快猫短视频

THE US is causing mice to suffer by not doing enough to phase out a
controversial technique that uses the animals for making monoclonal antibodies,
antivivisectionists claim. They are angered by a new report, commissioned by the
federal government, that advises against banning the method.

To produce large amounts of purified antibodies, researchers can fuse a
tumour cell with a cell that makes the antibody they need. They then let the
tumour grow in a mouse鈥檚 abdomen, where it releases a fluid rich in the
antibody. Because monoclonal antibodies can now also be made using cell
cultures, Britain and several other European countries have banned the mouse procedure
(This Week, 15 November 1997, p 12).

In 1997, the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) in Jenkintown,
Pennsylvania, asked the US National Institutes of Health to enact a similar ban.
The NIH refused, but asked the independent National Research Council in
Washington DC to look into the matter.

Its report, released last week, does not support a ban, although it says that
cell cultures should become the routine method over the next few years. 鈥淭o
suddenly close off access to the use of mice would be too abrupt and cause a lot
of groups to lose access to important monoclonal antibodies,鈥� says committee
chair Peter Ward of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

John McArdle, scientific adviser to the AAVS, says the report condemns more
than a million mice each year to continued suffering. 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost a guarantee,鈥�
he says. 鈥淭he Europeans are clearly way ahead of us on this issue.鈥