Activists protest use of animals in lab experiments
By Purva Patel (Daily Texan Staff)
April 25, 2000

Animal rights advocacy groups denounced animal research and experimentation on campus Monday.

Members of Students Against Cruelty to Animals, a UT student organization, and Action for Animals, an Austin-based group, distributed fliers to passing students and hung two banners on the University Teaching Center bridge on 21st Street, urging students to support funding for alternatives to animal research.

"It's a pressing issue since there are research labs on and near campus," said Will Mangum, SACA member and studio art junior. Mangum is referring to the Animal Resource Center at UT, where researchers test the effects of different drugs on animals.

The banner drop comes at the start of the internationally recognized World Week for Animals in Laboratories, which runs April 22-30.

One of the banners bears a picture of a cat with an electrode implanted in its head next to the the words "The Face of Animal Research."

Mangum said in addition to raising student awareness about labs being funded by their tax dollars, the groups wanted to promote support for alternative research methods such as the use of computer models, live cell cultures and clinical case studies.

Alan Combs, a professor in the College of Pharmacy who researched cardiac toxicity on rats, said alternative methods would be preferable but have not proven effective, except in a small number of cases. "When they work and have been shown to work, they should be used because animals are not disposable supplies," Combs said.

But not enough tests have been done to show that other methods work, he added.

Computer models and cell cultures also have their limitations. Because computers can respond only to data that is entered into the system, they are limited to data that researchers already have, said Jerry Fineg, director of the Animal Resource Center.

Another alternative, cell cultures, doesn't allow for behavior studies, said Rueben Gonzales, associate professor in the College of Pharmacy.

"In multi-factored diseases you can't get all the factors necessary in a cell culture," said Gonzales, who conducts studies on rats to research the effects of alcohol on the brain. But Mangum said many FDA-approved drugs previously tested on animals had adverse affects on humans ranging from birth defects to fatalities.

For example, accutane, tested for treating acne, appeared safe when tested on animals but led to birth defects in humans.

Researchers agreed that while some drugs may prove ineffective on humans, the benefits of animal testing cannot be discounted. "On the other hand, there are a lot of drugs that if [they] hadn't been tested, would have killed a lot of people," Gonzales added.