IN the past few days doctors have performed the UK's 10,000th liver transplant. Perhaps this is a good enough reason for us to applaud experiments on animals.
Or maybe not.
Liver transplants don't actually owe anything to animal research. Animals are different in respect of liver function and internal position. Attempts to study them to develop a transplant technique failed and delayed progress. The drugs essential for the process to work in humans work differently in animals.
The 10,000th organ recipient would have died in middle age had he not received his new liver, so must be grateful for the technique. But is he pleased about animal experiments?
His liver stopped working because of a side effect of a medical drug. All drugs on the market have passed animal tests, so the confidence with which this potentially lethal drug was given was due to animal research. Maybe this is reason enough for us to think again about relying on this obsolete method.
Michael Edwards,
East Parade, Harrogate.
Updated: 11:20 Friday, August 20, 2004
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