A thorough discussion of the theoretical and empirical basis for AFMA’s position that the use of non-human animals as predictive and causal analogical models for human drug and disease response is scientifically untenable is well beyond the parameters of this website. For those interested in pursuing this topic further, we have provided resources and links that will be helpful.
For a listing of books and journal articles that illuminate AFMA’s position, click here.
For a listing of sources of further information related to AFMA’s position and the issues related to biomedical research, click on your topic of interest:
For links to organizations that defend the use of animals as predictive models both from an ethical and scientific perspective, click here.
For additional links of interest to those who wish to explore the many new frontiers in science and biomedical research, click here.
Books and journal articles that illuminate and support AFMA’s position
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Animal Models in Light of Evolution. Shanks and Greek. (2009)
The Opposing Views ‘Animal Rights’ Center
Dr Ray Greek blogs at
Designed for readers with a strong scientific background, this book provides a detailed and highly authoritative explanation of AFMA’s position on animals as predictive models. - FAQs About the Use of Animals in Science: A handbook for the scientifically challenged. (2009) This book provides an explanation of AFMA’s position geared to the non-scientist.
- Are animal models predictive for humans? In this article, published in 2009 in the journal Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, Drs Greek, Shanks and Greek layout the scientific basis for AFMA’s position that animals are not predictive for humans. The article can be freely accessed at www.peh-med.com/content/pdf/1747-5341-4-2.pdf or via the Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine homepage (www.peh-med.com/home/).
- Experimental use of nonhuman primates is not a simple problem.
Correspondence from Drs Shanks and Greek in Nature Medicine 14, 1012 (2008). The letter is available at www.nature.com/nm/journal/v14/n10/full/nm1008-1012a.html but might require a fee to view. - Dogs, genes, and drugs. Letter to American Scientist by Ray Greek.
Read Here - Systematic reviews of animal experiments demonstrate poor human utility by Andrew Knight. AATEX 14, Special Issue, 125-130 Proc. 6th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences. August 21-25, 2007, Tokyo, Japan
Read Here - Comparison of treatment effects between animal experiments and clinical trials: systematic review by Perel et al. BMJ 2007;334:197 (27 January)
Read Here - The Poor Contribution of Chimpanzee Experiments to Biomedical Progress by Andrew Knight. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 10(4), 281–308.
Read Here - Systematic Reviews of Animal Experiments Demonstrate Poor Human Clinical and Toxicological Utility by Andrew Knight. ATLA 35, 641–659, 2007 641. (Also see erratum)
Read Here - Animals and medicine: do animal experiments predict human responses?: An article from: Skeptic magazine 2007 by Shanks, Ray Greek, Nobis, Jean Swingle Greek. Not a bad introduction for the scientist or nonscientist.
More Information - Evolution and medicine: the long reach of "Dr. Darwin" by Shanks and Pyles.
Read Here - Evolution and the Ethics of Animal Research by Niall Shanks and Keith Green.
Read Here - Animals in Science by Shanks. ABC Clio. 2002.
More Information - Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans? by Pandora Pound, Shah Ebrahim, Peter Sandercock, Michael B Bracken, Ian Roberts, professor, Reviewing Animal Trials Systematically (RATS) Group. BMJ 2004;328:514-517 (28 February).
More Information - Festing debate 2002
More Information - Animal studies and HIV research by Ray Greek and Pandora Pound. BMJ 2002;324:236 (26 January)
More Information - Supportive evidence is lacking for report on animal studies by Pandora Pound and Shah Ebrahim. BMJ 2002;325:1038 (2 November)
More Information - Predictive chemoinformatics: applications to the pharmaceutical industry By Browne LJ and Taylor LL. Drug Discovery World 2002, Fall:71-77.
More Information - The origin of speciesism by LaFollette and Shanks.
Read Here - Brute Science by LaFollette and Shanks 1996 Routledge.
More Information - Two Models of Models in Biomedical Research by LaFollette and Shanks.
- Utilizing animals by LaFollette and Shanks.
Read Here - Animal Experimentation: the Legacy of Claude Bernard by LaFollette and Shanks.
- Animal models in biomedical research: some epistemological worries by LaFollette and Shanks in Public Aff Q. 1993 Apr;7(2):113-30.
Recommended Reading on Evolutionary Biology
- The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma by Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart
More Information - Genes and Signals by Mark Ptashne and Alexander Gann
More Information - Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science Of Evo Devo And The Making Of The Animal Kingdom by Sean Carroll
More Information - The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean Carroll.
