PETA Global 2017 Issue 1

Human-Relevant Methods Hold Hope While dogs used in these experiments languish and die, so do humans who are suffering from this terrible disease: Despite three decades of experiments on dogs, not one has led to a cure or even an effective treatment that reverses the symptoms of DMD in humans. Analysis of MD studies using dogs has shown that there are serious pitfalls to trying to apply the findings to humans. Some experiments on dogs have even produced the opposite results in humans. For a French animal rights activist and MD sufferer named Pascaline, the push to end MD experiments on animals is personal. “Wanting to cure a serious disease does not justify, for me, the practice of making other sensitive beings suffer and exploiting them,” she said in a recent 12 MINUTES documentary. “We have lost 50, 60 years. All the money that we invested in [animal experiments], in fact, [could] have been invested directly in the substitute methods.” As Pascaline knows, it is in advanced, non-animal methods that real hope lies. Scientists have recently used sophisticated technology to restore dystrophin function in human cells

“There’s no question that if we showed them our myopathic dogs, they would risk losing a lot of money.”

obtained from actual patients with DMD, a discovery that may result in treatment for up to 60 percent of people suffering from the disease. Researchers are also finding ways to grow functional human muscle tissue that could be transplanted into patients in order to restore muscle function or that could be used to screen potential new drugs. In addition, scientists at Harvard University recently engineered a human DMD “tongue-on-a chip,” which uses muscle stem cells from patients with DMD in order to recreate human muscle tissue on thin, microfluidic devices. Using this model, the scientists were partly able to explain why muscle regeneration fails in these patients.

Ian Hughes Muscular Dystrophy Sufferer

What AFM-Téléthon Donations Really Pay For Video footage given to PETA France by the group Animal Testing shows that dogs are subjected to the same misery at France’s Alfort National Veterinary School. Most of them never reach adulthood. Some are completely crippled before they turn 6 months old, and half endure an agonizing death before the age of 10 months. Some can’t even eat; their muscles are so deteriorated that they must be fed through a stomach tube. If they survive long enough, they’ll eventually develop heart problems, because the disease attacks and weakens the cardiac muscle. An employee at this laboratory acknowledged in the video footage that these animals are suffering. “I wouldn’t like to be in the beagle’s place,” he said. “The suffering is real.” So why do these experiments continue? Well-meaning people make donations with the intention of helping to find a cure or treatment for MD, but they have no idea what they’re really paying for. An official even admitted on camera that the laboratory could lose funding if the public saw the dogs’ condition. “There’s no question that if we showed them our myopathic dogs, they would risk losing a lot of money,” he said. The group Animal Testing showed people exactly what their donations are paying for by releasing the damning video footage to the French national publication L’Obs.

As someone who’s afflicted with it, I can tell you that I wouldn’t wish MD on my worst enemy, let alone on defenceless animals. These cruel experiments aren’t working – there’s still no cure or effective treatment for MD. But don’t misunderstand me: the choice is not between animals and humans – it’s between good science and bad science, between methods that lead to findings with direct relevance to humans and those that don’t. It’s time to switch to humane, effective, and modern non animal research which doesn’t cause animals to suffer and which offers those with MD real hope. I urge Texas A&M to end its experiments on dogs now.

The magazine ran an exclusive article about the experiments just one day before the national fundraising drive began for AFM Téléthon, which funds the experiments at the Alfort National Veterinary School.

F I N D O U T W H A Y B A C K P G E • B E T H E C H A N G E ! • C N D O - T U R

T H E F U R O A N I M L S D E P     O N W H A T E D • B E T H E C H A N G E ! •

T H E F U R O A N I M L S D E P     O N W H A T E D • B E T H E C H A N G E ! •

T H E F U R O A N I M L S D E P     O N W H A T E D • B E T H E C H A N G E ! •

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