Pros And Cons Of Human Patient Simulation

Michael Shally-Jensen writes about the role of animals in medical research and the procedures done in drug testing before it can be released in the market. Shally-Jensen talks about the involvement of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that requires animal testing as part of the licensing process. In Shally-Jensen’s article he also pointed out the alternatives available in research that can substitute the use of animals such as tissue cultured systems, artificial human skins, and computer models.

Alternative testing methods now exist that can replace the need for animals. In vitro (in glass) testing, such as studying cell cultures in a petri dish, can produce more relevant results than animal testing because human cells can be used. [15] Microdosing, the administering of doses too small to cause adverse reactions, can be used in human volunteers, whose blood is then analyzed. Artificial human skin, such as the commercially available products EpiDerm and ThinCert, is made from sheets of human skin cells grown in test tubes or plastic wells and can produce more useful results than testing chemicals on animal skin. [15][50][51] Microfluidic chips ("organs on a chip"), which are lined with human cells and recreate the functions of human organs, are in advanced stages of development. Computer models, such as virtual reconstructions of human molecular structures, can predict the toxicity of substances without invasive experiments on animals. [50]

Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, and Day (2010) stated that instead of nurses being schooled just in knowledge and skills, they need learning experiences. Nursing is not just an action, but is a state of being. The expert nurse integrates knowledge, skill, and ethics in an ever changing arena (Handwerker, 2012). Adopted from Dreyfer’s model of Skill Acquisition, Patricia Benner provided the nursing profession with her work Novice to Expert, also known as “Benner’s Stages of Clinical Competence”.

This group is interested in the safety evaluation of chemicals or biological products based on alternative methods of testing strategies, performed by the industry in lieu of good old but crude conventional toxicity testing in live animals(Liebsch, Grune, Seiler, Butzke, Oelgeschläger, Pirow, Alder, Riebeling, & Luch, 2011, pg.849). A lot of medical breakthroughs involving animal research may still have been made without the use of animals and resources dedicated in finding new solutions. The ZEBET wants to find an effective way to reduce and replace the use of animals in testing. Many different species of animals are used for testing, but the most common include mice, rabbits, birds, dogs, monkeys, and much more. Common procedures used is forcing chemical exposure to these animals by force-feeding or having chemicals injected into their body. I disagree with this misuse of animals, if animals are providing us with finding out new things that can help, then why would people want to hurt them. This group also found that scientists prolong periods of physical restraint and inflict wounds on these animals. The result of this is most of all animal testings fail in human clinical trials making them useless.

Cell testing in a petri dish can produce more relevant results than animals because human cells can be used (Kara Rogers). There is also micro dosing, giving doses too small to cause adverse reactions, which can be used for humans, whose blood will then be analyzed. Humans’ experimenting on humans is nothing new to our world as we have been doing it since the dawn of time. We now have artificial human skin, made from reproducing sheets of human skin cells that are grown in test tubes. This skin can be used to provide more accurate results than using animal skin (Kara Rogers). Computer models that create virtual human molecular structures can predict the toxicity of a substance without experiments on animals. Supercomputers are improving every year and may soon have brains of their

Human tissue such as the surface of the skin has been proven to be a more reliable and accurate than tests on animals. The Lethal Dose 50 is the standard amount of toxicity which materials given to subjects in an experiment have, it is usually up to 50% fatal resulting in one half of all animals to die as a result. "The late Dr. Bjӧrn Ekwall (Cytotoxicology Laboratory in Sweden) developed a replacement for the LD50 test that measured toxicity at a precision rate of up to 85% accuracy compared to the LD50 rate of 61-65%" (Neaves). This experiment built and executed by the extraordinary cell toxicologist Dr. Bjon Ekwall consisted of a replica of the LD50 test which measured the toxicity rate of subjects much more accurately than the original. This experiment was performed on donated human tissue, not living animals. Not only is human skin and tissue capable of predicting more precise results, using human tissue would effectively determine whether a drug is safe for human organs or other important functions of the human body. Tests on living animals may never reveal those types of effects because by the time the effects can start to show, the animals are murdered by the other chemicals injected into their bodies or of physical decay. Although the obvious alternative to animal testing is testing humans, another possible alternative is the

The structural differences between animals and humans sometimes lead to inaccurate result. Not only have that, the harsh and brutal experiment on the experimental animals caused them to go through dreadful, painful emotions. Since alternative tests like in vitro continue to improve and evolve in the research community, animal testing can slowly be replaced. According to Gregory Mone “In vitro and in silico testing will play a much larger part in how we assess chemicals in the future” (Mone). The advancement in science is encouraging but at cost of the animal’s suffering and lives is inhumane and should be done away

There are many other ways to research how products will react on humans, without the harm of animals. Over the years, ninety percent of the medications approved for human use after animal testing later proved ineffective or harmful to humans in clinical trials (“Stop Animal Testing”). Animal testing is not only ineffective, inaccurate, and faulty, but it can also take years to research and is very time consuming. “The traditional testing of chemicals using animals can take up to five years per substance and cost millions of dollars, while non-animal alternatives can test hundreds of chemicals in a week for a fraction of the cost” (“In Testing”). There are many other accurate and effective ways of testing products, without the use of animals.

