droolian

Roger that, yeah The Insider. Russell Crow was good in that.

Being a guy with a degree and a white coat clearly doesn’t make someone a true scientist.
More From Creek: More on cancer:

Dr. Evil

Being a doctor does not mean you are honest either. Heres a brief history on the research of diabetes:

Early research into diabetes

There was research into diabetes as early as the 18th and 19th centuries. An early observation, in 1788 by Thomas Cawley, was that the pancreas in patients who had died from diabetes was damaged. However, at this time there was no way of telling whether this was cause or effect: he could equally well have noted changes in the kidney, eye, blood vessels or nerves of such patients. None of these is the cause of diabetes: they are all effects.

In 1889 Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski showed that removing the pancreas from the dog produced diabetes. This was the first demonstration that there was an antidiabetic factor produced by the pancreas which enabled the body to use blood sugar properly. The term insulin was coined for this factor by Schafer in 1915, some years before it was actually identified or isolated.

Following von Mering and Minkowski's discovery, there were several unsuccessful attempts to isolate insulin. The most important of these was probably that of Georg Zülzer, who used alcohol rather than water to extract insulin and obtained active preparations. Using one of these extracts, Forschbach in 1909 showed that it could reduce the blood sugar of dogs in which the pancreas had been removed by 90%. However, because of impurities, this preparation of insulin also raised the animal's temperature. There were attempts to produce purer extracts, and these were used to treat two diabetic patients. But there were similar toxic effects, so the use of such extracts did not continue.

Frederick Banting and John Macleod develop insulin to treat diabetes

Working in Toronto, the surgeon Frederick Banting and medical student Charles Best began attempts to produce insulin in 1921. By the end of that year, they had shown in classic experiments that pancreatic extracts reduced blood sugar and removed sugar from the urine of dogs in which the pancreas had been removed4. However, when such extracts were injected into diabetic patients they again produced an unacceptable fever.

Professor John Macleod, head of the physiology department at Toronto, then added a biochemist, James Collip, to the team. Collip soon prepared insulin from beef pancreas which was pure enough to treat diabetic patients5. He did this using an alcohol extraction technique to produce solutions containing different proteins. The only way he could find out whether insulin was present, and in what amount, in each solution, was to measure its activity. This he did by monitoring blood sugar levels following injection of each solution into rabbits. Collip developed a measure of activity based on the lowering of blood sugar in the rabbit, and this was used to standardise extracts. As an insulin overdose could be lethal, this was an essential step.

Collip's extracts were used successfully in dogs and then in patients in 1922. The results were dramatic, and the British Medical Journal described the advance as "magnificent contribution to the treatment of diabetes". In 1923 the Nobel prize committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to Banting and Macleod, and the prizewinners divided their shares with Best and Collip.

As you can see the scientist used pancreatic injections to alleviate the symptoms of diabetes in humans as they predicted it would from their animal studies. Also, I found this article:

Retention in the Circulation of Dextrose in Normal and Depancreatized Animals, and the Effect of an Intravenous Injection of an Emulsion of Pancreas upon this Retention

I. S. Kleiner, S. J. Meltzer
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 1, No. 6. (Jun. 15, 1915), pp. 338-341.

This article discounted the role of the liver in diabetes six years before any attempt was made to inject pancreatic extract into humans. It also seriously questions Dr. Creek's assertion that human data led to the discovery that the liver did not play a role in diabetes. I believe Dr. Creek is deceiving people to promote his own agenda.

The example posted above demonstrates the ability of an animal model to accurately predict human physiology. These same techniques have been used successfully thousands of times to predict the actions of drugs, study disease processes, discover biochemical pathways etc. The fact that there isn't an animal model that mirrors humans 100% means nothing. Would Dr. Creek have us rid ourselves of mathematics because there is no unified theory between quantum mechanics and relativity? Probably so...

