Robert Matthews on Animal experiments

“Animal experiments sometimes predict what’ll happen with humans, but often fail to do so”

 

Reincarnation is highly unlikely. But in the event that it is possible, I know what I’m coming back as: a mouse. Hardly a week goes by without scientists announcing they’ve cured some of these furry cheese-eaters of yet another disease, from cancer and AIDS to Alzheimer’s.

So how come we humans are still succumbing to these diseases? Aren’t animal experiments supposed to be reliable signposts towards the next miracle cure?

They certainly have the backing of the Royal Society, Britain’s premier scientific academy, which insists that “virtually every medical achievement in the past century has depended directly or indirectly on research using animals”. And the Royal Society doesn’t make statements like that without evidence to back them up.