The Australian Association for Humane Research Interview

Interview by Claudette Vaughan

We speak to CEO Helen Rosser on what her organisation is doing against vivisection in Australia today.

Abolitionist: Is AAHR abolitionist?

Helen Rosser: Yes. AAHR is, and always has been, an abolitionist organisation. We could be seen by many to be fairly conservative in that we don’t organise protests nor do we use graphic images in our campaign materials and on our website, but our convictions are just as strong – if not stronger – than many other groups that oppose animal-based research. We just employ a different strategy. We meet with, and provide submissions to, government departments and research institutions, using sound scientific and ethical arguments to oppose animal use, so that we can be more influential and carry more weight with decision-makers.

While I appreciate that some individuals and organisations have good intent by trying to improve the welfare of individual animals used in research, I’m also concerned by the overall result of those efforts. Australian authorities, including NHMRC, ARC (Australian Research Council), ANZCCART (Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching) and ANZSLAS (Australian and New Zealand Society for Laboratory Animal Science) for example, promote the welfare of laboratory animals. Indeed Australia boasts high standards of lab animal legislation (incidentally, so does the UK – despite undercover footage suggesting otherwise!) but is this focus on welfare doing more damage than good?

Instead of committing to actively seek alternatives to animals, Australia focuses on ensuring that our laboratory animals are handled correctly, have comfortable bedding and toys to play with. While such environmental enrichment may clearly improve the lives of individual animals doomed to exist as mere laboratory tools, it does not address the fact that these animals should not be there at all. Instead, it reinforces the justification for using animals, by ignoring the fact that animal-based data is unreliable when applied to human conditions, and detracts from the importance of finding alternatives.

Abolitionist: You are really highlighting and leading the way with an important new campaign at the moment on foetal calf serum. Can you tell us the full story please? Where does it come from, why is it being used and what are the breakthroughs and alternatives?

HR: People opposed to the use of animals and animal products in research would agree that the use of human cell and tissue culture is clearly, a more ethical and scientifically valid mode of research than using animals. Unfortunately though, even when using these “in-vitro” methods, a component of animal use can possibly still remain.

Human cells and tissue are grown in a culture form and in order for the cells or tissue to grow and proliferate, a source of nutrients must be added. The usual supplement is foetal calf serum – a product derived from the foetuses of cows found pregnant at slaughter.

The method of collection is particularly cruel. After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother’s uterus containing the calf foetus is removed during the evisceration process (removal of the mother’s internal organs) and transferred to the blood collection room. A needle is then inserted directly into its heart and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag. This process is aimed at minimizing the risk of contamination of the serum with micro-organisms from the foetus and its environment. Only foetuses over the age of three months are used otherwise the heart is considered too small to puncture.
Once collected, the blood is allowed to clot at room temperature and the serum separated through a process known as refrigerated centrifugation.

It remains questionable as to whether or not foetuses have already died from anoxia (deprivation of oxygen) prior to serum collection. Nevertheless, no anaesthesia is given, despite their possible ability to experience pain and discomfort.

Aside from the obvious ethical concerns of using FCS however, there are also scientific reasons why it should no longer be used in research. For example, it’s a major source of viral contaminants which once present, are almost impossible to remove from cultures .It can contain viruses, prions (a protein that can transform into a rogue agent) and mycoplasma (considered to be a primitive form of bacteria), each of which can affect the outcome of scientific experiments. It can also interfere with genotypic and phenotypic cell stability, which can also influence experimental outcome.

AAHR has maintained contact with a number of overseas organisations that provide source lists of serum-free media and we have written to Australian universities and research institutions urging them to use these alternatives. The response to date has been very encouraging. Interestingly, we are also in contact with an Australian company that is working on producing a synthetic protein complex to replace all animal proteins, not just calf serum, for the culture of a range of different cell types.

The Australian Code of Practice for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes states: “Techniques that totally or partially replace the use of animals for scientific purposes must be sought and used wherever possible.” It further states, “Institutions, AEC’s investigators and teachers have responsibility for compliance with the Code.” Researchers have a moral and a legal obligation to replace animals with alternatives when they are available - including the use of foetal calf serum.

Abolitionist: Will Australian vivisectors be open to change since they haven't been very much challenged yet on this topic? What's been your experience of this?

HR: From our own experience there has been a mixed reaction. We were certainly a little surprised at the interest to embrace alternatives to foetal calf serum. Our personal discussions with a number of researchers have also revealed that many agree with us on many aspects of animal use. They acknowledge the limitations and would prefer a move away from animals. They just don’t feel that there are enough available alternatives that have been developed and I think the problem here is therefore with our government. As mentioned previously, it’s absolutely imperative that Australia pursues research into alternatives rather than merely encourage their use where they exist.

If we, in Australia, can show that we can actually achieve more by way of medical discoveries and cures for disease by using non-animal methods then it will be a win-win situation, for medical progress and of course for animals.

I do think this is already happening. Examples include the development of human tissue banks around Australia and more focus on prevention of illness like the recent focus on childhood obesity through improving school lunches.

If we are to phase out animal-based research in Australia I think it will be by way of a quiet revolution rather than an all-out challenge.

Abolitionist: Please speak about vivisection in Australia.

HR: Despite my optimism, I certainly can’t deny that animal research does occur in Australia, and at an alarming rate. The most recent figures we have are from 2004 when over 6 million animals were used, and this was a 67% increase from the previous year. This was mainly attributed to a single experiment in Victoria in which 2,177,247 poultry were used to test a vaccine for Newcastle disease. Australia also uses more animals per capita than the UK, who reports using 3 million per year.

