali o ad altri fini
scientifici (86/609/CEE)
Chi si deve occupare della questione?
«There remains, therefore, the fourth avenue,
which simply amounts to the inquiry, Has this
method of scientific research – vivisection –
contributed so much to the relief of suffering
or to the advance of human knowledge as to
justify its continuance in spite of the manifest
objections to it? My own answer I shall try to
give in the following pages, merely premising that
an answer to justify vivisection must be clear and
decisive, must be free from doubt of any kind,
and above all, it must not assume the
protection of a "privileged mystery".»
A chi spetta pronunciarsi sulla questione
«This is a question, I maintain, which can be
discussed by an educated layman just as well,
perhaps better, than by a physician or a surgeon
or a professional physiologist. It is a question
chiefly of historical criticism, and we must have
a conclusive answer concerning each advance
which is quoted as an instance, how much of it
has been due to vivisectional experiments and
how much to other sources, and this amount
must be clearly and accurately ascertained.»
Una questione che non si decide a
maggioranza
«I am quite well aware that I am one of a small
minority of my profession in my view that
vivisection is useless as a method of
research, but the answer I am disposed to offer
on this point is, that not one in a hundred of my
professional brethren have ever seriously
examined the question. Ninety-nine take for
granted the statements of the hundredth, and
he, in turn, has not gone into the matter upon
that side from which alone a safe can be
given – that of historical criticism.»
1a edizione, 1903
Edward Berdoe, 1908
Ludwig Fliegel, 1930
George Searle, FRS,
A Survey of the Case Against Vivisection [1936]
Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
Feynman si dimise da una delle più
prestigiose istituzioni statunitensi,
la National Academy of Sciences,
poco dopo la sua elezione nel 1954,
per indignazione verso esperimenti
sugli animali (annegamento di ratti)
che gli sembravano al tempo stesso
«a most cruel, stupid, and
unnecessary thing».
Hans Ruesch, 1976/1978
Hans Ruesch, 1986
Pietro Croce, 1981
2000- Zed Press (Londra e New York)
«Although Croce doesn't mince his words, this is a balanced
and thoroughly researched book. It also has a long history. It
was first published in Italian in 1981 and was translated into
English in 1991. This is an updated edition of what is generally
regarded as "the Bible of antivivisection."
If you want to read a book that challenges everything you think
you know about science and research, then this is the one for
you. It certainly changed my view.»
Il primo numero del British Medical Journal
3 ottobre 1840
BMJ, 2004 September 25; 329(7468): 0.
“Is it better to be smart or stupid?”
Kamran Abbasi, acting editor
«BMJ's usual policy is to diligently divert animal
research to other journals» [“la regola abituale
del British Medical Journal è dirottare
diligentemente la ricerca che coinvolge animali
su altre riviste”] (dall’editoriale Abbasi 2004).
L'eccezione cui l'editoriale
seguente articolo:
allude
è
il
Francis Collins è il genetista statunitense che ha
guidato il team di ricercatori che ha decifrato il
genoma umano e attualmente è il direttore dei
NIH.
Francis S. Collins: “Reengineering Translational
Science: The Time Is Right”
Sci. Transl. Med. 6 July 2011:
Vol. 3, Issue 90, p. 90cm17
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/3/90/90cm17.full
<<Efficacy
testing. The use of animal models for
therapeutic development and target validation is
time consuming, costly, and may not
accurately predict efficacy in humans (28,
29). As a result, many clinical compounds are
carried forward only to fail in phase II or III trials;
many others are probably abandoned
because of the shortcomings of the model.
[→]
[→] Building on a potentially extensive network of
collaborations with academic centers and advocacy
groups, NCATS [= National Center for Advancing
Translational Sciences] will aim to develop more
reliable efficacy models that are based on access to
biobanks of human tissues, use of human embryonic
stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell models of
disease, and improved validation of assays. With
earlier and more rigorous target validation in
human tissues, it may be justifiable to skip
the animal model assessment of efficacy
altogether.>>
4 giugno 2013
<<“We have moved away from studying
human disease in humans,” he lamented. “We
all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me
included.” [→]
[→] With the ability to knock in or knock out any
gene in a mouse—which “can’t sue us,”
Zerhouni quipped—researchers have over-relied
on animal data. “The problem is that it hasn’t
worked, and it’s time we stopped dancing
around the problem…We need to refocus and
adapt new methodologies for use in humans to
understand disease biology in humans.”>>
Altro parere autorevole (2013)
Hartung T. 2013: “Look Back in Anger – What Clinical Studies Tell
Us About Preclinical Work”, Altex, 30, pp. 275-91.