About cancer, cancer can be induced in primates to study the effectiveness of treatments for them (if your lab is wealthy enough to be able to run a primate facility that is). Even the soft tissue tumors that are supposedly so hard to study in primates. Like I stated before, a simple pubmed search brought up thousands of articles. Here are a few of them:

Smith RD, Deinhardt F.

Unique cytoplasmic membranes in Rous sarcoma virus-induced tumors of a subhuman primate.
J Cell Biol. 1968 Jun;37(3):819-23.

Reiss C, Niedobitek G, Hor S, Lisner R, Friedrich U, Bodemer W, Biesinger B.
Peripheral T-cell lymphoma in herpesvirus saimiri-infected tamarins: tumor cell lines reveal subgroup-specific differences.
Virology. 2002 Mar 1;294(1):31-46.


Kaspareit J, Friderichs-Gromoll S, Buse E, Korte R, Vogel F.

Spontaneous pulmonary neoplasms in cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis)--a report of two
cases.
Exp Toxicol Pathol 2001 Sep;53(4):267-9

Lindsay CK, Sinha CC, Thorgeirsson UP.

Morphological study of vascular dissemination in a metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma model in the
monkey.
Hepatology 1997 Nov;26(5):1209-15

Miller GF

Bronchiolar-alveolar adenoma in a rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta).
Vet Pathol. 1994 May;31(3):388-90.

Myers DD Jr, Dysko RC, Chrisp CE, Decoster JL.

Subcutaneous hemangiosarcomas in a rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta).
J Med Primatol 2001 Apr;30(2):127-30

Palotay JL, Adachi K, Dobson RL, Pinto JS.

Carcinogen-induced cutaneous neoplasms in nonhuman primates.
J Natl Cancer Inst 1976 Dec;57(6):1269-74


I need some more information on this statement. The Rh factor is a cell surface protein found in both monkeys and humans that has antigenic properties. When Dr. Creek states that they are different, does he mean in protein sequence? How different does he mean? For example if he does mean protein sequence, does he mean 1 amino acid? 100?

[ April 21, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Evil ]</p>

Dr. Evil

At least we agree on something!

droolian

LOL

Don’t you think those “scientist” that do animal research for a living have more to lose? Animal testing has a lot of ego, money, and momentum behind it. It’s takes a brave person to stand up against something that powerful. If he wanted to site the phenomenal amount of abuse these animals receive at the hands of these labs he could, but he sticks to science. Surely you must admit that this is a profitable industry for many people. More doctors than Greek are finally coming out against animal labs.

That figure doesn’t even count interactions. Rather embarrassing really. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9804/14/drug.reaction/" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9804/14/drug.reaction/</a>

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/socialspit/prescribe.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/socialspit/prescribe.htm</a>

And you say that drugs aren’t tested on humans? See, that number is with clinical trials on humans after being tested on animals too. Even toxicity tests are more reliable when tested on human cell cultures.
Björn Ekwall, MD, PhD demonstrated this. <a href="http://altweb.jhsph.edu/publications/journals/atla/atla29_3/atla29_3toc.htm" target="_blank">http://altweb.jhsph.edu/publications/journals/atla/atla29_3/atla29_3toc.htm</a>
I can’t believe you’d say that. Cancer death rate is up by 6.3% since Nixon began the “war” on it over thirty years ago. That’s 25 billion invested in animal research BTW.
John Robbins, Reclaiming Our Health:
[ April 21, 2002: Message edited by: droolian ]</p>

FaithNoMore

To get off the subject for a second, when I was a Catholic, the one belief that killed me was that "GOD" created the Earth specifically for humans. What if "GOD" is a monkey, or a tiger? Hmmmmm...
HA HA HA, and another thing. I was watching "TBN"(The bible network) and I heard this one guy on there talking up a storm on how great Jesus is. He said "GOD HAS A PLAN; AND THAT PLAN IS 'TBN'!!!!!). I about fell out of my bed from laughing so hard!
Sorry to get off subject, but I just had to share!

