Ray and Jean Greek seem to have been extremely busy lately writing letters to various media outlets denouncing medical research. Here’s a typical letter, this one sent to Newsweek,
Your article “Reinventing the Mouse” offered a one-sided look at research conducted on mince that could have been written by the mouse-research industry. Next time you might want to mention all the people who have been harmed because the research on mice did not translate to humans, all the drugs that have been derailed because mice are different from human beings, and all the drugs that hurt people because mice are not men. In the 21st century we have better ways of testing drugs and learning about disease than resorting to studying a totally different species. If we are to cure epilepsy, diabetes, AIDS, cancer, etc., it will be by studying human beings, their tissues and other human-based research modalities.
Animal research, of course, has played an instrumental role in diagnosing, understanding and treating epilepsy, diabetes, AIDS and cancer. If other species are “completely different” it is odd how well Frederik Banting and Charles Best’s research with insulin in diabetic dogs translated so well to human treatment of insulin. It is similarly odd that rabbit antiserum played such a key role in isolating and diagnosing HIV, given that rabbits and humans are “completely different.”
Source:
Letter. Ray and Jean Greek, Newsweek, August 18, 2003.