For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads[…]
The paper, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why every one of nearly 150 drugs tested at a huge expense in patients with sepsis has failed. The drug tests all were based on studies in mice. And mice, it turns out, can have something that looks like sepsis in humans, but is very different from the condition in humans.
Medical experts not associated with the study said that the findings should change the course of research worldwide for a deadly and frustrating condition. Sepsis, a potentially deadly reaction that occurs as the body tries to fight an infection, afflicts 750,000 patients a year in the United States, kills one-fourth to one-half of them, and costs the nation $17 billion a year. It is the leading cause of death in intensive-care units.
“This is a game changer,” said Dr. Mitchell Fink, a sepsis expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, of the new study.
[…]
The study’s investigators tried for more than a year to publish their paper, which showed that there was no relationship between the genetic responses of mice and those of humans. They submitted it to the publications Science and Nature, hoping to reach a wide audience. It was rejected from both.
Science and Nature said it was their policy not to comment on the fate of a rejected paper, or whether it had even been submitted to them. But, Ginger Pinholster of Science said, the journal accepts only about 7 percent of the nearly 13,000 papers submitted each year, so it is not uncommon for a paper to make the rounds.
Still, Dr. Davis said, reviewers did not point out scientific errors. Instead, he said, “the most common response was, ‘It has to be wrong. I don’t know why it is wrong, but it has to be wrong.’ ”
h/t Carol
This sounds just like the gerbil warming research!
You can thank the bunny huggers for this one, in very large part. Drugs are tested on mice for two reasons. One, mice are fairly cheap. Two, and this is the killer, mice are the specified model for all the regulatory agencies.
How did that happen? Well, for a really long time now any effort to use an animal for testing anything has been met with violent opposition by the hard core bunny huggers. And by violent I mean arson, bombings, and people hitting other people with sticks. This last is euphemistically called “demonstrating” in the media.
Result? Crappy and expensive science.
As to the journals, it’s been apparent for the last fifteen years or so that the journals are wholly owned subsidiaries of the drug companies, and by extension the political class. No journal is going to willingly print evidence that the entire development model their owner’s drugs are based on is wrong. Science these days is not about science. It’s about weaselling grants out of government apparatchiks and keeping the Right People happy and interested in your work. God help you if you come up with irrefutable evidence that somebody important is wrong.
If there’s anything that Science and Nature should know about, its sepsis.
I was in academia a few years ago. It was a vipers nest. I am still flabbergasted by the response of Science and Nature. Friggin’ pop science rags. Too much easy but political money…science is in trouble.
No argument that this could be a game changer. Sepsis/SIRS (Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) is currently the big frontier in trauma and peri-operative medicine. If we could modulate the body’s inflammatory response to injury and/or infection we could save countless lives. But the last twenty years have seen a steady frustration of efforts to add much of use to the approaches we had when I first did ICU in the early nineties.
The variability of individual response to trauma certainly points to a constitutional difference in how individuals react to it. I’ve seen one previously healthy, robust individual suffer a few broken ribs in a collision at a ski hill die within the month from ARDS (Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome) and subsequently SIRS and another individual hit and dragged by a train resulting in multiple long bone fractures, head, chest and abdominal injuries, walk out of hospital under his own steam six months later.
It’s a shame the paper was rejected given its potential import in redirecting the research models needed to get a better grip on this killer. Efforts now will have to be undertaken to find a suitable animal model to mimic the human response to trauma and infection. Maybe there isn’t one. Homo Sapiens may be uniquely sensitive to these injuries. If so we’ll have to be prepared to take some risks in order to get a grip on this lethal phenomenon. Either way, my fear is that the usual suspects, i.e. the camp followers consisting of “animal rights” and biomedical ethics “experts” will actively work to stymie progress in this field.
Being a scientist nowadays is akin to being a journalist or lobbyist.
With global warming, CO2, ozone hole type ‘research’ stories of everything but real science being the order of the day.
Real scientists out there deserve to be lumped in with the rent seeking majority , as their silence speaks volumes. This ‘Of Mice and Men’ example simply illustrates these useless aparachiks letting ‘Lennie’ call the shots so as to not upset the gravy train.
