Wasted Money in United States Biomedical and Agricultural Animal Research
Open accessAbstract
Biomedical and agricultural animal research uses millions of experimental animals and dozens of animal species each year by choice, precedent, or regulatory mandate in basic and applied life science research and toxicity testing of drugs, chemicals, and consumer products. Animal research is a large component of the international us$270 billion government-subsidized, biomedical industrial ecosystem (Chakma et al., 2014). In the United States (us) and presumably elsewhere, about half of these funds support animal research and testing (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2012). Each year at least 115 million experimental animals (mostly mice and likely a significant underestimate) are used worldwide (Akhtar, 2015). The status quo animal research environment provides “ecosystem services” to a large number of inter- dependent “species”, including governments, academia, biotechnology, agri-food and pharmaceutical industries, and publishers. Losers in this system are the conscripted animals (for “labor”) and taxpayers (for “capital”).
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Aspirin causes embryo toxicity in rats and rhesus monkeys.
“aspirin (embryo toxicity in rats and rhesus monkeys) (41)”
From Limitations of Animal Studies for Predicting Toxicity in Clinical Trials (2019) · cites this paper as [41]
Section 7, under “False positive drug toxicity,” says aspirin produced birth defects in rats and monkeys. It does not identify the monkeys as rhesus monkeys, so the species-specific part of the claim is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Keen, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Nebraska–Lincoln (US)
- Corresponding author
- Keen, Jim
- Venue
- Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change
- Publisher
- BRILL
- Published
- 2019-04-17
- Pages
- 244-272
- OpenAlex
- W2938315932
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 8.16
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BRILL eBooks (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- WBI Studies Repository (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal testing and alternatives
- Social Sciences › Law › Animal Law and Welfare
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Research, Science, and Academia
- Keywords
- animal research funding, animal experimentation, biomedical research, research waste, toxicity testing, research ecosystem, research funding allocation
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