Throughout all of modern medicine, a great many of our breakthroughs discoveries have started with experiments or tests on mice. Research any subject vaguely related to medicine, and you’re like to see “studies on mice showed” or “in trials conducted on rats.” We’ve made great strides in addiction medicine by studying the effects of drugs on mouse brains, injecting them with various substances and seeing how they react. But why did we choose these animals in particular to study? It doesn’t seem as though they should have anything in common with humans, so how accurate are these results anyway?
To start with, why don’t we conduct studies on humans? In 1932, the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the history of syphilis in an effort to justify treatment programs for blacks. It was called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” Researchers told the 600 men they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe several different medical problems, but in fact they did not receive the proper treatment, and 201 of them had no disease to begin with. The study carried on until 1972, when the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed a panel to investigate. They determined that the men did not give informed consent to this treatment, and as such it was ethically unjust. In 1974, the National Research Act was signed into law, creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which developed regulations pertaining to human medical studies.
So, after we decided it was unethical to test experimental treatments on humans, why mice? Believe it or not, mice and humans are fairly similar genetically. Many of the genes that relate to disease are the same in both species. More importantly, we can manipulate mouse genes. Over the years they have been bred specifically to have certain conditions that mimic genetic disorders in humans. They’re small – and therefore cost effective, as they don’t eat much or require much space – and they reproduce easily.
We’ve used mice to discover everything from insulin therapy to certain anti-withdrawal drugs – the list goes on. However, studies in mice aren’t always completely useful when you try to recreate the effects for humans. In the 1990s, a cancer researcher found a compound that eliminated tumors in mice. There were no side effects to the treatment and the tumors did not develop a resistance to it. Briefly, everyone thought we had found a miracle cancer cure. Unfortunately, in human trials the effects were inconsistent and minimal. Still, despite the chances for failure, animal studies have proven to be an effective tool, and one that allows us to test new drugs and treatments without placing humans in harm’s way.
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