Scientists admit Multiple Sclerosis animal experiments delayed medical progress & non-animal research may hold the key to a cure

http://www.buav.org/home/latestnews.html#MS

March 1, 2004

BUAV

A report published in New Scientist (26 February 2004) states scientists studying human brain tissue may have advanced Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research along a different path from misleading earlier animal studies on which all subsequent research has been based.

The researchers at the University of Sydney studied brain tissue from 300 MS patients and concluded that MS may be due to the death of brain cells that produce the myelin sheath surrounding nerve cells, and not attacks from the patient's immune system as previously indicated by misleading animal studies.

The New Scientist report backs what animal campaigners such as the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) have been saying for many years, stating "Their findings back the view that the reason for the lack of progress in this field is that most MS research is done on mice with a disease that is actually quite different." 1

For many years, MS has been thought to be due to the patient's own immune system attacking the myelin sheath surrounding nerve cells. This assumption was largely based on perceived similarities between MS and an artificially induced condition in laboratory animals called Experimental Allergic Encephalitis (EAE).

In November 2002, three neurology experts from Glasgow University and the Leiden University Medical Centre published claims that the traditional animal model of (MS) was so inappropriate that it had actually delayed progress in MS research.2

Nicky Gordon, the BUAV's Scientific Officer, says:

"These new findings based on modern, human research could be the major breakthrough that MS sufferers and their families have been waiting for and could lead to new treatments for the disease. We believe it is clear that decades of cruel animal experiments into MS, particularly the use of EAE mice, have substantially delayed progress in research into the disease. The use of animals as crude 'models' for human disease is scientifically flawed, and there are so many other areas where advances in treatments for human disease would benefit too if outdated animal experiments were consigned to the history books."

Differences between EAE and MS



EAE runs an entirely different time course to MS and either kills or permanently disables animals, whereas MS attacks generally subside and reoccur.

Animals with EAE also suffer severe nerve inflammation, but in MS inflammation is usually mild, if present at all.

EAE also does not show clinical symptoms akin to MS, or progression like the human disease.

Despite extensive research and a vast research literature (where more animals have been given EAE than there have been cases of human MS) the cause of the clinical condition remains unknown. There is, to date, no effective treatment.

New Scientist 28/02/04, 2436:17;

J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2002, 32: 244-65



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