Systematic errors affect transfer of animal data to clinical trials
False positive and false negative results may be leading to systematic errors in the ways in which data from animal studies are applied to clinical trials, a study suggests.
Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine, compared animal and human studies of six different
interventions. He acknowledges that his sample size is too small to give
estimates of the extent of agreement between the studies but found a
lack of communication between those conducting animal experiments and
the corresponding clinical trials.
For instance, he found examples of animal studies being conducted alongside
clinical trials of the same intervention and animal researchers speculating
possible benefits in humans from treatments already shown to cause harm
in large-scale clinical trials. He argues that closer collaboration between
those involved in animal research and clinical trials is needed.
Professor Roberts’s report is available
to download
Last week the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust published
a booklet explaining why they believe that the use of primates in medical
research continues to be necessary while the British Union for the Abolition
of Vivisection called for all experiments on primates to be banned throughout
Europe.
The MRC and Wellcome Trust say that the scientific consensus at present
is that the use of primates is justified in a small number of specific
circumstances. “There is a need to review constantly the ethical
and scientific justification for primate use, since both research ethics
and science are developing fields,” they add. |
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