«If animals were fortune tellers of drug
efficacy, they would not make a lot of
money...»
«Se gli animali facessero gli indovini
dell'efficacia dei farmaci, non farebbero un
sacco di soldi...»
2004
La conclusione dell'articolo citato:
«Ideally, new animal studies should
not be conducted until the best use
has been made of existing animal
studies and until their validity and
generalisability to clinical medicine
has been assessed».
«Idealmente nuovi studi su animali non
dovrebbero essere intrapresi finché non
si sia fatto il miglior uso degli studi su
animali già esistenti, e finché la loro
validità e generalizzabilità alla medicina
clinica non sia stata valutata»
«Much clinical research follows on from animal
research. If the foundations of the biomedical
research enterprise are unsound, then
whatever is built on these foundations will be
similarly precarious».
Statistiche
7th Report on the Statistics on the Number of Animals used for
Experimental and other Scientific Purposes in the Member States of the
European Union (2013)
«In the EU, the total number of animals used for
experimental and other scientific purposes from the data
collected in 2011 in accordance with the provision of the
Directive for this report is just under 11,5 million (with
data from France from 2010).»
Proscimmie, Scimmie e Scimmie antropomorfe
0,05% di 11.500.000 = 5750
G. Searle, Il problema della vivisezione, 1936
«Come abbiamo già detto, gli esperimenti sugli
animali daranno sempre risultati sufficienti nel
senso materiale, cioè per compilare una
relazione, ed è questa una delle ragioni che dà
maggior popolarità al laboratorio e, nel contempo,
una loro posizione di superiorità assoluta sullo
studio clinico. Ma la soluzione di un determinato
problema è molto diversa e nulla dimostra, in
modo più perfetto, la futilità degli esperimenti sugli
animali quanto la storia delle ricerche per lo studio
del cancro.»
«In comparison to 2008, increases in the use of animals
have also been observed for dogs, totalling above 1 000;
for other carnivores about 500; for other mammals a little
above 300 and for other birds above 2 500.
On the other hand the number of rats used for studies on
diseases has decreased by more than 250 000 animals.»
«UK
According to the latest Home Office figures,
more than 4 million animals were used in
experiments in the UK in 2012, representing
a 9% increase since 2011. This is equivalent
to beginning over 11,000 experiments every
day and represents the highest number of
animal experiments (since the
introduction of the Animals (Scientific
Procedures) Act in 1986) in Great Britain.
This is the third annual increase in the
number of animal experiments since the
Government’s commitment to reduce them.»
http://www.buav.org/humane-science/statistics/
In Italia
Premi Nobel
2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (two of the
three winners): «"for their discoveries of cells that
constitute a positioning system in the brain"»
9 OCTOBER 2014 | VOL 514 | NATURE | 155
«But the pair wouldn’t leave his office [i.e.
electrophysiologist Per Andersen's office at the
University of Oslo] until he gave in and offered them
an apparently simple project: how much of the
hippocampus could you cut away before a rat
could no longer remember new environments?»
9 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4 | VO L 5 1 4 | N AT U R E | 1 5 3
«Both place and grid cells have practical relevance. The early stages
of Alzheimer’s disease affect the entorhinal cortex, and one of the first
symptoms is losing one’s way. The disease goes on to devastate the
hippocampus, stripping sufferers of their memories. “
“It is a good example of how very basic research can help us
gain the deeper understanding we need in such devastating
diseases to move towards therapies,” says Richard Morris, a
memory researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK.»
Key publications:
O'Keefe, J., and Dostrovsky, J. (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary
evidence from unit activity in the freely‐moving rat. Brain Research 34, 171-175.
O´Keefe, J. (1976). Place units in the hippocampus of the freely moving rat. Experimental
Neurology 51, 78-109.
Fyhn, M., Molden, S., Witter, M.P., Moser, E.I., Moser, M.B. (2004) Spatial representation
in the entorhinal cortex. Science 305, 1258-1264.
Hafting, T., Fyhn, M., Molden, S., Moser, M.B., and Moser, E.I. (2005). Microstructure of
spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature 436, 801-806.
Sargolini, F., Fyhn, M., Hafting, T., McNaughton, B.L., Witter, M.P., Moser, M.B., and
Moser, E.I. (2006). Conjunctive representation of position, direction, and velocity in the
entorhinal cortex. Science 312, 758-762.
«"greatest benefit on mankind"» ??
Ricerca di base?
*
Basic Research?
Ricerca di base?
Contoupolos-Ioannidis D.G., Ntzani E., Ioannidis J. P. 2003:
“Translation of highly promising basic science research into clinical
applications”, Am. J. Med., 114, pp. 477-84.