More Information - The Regulatory Genome: Gene Regulatory Networks In Development And Evolution by Eric H. Davidson
More Information - Biochemical Adaptation: Mechanism and Process in Physiological Evolution by Hochachka and Somero
More Information
Recommended Reading on Complex Systems
- Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology by Ricard V. Solé and Brian C. Goodwin
- Books and papers by: Stuart Kauffmann, John H Holland, Murray Gell-Mann, Brian Goodwin, Roger Lewin, Mitchell Waldrop.
- Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues by J. A. Cover and Martin Curd
More Information
Recommended Reading on Personalized Medicine
www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org
Recommended Reading on Critical Thought
- How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
More Information - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thought
- Foundation For Critical Thinking http://www.criticalthinking.org/
- http://www.aaas.org/
The American Academy for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. - http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/genetics.html
Access Excellence The National Health Museum is a national educational program that provides health, biology and life science teachers access to their colleagues, scientists and critical sources of new scientific information via the Internet. Recommended especially for their discussion of genetics. - http://www.asterand.com/Asterand/
Asterand—Partners in Human Tissue Research is a leading global supplier of human tissue and human tissue-based research services to pharmaceutical companies engaged in drug discovery and development. - http://www.fda.gov/cder/
The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research is a division of the Food and Drug Administration responsible for the evaluation and approval of new brand name and prescription drugs. - http://www.cebm.utoronto.ca/
The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine helps develop, disseminate and evaluate resources that can be used to practice and teach evidence based medicine for undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education for health care professionals from a variety of clinical disciplines. - http://www.cspinet.org/
The Center for Science in the Public Interest seeks to educate the public, advocate for government policies that are consistent with scientific evidence on health and environmental issues, and counter industry’s powerful influence on public opinion and public policies. - http://www.eurekalert.org/
EurekAlert! is an online, global news service operated by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that provides a central place through which universities, medical centers, journals, government agencies, corporations and other organizations engaged in research can bring their breaking science news to the media. - http://www.evolutionandmedicine.org/
The Evolution and Medicine Network is a resource for scientists and medical professionals working at the interface of evolutionary biology and medicine. - http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
The Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah is dedicated to helping people understand how genetics affects their lives and society. - http://www.medscape.com/px/newsindex?Specialty=17&from=more
MedScape®, a part of WebMD Health Professional Network, offers specialists, primary care physicians and other health professionals robust and integrated medical information and educational tools. - http://www.nature.com/index.html
Nature is an interdisciplinary science journal that serves scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. - http://necsi.org/index.html
The New England Complex Systems Institute is a non-profit research and education institute developing new scientific methods and applying them to the challenges of society and is a source for more information on complexity. - www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org
The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), representing a broad spectrum of academic, industrial, patient, provider and payer communities, seeks to advance the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts and products for the benefits of patients. - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
The National Center for Biotechnology Information is a national resource for molecular biology information and a source for articles that have been published in the scientific literature. If you want to find articles that have been published in the scientific literature this is a good place to begin. - http://www.santafe.edu/
The Santa Fe Institute is a private, not-for-profit, independent research and education center dedicated to multidisciplinary collaborations in the physical, biological, computational and social sciences for the purpose of understanding complex adaptive systems. - http://www.sciencedaily.com/
ScienceDaily delivers breaking news about the latest discoveries and research projects in science, technology and medicine. - http://www.cochrane.org
The Cochrane Collaboration seeks to improve healthcare decision-making globally through systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions, published in The Cochrane Library. - http://www.chtn.ims.nci.nih.gov
The Cooperative Human Tissue Network provides specimens needed for the development of emerging technologies and the application of these technologies to study problems in cancer biology, and to develop markers for diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy. - http://www.jameslindlibrary.org
The James Lind Library has been created to help people understand fair tests of treatments in health care. - http://www.medletter.com
The Medical Letter is an independent, peer-reviewed, nonprofit publication that offers unbiased critical evaluations of drugs, with special emphasis on new drugs, to physicians and other members of the health professions. - http://evolution.berkeley.edu
Understanding Evolution is a non-commercial, education website that teaches the science and history of evolutionary biology.
Organizations That Defend Animal-based Research
- http://www.the-aps.org
The American Physiological Society is a nonprofit organization that fosters education, scientific research and the dissemination of information on the physiological sciences. - The following nonprofit organizations are dedicated solely to promoting the use of animals in science:
http://www.amprogress.org Americans for Medical Progress
http://www.fbrresearch.org Foundation for Biomedical Research
http://www.fbresearch.org/fbr.html National Association for Biomedical Research
http://www.rds-online.org.uk RDS Understanding Animal Research in Medicine
