Toronto Star columnist Ellie Tesher recently made an interesting point about bioterrorism and the animal rights movement — if the activists had their way, there would be no viable antibiotic treatment for anthrax.
The two antibiotics best suited for treating anthrax — ciprofloxine and tetracycline — could never have been adequately safety tested without animal studies. As Bessie Borwein of the University of Western Ontario told Tesher, “We cannot make any single living cell in a lab, let alone an integrated body that would simulate the reaction in humans. Computers are in wide use in research but they do not substitute for a living body.” Especially when using antibiotics whose effects on the body can persist for relatively long periods of time.
In fact the discovery of anthrax is a result of some of the first systematic animal research. In the 19th century, Louis Pasteur proved that anthrax was caused by microorganisms in studies conducted on rabbits and guinea pigs. Pasteur used his research with animals to develop the first vaccine against anthrax.
Source:
Animal rights fanatics are health hazard. Ellie Tesher, Toronto Star, October 16, 2001.