According to Humane Society International article, The National Research Council in the United States has expressed a vision of “a not-so distant future in which virtually all routine toxicity testing would be conducted in human cells or cell lines”, and science leaders around the world have echoed this view”. Though this method has not yet been fully completed, there are methods such as in vitro tests that are taking place over animal testing. Stated in the Humane Society International article, the sequencing of the human genome and birth of functional genomics, the explosive growth of computer power and computational biology, and high-speed robot automation of cell-based (in vitro) screening systems has sparked a quiet revolution in biology (“About”). Stated in the article, Alternatives to Animal Testing, PETA describes some of the alternatives to animal testing, one of these being in vitro testing. In vitro are chips that contain human cells that have grown in a state-of-the-art system so that they mimic the structure and function of human organs and organ systems. These chips allow researchers to conduct disease research, drug testing, and toxicity testing without using a single animal. The chips have been shown to replicate human physiology, diseases, and drug responses more accurately than the crude animal experiments. There is also computer modeling that can take place over the use of animals. This computer modeling consists of a wide range of sophisticated computer models that stimulate human biology and the progression of developing diseases. Studies show that these models are accurately predicting the ways that new drugs will react in the human body (“Alternatives”). Though all of these new methods are highly practical and have already shown an improvement in predicting the outcomes of products,

Why when so many safer and more humane alternatives exist? Animals are often not accurate in determining safety in human patients. Solution: Human cells reproduced in labs that don’t have consciousness or any large organization. In vitro testing is essentially just that. Human cells are grown in a lab and tested to shown that effects of drugs on an actual human instead of settling for just another living being. These tests have been shown to be more accurate as well as being more cost effective and they cause no harm to what we consider to be

Due to the fact there are many mutations and unknown factors in the human DNA strand, an accurate test cannot be achieved by human subjects. What may be deadly or irritating to one person may not affect another in the least. Using animals to test the product beforehand remove any inconsistencies in the data that would potentially cause the project to be dismissed. Even though it may take longer, research via animals is overwhelmingly cheaper than using human subjects too. An animal does not need insurance premiums, paid compensation, or signed waivers, but human subjects do. In animal research, an animal needs only nutrition, shelter, and comfort, and it receives all three plus

Smith article The Grim Good of Animal Research, he implies that it is a great way to end human suffering. Rather than testing drugs on animals there are many ways to test these drugs accurately using other methods. This can answer important questions about the functioning healthy and diseased human tissue without subjecting animals into healthy procedures. In the article of New Technologies Could Eliminate the Need for Animal Experimentation, in response to the NAS report, the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], the National Institutes of Health, the National Toxicology Program, and the US Food and Drug Administration are working together to develop new technologies to modernize chemical testing. This is effort is the beginning of the end of animal testing, not quite there yet, but it definitely is a start.

It was proven by the Humane Society of the U.S that healthy and diseased tissues isolated from human volunteers can provide a more relevant way of studying human biology and disease that animal testing. Crude skin allergy tests in guinea pigs only predict human reactions 72% of the rime. A combination of chemisty and a cell based alternative have been shown to predict human reactions 90% of the time. Artificial skin is another great way to test products which produce more useful results than testing. Computer modeling can replace testing by making accurate estimates on a substance likelihood of being dangerous. Human patient simulators are also being used in research worldwide. These are life-like computerized human simulators that can talk, bleed, move around, and even “die”. Not to mention, there are millions of cell-based alternatives that are at our hands to use on testing instead of torturing billions of innocent animals. Replacing animal testing will improve the quality as well as the humanesness of our science! Using other options would make some products more effective and less hazardous, and best of all put all the animals out of their

One method is computer modeling. Computer modeling stimulates human biology and progression of developing diseases, reported “Alternatives to Animal Testing”. Quantitative structure-activity relationships (also known as QSARs) is a computer based techniques that can replace animal tests by making estimates of the hazards and effects. With this method, the model can give more effective results than animal testing. The Computer Modeling method can replace all of the 115 million animals tested on yearly. Another method is the Organ-On Chips. The Organ-On Chips is a chip that contains the human organs and the organ system, as stated by “Alternatives to Animal Testing”. “Alternatives to Animal Testing” also states the chips are shown to replicate human responses, diseases, etc. The Organ-On Chips can replace drug testing and research. If more companies switched to this method, millions of animals would be saved from torture or death. Additionally, another method is cell-based tissue. “Ceetox developed a method to assess the potential of a substance to cause a skin allergy”(PETA). Cell-based Tissue testing is a variety of cell-based tests and tissue models, according to “Alternatives to Animal Testing”. “Alternatives to Animal Testing” also states that cell-based tissue testing replicates key traits of human skin. Cell-based tissue is easy to get, and replaces the use of guinea pigs in labs. Cell-based tissue can reduce the amount of animal deaths from testing. As one can see, there are effective alternatives for animal

Although humans and animals may look different, at a physiological and anatomical level they are remarkably similar. While some people argue this point, there is no sufficient alternative to testing on a living, whole-body system. Living systems, such as humans and animals, are extremely complex. The chance of finding an alternative to test products on is remarkably low. Animals and humans have the same organ systems performing the same tasks in, more or less, the same way and share hundreds of illnesses. Also, many basic cell processes are the same in all animals. All mammals, including humans, are descended from common ancestors which means our circulatory system, endocrine system, nervous system, as well as other systems in the body all work in very similar ways (Dave Anderson 1). Evaluating a drugs for side effects requires a circulatory system to carry the medicine to different organs throughout the body. Animals also have the same organs, and because animals are so biologically similar, they are susceptible to many of the same conditions and illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. For example, chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans (2). They are humans’ closest living genetic relatives. Therefore, many treatments that work on animals, such as chimpanzees, will work on humans