The range of research areas involving animals is very diverse and includes basic research, batch testing of vaccines, improvement of farm animal production, the production of biological products, and of course in teaching. Just as diverse is the degree of suffering, which may vary from simple observational studies to highly invasive procedures that may or may not involve analgesia.

Unfortunately the interest in cloning and genetic engineering will have a significant impact on future statistics as these “technologies” have a low success rate and produce high wastage – animals that do not display the desired traits and are therefore unusable. These new technologies focus largely on countering obstacles in animal research, such as removal of a protein that causes rejection if a part of that animal is transplanted to another animal (xenotransplantation), or to create animals with a pre-disposition to disease, which will allow them to be used as ‘models’ for such things as cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases. They are also used for the production of therapeutic products, such as pharmaceuticals in milk or human insulin that can be produced by transgenic bacteria.

Abolitionist: What is the AAHR's opinion on the raging controversy surrounding embryo stem cell research at the moment in Australia?

HR: From a scientific perspective it would seem that the use of human embryonic stem cells would provide more accurate data than that obtained from a different species that contains different genetic material. This is however, an ethical debate, and it would be up to society at large to determine whether the use of embryos in research should or should not be acceptable.

Health Minister Tony Abbott seems intent on retaining the ban on therapeutic cloning, which involves the creation of embryos for the purpose of supplying stem cells, however I’m disappointed that his views are inconsistent when it comes to the use of animals in research. Mr Abbott’s objections are based on ethical concerns. He has stated "Even potential human life needs to be treated with great respect and we shouldn't be willy nilly creating potential human life just to satisfy the urges of the scientific community." Why then, do these concerns not extend to non-human animals – sentient individuals who already possess a fully developed central nervous system and who are considered more capable of experiencing pain and suffering than are “potential” life forms. It seems ironic that a higher moral status is afforded to “potential” humans than is to already living members of other species.

Abolitionist: Even if they were ethical there is certainly no guarantee or commitment to stop escalating vivisection, in fact it would probably run along side of it and vie for the funding, don't you think so?

HR: I think there’s a misconception that stem cell research is an alternative to using animals. That’s not the case at all. While much of this work may be done in a petri dish, it is on animals that any techniques are ultimately tested. For example, work is currently being done at Monash University to see how the introduction of stem cells to the thymus can affect the immune system. This work is being carried out on mice. Similarly, tissue engineering, which involves growing stem cells on a hydro gel or nanofibrous scaffold, is tested on rats that display similar symptoms to Parkinson’s disease. Researchers say that stem cell technology will reduce the number of animals used but I certainly don’t think it could be considered a replacement.

Abolitionist: Tell us about AAHR's campaign to ban the importation of primates for research.

HR: We decided to tackle this as we believed it was a way of chipping away at the bigger issue. We are of course opposed to research on all animals and not just primates. On this however, we are able to gather support from those people who mightn’t be as strongly opposed to animal experiments as we are but recognise that primates maybe should be afforded higher ethical consideration. We are also able to garner support from researchers who do use animals but recognise that there is no need to subject animals to further suffering than (they believe) necessary by the added stress of transportation.

Australia is already home to three primate breeding facilities: the National Marmoset Facility and the National Macaque Facility in Victoria; and the National Baboon Facility in New South Wales, all of which breed animals specifically for the purpose of being used in research. Despite this “ready supply” however, in the past five years, five permits have been granted to import primates into Australia for research. This includes a shipment of 67 macaques imported from Indonesia in 2003 and provided to the CSIRO (Geelong campus) for research into AIDS.

While the NHMRC's Policy on the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes states “Non-human primates imported from overseas must not be taken from wild populations and must be accompanied by documentation to certify their status” these animals - even if purpose bred for research - must still endure long air journeys. Undercover exposés by overseas groups have revealed that animals suffer horrifically whilst in transit, often deprived of the basic necessities of food, water and space and many do not survive the journey.

Australian researchers should be looking toward non-animal methodologies that are far more relevant to studying human disease than replicating it in species that are genetically different to our own, yet instead of eliminating the use of primates, they are utilizing those already bred within our three established colonies, and still importing more!

Abolitionist: What is the AAHR's opinion on using primates in AIDS testing?

HR: We are strongly opposed to it on the same grounds as we oppose research of any human disease on any other animal.

Medical research MUST be species-specific. There is no point in discovering how to treat the symptoms of a disease in a species that is not naturally able to contract that disease. Researchers always argue that primates are closely related to us and share a large percentage of DNA and use this to justify their relevance as an appropriate model for disease. However, humans and mice share 99% of the same genes. Both humans and mice have the genes that enable us to grow a tail. In humans that gene is “turned off” but in mice it is “turned on,” so despite us both sharing these same genes they are regulated in different ways and result in mice, and not humans, having tails. Tails are of course an obvious difference, so imagine the variability when we consider how the regulation of these genes can affect the outcome of how diseases progress through the body and how the body metabolises different drugs.

To further illustrate the existence of species differences, think about why doctors treat humans and veterinary surgeons treat animals, and why there cannot be any interchange. Why don’t we give Panadol or Aspirin to our companion animals, and why don’t we use Excelpet’s worming tablets to treat intestinal worms in our children?

There website www.aahr.asn.au