--FaithNoMore

Dr. Evil

Embarrassing? Not really, because I checked the source and it confirmed that the majority of the deaths were caused by physicians misdiagnosis, not the drugs given to the patients (I should clarify this statement by saying that the drugs were not inherently dangers but were applied in the wrong circumstances). Heres the source, maybe you should read something before you comment about it:

Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson M, eds, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; 1999

Notice the title, To Err Is Human, that says it all. Your whole argument is based on a fallacy. Heres a quote from the IOM report:

So human error is attributed to the deaths, misdiagnosis by the physician, errors in the information system in the hospitals etc. If we look at the 100,000 deaths/year figure, we see from your own article that this figure represents 0.32% of the patients that were under physicians care per year. That means that even if some of the deaths are attributed to deadly medications, it is much, much less than 0.32%. No system is perfect.

Also from JAMA, July 5, 2000, Vol 284, No 1 pg . 95-97 concerning th IOM report:

The whole purpose of the report is to prevent human errors within the hospital that leads to patient death!

You should really read the IOM report sometime, then maybe you wouldn't misquote it (which may not have been your fault since the CNN reporter got it wrong, you should check any source when its available).

No where on the web site you provided does it say that in vitro toxicity test are more accurate than toxicity studies in animal models. If you say this statement, you must provide proof (remember in vitro studies must be way more accurate than 0.32% in predicting harmfull drug effects, good luck. Also how are you going to extrapolate dosage information from a culture dish without a circulatory sytem or any means of metabolizing the drug?

Cancer death rates have increased since 1975, but so has the population of the US (by roughly 34%), and the incidence of cancer. Just stating that cancer deaths have increased is meaningless without giving the incidence of cancer. Once again I have to do your homework for you sooo, I looked up cancer statistics from the CDC to put this in to correct prospective:

You are almost twice as likely to survive cancer today than you were in the fifties. Here's a link to the summary:

<a href="http://seer.cancer.gov/" target="_blank">cancer stats</a>

I suggest you read it and have a basic understanding of epidemiology before you mis-represent the facts.

Here's something else we agree on But I would say "All research has a lot of ego, money and momentum behind it, with emphasis on ego." I don't know why Dr. Creek continually mis-represents the facts, whether he is malicious or just plain ignorant.

OK, show me an animal model where removal of the pancreas does not disrupt glucose homeostasis, remember, it has to be a peer reviewed journal.

Well first of all primates do respond to thalidomide the same way humans do:

Wilson JG, Gavan JA. Related Articles

Congenital malformations in nonhuman primates: spontaneous and experimentally induced.
Anat Rec. 1967 May;158(1):99-109 (they used thalidomide)

Lindburg DG. Related Articles

Motor skills of infant rhesus monkeys with thalidomide-induced forelimb malformations.
Dev Psychobiol. 1969;2(3):184-90

And a more modern paper just for good measure:

Klug S, Felies A, Sturje H, Nogueira AC, Neubert R, Frankus E.

Embryotoxic effects of thalidomide derivatives in the non-human primate Callithrix jacchus. 5. Lack of teratogenic effects of phthalimidophthalmide.
Arch Toxicol 1994;68(3):203-5

As you can see, thalidomide causes birth defects in the most common primate animal model, the rhesus monkey. As for the other drugs, I could find no proof of their effects according to Dr. Creek, would you mind posting some peer reviewed journal references to back up Dr. Creeks claims?

In conclusion I need to stress that no system is perfect. Animal research has a lot of room for improvement, however, you must provide proof (without misleading figures) that another system would be significantly better before it is replaced.