Sono stati analizzati circa 25.000 articoli di ricerca di
base pubblicati durante un quinquennio (1979-1983) in
un gruppo di 6 riviste biomediche (Nature, Cell, Science,
Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Clinical
Investigation, Journal Experimental Medicine), e si è
andato a verificare nei 20 anni successivi quanti di essi
avessero portato a progressi in campo clinico
Crowley WF jr: “Translation of basic research into useful treatments: how
often does it occur?”, Am. J. Med., 114(2003), pp. 503-5
«The article by Contopoulos-Ioannidis et al.
(Contopoulos-Ioannidis, Ntzani, and Ioannidis 2003) in
this issue of the journal addresses a much-discussed but
rarely quantified issue: the frequency with which basic
research findings translate into clinical utility. […] Of the
25,000 articles searched, about 500 (2%) contained some
potential claim to future applicability in humans, about
100 (0.4%) resulted in a clinical trial, and, according to
the authors, only 1 (0.004%) led to the development of
a clinically useful class of drugs (angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors) in the 30 [sic: 20] years
following their publication of the basic science finding.
[…] [→]
[→] Still, regardless of the study's limitations, and even if
the authors were to underestimate the frequency of
successful translation into clinical use by 10-fold, their
findings strongly suggest that, as most observers
suspected, the transfer rate of basic research into clinical
use is very low».
Un altro studio autorevole (2012)
Ioannidis J. P. A. 2012: “Extrapolating from Animals to Humans”,
Science Translational Medicine, vol. 4, n. 151.
«...it is nearly impossible to rely on most
animal data to predict whether or not an
intervention will have a favorable clinical
benefit–risk ratio in human subjects»
«è quasi impossibile fare affidamento sulla
maggior parte dei dati ottenuti su animali per
predire se un certo intervento avrà o no un
rapporto favorevole benefici-rischi a livello
clinico in soggetti umani».
In un'intervista Ioannidis riassume:
«Animal research is extremely important, and in
theory it can offer valuable preclinical insights.
However, currently published preclinical evidence
from animals seems to have very limited
concordance with what we see in humans. Almost
everything seems to work in animals, and then
almost nothing works in humans. The credibility
and utility of animal research may be strengthened,
if we can bolster the way animal experiments are
designed, conducted, and published in the
literature.»
Domanda
Che cosa è stato definito da The Lancet (nel
1978) come
«potenzialmente
il più importante
progresso medico del secolo
[potentially the most important medical
advance of the century]»?
http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/joral.htm
ORS= oral rehydration salts
(ORT= oral rehydration therapy)
http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm#recipe
Si stima che abbia salvato almeno
50 milioni di persone
dal 1978
Benché nella letteratura vengano citati
esperimenti su colture celulari tratte dagli intestini
di topi, questi non hanno avuto, per diretta
testimonianza dei protagonisti (Chatterjee,
Phillips, Cash e Nalin: 1960-70), alcuna
importanza nell'effettiva scoperta e applicazione
del metodo.
[R. Cash, “A History of the development of oral rehydration
therapy (ORT)”, 1987]
In ogni caso il metodo era stato scoperto e
ampiamente esposto in un libro (1853) da un
medico, William Stevens: cioè più di un secolo
prima (e in maniera totalmente indipendente da
qualsiasi esperimento su animali)!
[W. J. Daly, H. L. DuPont, CID, vol. 47 (2008), pp. 1315-9.]
N.B. Né Phillips, né Cash, né
Nalin ecc. hanno mai ricevuto il
premio Nobel.
Tuttavia ancor oggi
ogni giorno
muoiono circa
8000 bambini
per mancanza di questo presidio medico
essenziale e a bassissima tecnologia
«Around 8,000 children still die each day from
diarrhoeal dehydration, a toll the world can and
must reduce with ORT.»
[http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/joral.htm]
la Repubblica, 25 aprile 2013
«“L’11% degli italiani [cioè 6,7 milioni!] rinuncia alle
cure perché non ha le possibilità economiche, e nel
caso delle visite odontoiatriche la percentuale sale
al 23% – denuncia il segretario nazionale
Codacons, Francesco Tanasi – In Sicilia la
situazione è addirittura peggiore. Chi non può
permettersi un medico privato, si rivolge alla sanità
pubblica, settore dove però le liste d’attesa sono
spesso lunghissime, al punto da spingere un
numero crescente di utenti a rinunciare alle cure”.»
“Palermo, ha un ascesso Gaetana Priola muore a
18 anni”, 11 febbraio 2014
Ansa, 30 settembre 2014
il Fatto Quotidiano, October 10, 2014

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