Those in the category called ‘scientists’ should be ashamed of what they have allowed their once proud profession to become.
Oh well, just another example of the total sham everything to do with universities has become since we allowed the communists to take them over.
Remember this when the cancer society comes sucking around for donations to fund their ongoing elusive “cure”.
“Real scientists out there deserve to be lumped in with the rent seeking majority , as their silence speaks volumes.” Agree 100% doowleb.
“Remember this when the cancer society comes sucking around for donations to fund their ongoing elusive “cure”.”
Also remember,Occam,that the cancer society spends more on fund rtaising(to pay their higher ups)then they do on actual research.Not bad for a supposedly “non-profit” organization.Suggest the tax guys take a look at them also.
And no.For you leftards who can’t think or use google,I am still not posting a link.
I wish I was a mouse. Science has cured everything in mice.
“I wish I was a mouse. Science has cured everything in mice.
Posted by: the rat on February 17, 2013 11:59 AM | Reply”
Come on, you rats get plenty of cures. No one gives a damn for the birds though. People are waiting for us to transfer the flu they have been promised for years and now we are lower than white Rhinos on the ladder.
I can’t wait until Gorbull, or Fruitfly Guy,or Hansen,or McKibben,etc, blame this on cAGW for altering poor Mickey’s genes.
Yeah, but economics is different, singed, P. Krudman
Interestingly enough, sepsis kills 5-10 times as many people as all gun deaths in the US. That includes the suicides which are about 2/3 of all gun deaths in the US. Makes you wonder who the REAL monsters are.
So … a question that I started asking in high school science class …. over 40 years ago … is NOW going to become a scientific “controversy” …. ?
I was taught that the first rule of experimentation was to test your assumptions.
May I suggest that a far better sort of test subject for medical treatment would be convicted terrorists and traitors, the “animal rights” murderers among them (the quid pro quo being a stay of execution). If any honest accounting were made I dare say there would be large enough a pool to keep the scientists in test subjects for a generation—and give us a better chance than even of finding that cure for cancer.
Even the animals won’t mourn them. They understand God’s plan better than their alleged defenders—and have no worries about achieving the kingdom of heaven.
If the radical was going to willingly drink the Kool-Aid anyway, better for the rest of us that he do it in the context of a study of improved antidotes for common poisons.
I was in academia a few years ago. It was a vipers nest…. Too much easy but political money…science is in trouble. Posted by: LAS
Academia is mostly about internal politics and jockeying for tenure, and very little about actual science.
I recall the time when rats were the standard surrogate for medical research. Then it was discovered that all the vitamin research was useless because rat metabolism/morphology did not resemble human metabolism/morphology very well…different critter.
It did result in more effective/specific rat poisons. Warfarin is an example….it kills rats readily but is a useful blood thinner in humans…saving a whack of lives.
Using condemned criminals is logical but puts us in an ethical dilemma….Chinese (PRC) routinely tissue type condemned criminals for organ harvesting…resulting in unethical situations…for example alleged criminals being condemned because they have an in demand tissue type.
The obvious solution is the use of primates which doesn’t fly with the animal rights activists…but then what does….
An couple of interesting films that explore those issues as it relates to human cloning: Never Let Me Go,and The Island
Whatever you guys do, DON’T take ANY medication your doctors give you. IT WAS MADE BY SCIENTISTS!!!!!
And maybe get off of the internet while you’re at it. Again, scientists!!!!
Those guys can’t be trusted. Only rightwing blogs, radio hosts, and your friendly neighbourhood medicine man, er, I mean preacher.
But what I’m confused by, is why trust anything you read in the NYT’s? Aren’t they the bad guys working in conjunction with liberals, scientists, and other communists to trick you? I guess you’re feeling all friendly after that review of the Tesla vehicle. Of course, that isn’t going so well for the NYT’s, what with the vehicle logs and CNN’s findings:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/17/mike-sholars-tesla-motors-ceo-fought-fire-with-facts-and-he-may-have-won/
Hey John? I put you in the same category as Dick “human testing” Slater.
John, those meds you’re taking, made by scientists, seem to be working well for you…