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Evil ]</p>

droolian

From the AFMA site, here’s a list of debates Dr. Greek has participated in-- Debates: FOX News Frankie Trull Foundation for Biomedical Research, New York University with Adrian Morris DVM, PhD and Bob Speth DVM, University California at Berkeley, Hahnemann-MCP Medical School with Bud Hughes DVM Chairman of the Board Americans for Medical Progress, McGill University Quebec, Canada

You have acknowledged the tobacco industry’s misuse of data through animal testing.

More from that very CNN article:
That doesn’t say misdiagnosis or human error. I don’t see anything in that article about human error. Are you suggesting the 39 studies got it wrong or that CNN is reporting falsely regarding the information? Here’s another source then:

Notice that says ”properly described drugs.” <a href="http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/swallowtail/204/prescribe.htm" target="_blank">http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/swallowtail/204/prescribe.htm</a>

Before being accusatory and insulting me please show me how I misquoted that article. I’m not trying to be mean, but I don’t feel that’s fair. Forgive me if I’m inferring wrongly.

Embarrassing. Around 2.1 million people were harmed by reactions to legal drugs.

Although you claim your article says that many of the 100,000 deaths were due to misdiagnosis, this 1998 CNN article doesn’t seem to have been retracted. It is also found elsewhere.

Side effects ----He doesn’t say anything about misdiagnoses from error making doctors.

Seems as if animal testing were effective that none of this and the 2.1 million people who were harmed would have happened.

Amazing. And that data was from 39 separate studies. I still say that’s incredibly embarrassing.

Now, away from CNN or Dr. Greek we go. Read this and see if this man doesn’t remind you of a certain protagonist from a certain movie we both agree is a good true story.
There’s plenty of people that aren’t concerned with animal rights that say animal testing is useless. However, some people want the nonsense to go on forever.
One of NCI’s own there.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: droolian ]</p>

Dr. Evil

The news story was dated April 23, 1998, I searched NEJM for the whole month of April 1998 and could not find the study they site.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Evil ]</p>

Dr. Evil

You still haven't verified the NEJM source, so I'll let you assume that it is correct (although the article is no where to be found). Where are your numbers to support that alternative approaches will reduce the deaths associated with prescription medications below 0.32% of patients visiting a hospital per year?

How are you going to test for adverse drug reactions using YOUR systems before they go to clinical trials? You stated:

If cell culture is better than human clinical trials at finding side effects show the proof to back this statement up, don't merely assert that it is true. How are you going to test for malaise or severe headache in a culture dish? How will you test for renal bleeding or any type of hemmorhagic effects? Not only that you state that it is more accurate at determining side effects than testing on humans, what a joke.

So what do they count as cancer that really isn't to inflate their numbers? Once again you've made a statement without proof. Where are the numbers with the "false cancers" removed. Give us some hard evidence.

And more people over 30 are surviving cancer than ever before, as I stated above, raw numbers mean nothing without taking into consideration that more people are over the age of 30 in this country than ever before. Have you ever heard of the aging baby boom population? I posted above about the rationale of using survivability since it takes into consideration incidence, yet you ignore that and post misleading information again.

If you would read the statistics that I posted for you to review, you would see that they list what they consider to be an incidence of cancer, and since it is a retrospective study, what they consider incidence DOES NOT change from year to year, so if they count a benign tumor in 1999, they count it in 1950 as well.

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Evil ]</p>

SmashingIdols

First off, survival of the fittest is not a moral standard, nor has anyone ever intended it as such. That would be pretty scary morality, and would be ironic in that it would likely lead to the collapse of family, society, civilization, and in the resulting aftermath, possibly mankind himself.

On the subject of medical testing on animals, there are many people who believe that even if it were necessary, and there were no substitutes, it would still be wrong:

I have heard the argument that the diseases we are fighting through said research are in fact natural and normal parts of life - and that by fighting them we are ultimately removing ourselves further and further from a natural existence (one not depending upon medical supplementation, like vaccination), and ultimately overbreeding?

It has been postulated that we are extracting this knowledge and power over our environment through the suffering of animals.

Extortion.