Re: “School won’t use live animals,” May 20.
Thanks for the article informing us that the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, one of the two U.S. medical schools still using live animals to train doctors in surgical procedures, has dropped the use of animals for the purpose on the grounds that it is not essential.
Canadian medical schools have already dropped that requirement, moving us ahead on the road to scientific and humanitarian progress.
Now all we have to do is move an important step further in eliminating the hit-and-miss practice of using live animals for medical research. There already are many ethical and scientifically advanced alternatives that actually relate to human health, and many more need to be developed and implemented. This will happen only if the government and charities fund only new research not involving misleading animal models.
This issue became personal for me when I was on my way to the operating room for my breast-cancer surgery. I was asked if I would sign a document donating my cancerous tumour for research. “Sure,” I said, “as long as it won’t be used to implant the cancer into an animal for research purposes.” They could not guarantee this, so I refused. Later, when I underwent radiation, I was informed that it would have been possible to use the diseased tissue for research not involving animals.
We are all grateful for the advances in medical research, but now it is time to reconsider the research methodologies we are funding.
Maidie Hilmo
Victoria
