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The Animal Turn
Animals are increasingly at the forefront of research questions – Not as shadows to human stories, or as beings we want to understand biologically, or for purely our benefit – but as beings who have histories, stories, and geographies of their own. Each season is set around themes with each episode unpacking a particular animal turn concept and its significance therein. Join Claudia Hirtenfelder as she delves into some of the most important ideas emerging out of this recent turn in scholarship, thinking, and being.
The Animal Turn
Bonus: (Anti)Vivisection with Lauren Stein and Richard Miller
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Vivisection is an old word for a practice that still shapes modern medicine: using living bodies as tools for knowledge. Claudia talks with Lauren Stein and Richard Miller from the National Anti-Vivisection Society to unpack some of vivisection’s history, how scientists understand it and think through the ethics of it, as well as the emergence of alternatives to its use.
Date Recorded: 22 June 2026
Lauren Stein, Ph.D., is the Director of Science and Research Programs at the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS). She joined NAVS in 2024 after spending more than a decade in academic biomedical research focused on the interactions between the brain and body and their effects on human health. Lauren holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Physiology and is dedicated to advancing humane, human-relevant research technologies that replace animal use while improving scientific outcomes. Through her work at NAVS, she helps educate the public about emerging alternatives to animal testing and the future of biomedical research. Learn more at https://navs.org.
Richard Miller, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a science adviser to the National Anti-Vivisection Society. After decades conducting biomedical research, he became a leading voice for replacing animal experimentation with modern, human-relevant research methods. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation: Empathy, Science, and the Future of Research, which examines the history, ethics, and scientific limitations of animal-based research while exploring emerging alternatives. Dr. Miller has published more than 500 scientific papers and brings both firsthand laboratory experience and historical perspective to discussions about the future of science. Learn more at https://richardjmillerscientist.com.
Featured:
- National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS)
- The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation by Richard Miller
- On The Revolutions Of The Celestial Spheres by Nicholas Copernicus
- De humani corporis fabrica libri septem by Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis
- A Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes.
- The Vacanti Mouse (The Ear Mouse)
- Ontario halts invasive medical testing on dogs and cats
Other Episodes of The Animal Turn
- S5E5: Animal Testing and its Alternatives with Thomas Hartung
- S5E6: Brown Dog - The Forgotten Terrier Who Sparked a Movement
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.
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The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.
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- Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
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Welcome And Why Vivisection Matters
Speaker 1This is another I will podcast.
Lauren SteinIn the 19 in 1929, the National Antivivisection Society was created by three people, one being a former actor, George Arles. And, you know, we we've been around for a hundred years, and and for a long time, the argument was more of an ethical moral underpinning to why we shouldn't use animals. And what we've seen over the past hundred years is that really evolved slower than we would have liked because of this infrastructure that Richard's talking about and the external pressures that scientists face. But we're starting to see that there really are alternatives that can be taken seriously and that there are scientific underpinnings for why animals shouldn't be used, in addition to discussing the ethical moral component, which most scientists are very uncomfortable to talk about.
Claudia HirtenfelderIt's a concept that's come up a couple of times over the years, most notably, I think, when Virginia spoke about the brown dog affair, which was a resistance to the use of animals in testing. But I don't think we've ever actually spent much time talking about the concept itself. And when Nav has reached out to say, hey, would you like to have someone on the show? I said, well, sure. Let's learn a little bit about this concept and what it means. And even preparing for this episode was quite interesting just to think about how the concept was originally conceived of, but also how it's changed over time and the ways in which scholars, scientists, and activists differently use it. So I think you're going to learn a lot from this episode. I hope so. I very much did. Let me tell you a little bit about my two guests today. Lauren Stein is the director of science and research programs at the National Anti-Vivisection Society. She joined NAVS in 2024 after spending more than a decade in academic biomedical research, focused on the interactions between the brain and body and their effects on human health. Lauren holds a PhD in pharmacology and physiology and is dedicated to advancing humane, human-relevant research technologies that replace animal use while improving scientific outcomes. Through her work at NAS, she helps educate the public about emerging alternatives to animal testing and the future of biomedical research. Richard Miller also joins us. He is a professor emeritus of pharmacology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, and a science advisor to the National Antivisection Society. After decades of conducting biomedical research, he became a leading voice for replacing animal experimentation with modern human-relevant research methods. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation, Empathy, Science and the Future of Research, which examines the history, ethics, and scientific limitations of animal-based research while exploring emergent alternatives. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book and read several chapters of it before the interview here today. I really encourage you to go and check out this book. I mean, he goes really into some deep history and also some more contemporary history in terms of thinking about the ways in which animals have been experimented on, as well as some of the actors that have resisted this experimentation over time. It's really, really interesting and it's super easy to read, and the structure is, yeah, it just kind of flows. So that's The Rise and Fall of Animal Experimentation by Richard Miller. Now, in addition to that book, he has published more than 500 scientific papers and brings both first-hand laboratory experience and historical perspectives to discussions about the future of science. Now, we spend quite a bit of time actually speaking about both Lauren and Richard's personal histories with testing on animals. Both of them have done that work, and both of them are now committed to seeing alternatives and changes in the ways in which animals are included in laboratories. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As always, if you could leave a review wherever you listen to the podcast, that would be great. Those reviews go a long, long way.
From Lab Work To Opposition
Claudia HirtenfelderHi, Lauren and Richard. Welcome to the Animal Tone Podcast. It's lovely to have you here. We're going to talk about Vivi section today, which is everyone's favorite topic, I'm sure. And I'm looking forward to talking to you about it, in fact, because it's one of these concepts. It's said a great deal. And, you know, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, I don't know exactly what it means. And I think it has a different meaning historically to how it's used today. So I'm really hoping to understand, you know, vivisection as an as a concept, but also perhaps the evolution of vivisection as a practice as well as the anti-vivisection movement. So thank you so much, both of you, for joining me today. Um, right away, let's get started with you and your background, because I know both of you are people who have done experiments on animals. You have backgrounds in experimenting on animals and researching on animals, and now you're both affiliated with the National Anti-Vivisection Society. Is that correct, Navs? National Anti-Vivisection Society. Yep. How did that happen for you? How did you go from experimenting on animals to being representatives in an anti-vivisection society?
Lauren SteinYeah, so uh my entire career was doing animal research. So uh about 20 years ago was really when it kind of started, anywhere from muscular dystrophy to cancer to the neural control of eating behavior. I was basically, you know, that was how you study these things. Um there was really no question. There was no other alternative. And so, you know, you take that for what it is and and you do the science because at the end of the day, you know, you want to better understand how the world operates, but also really to help people, right? So to better understand disease, to help identify uh potential targets for drug treatment. And so in a way, it feels you you you kind of separate yourself from from the uh ethical component of it because what you're doing is hard science. Um and the end in in a lot of ways justifies the means. Also, when I was doing animal research, you know, it had come a long way. There were a lot of regulatory uh bodies put in place, anesthesia existed. So um, you know, by the time I was doing research, it wasn't quite as gruesome as you know previous um centuries. Um and so throughout my throughout my whole career that's what I was doing, and then it wasn't until my postdoc where I really became um informed about biotechnology, bioinformatics, how we could look at a slice of brain tissue and see different gene expressions, um, how we could really interrogate existing data to better understand um mechanisms. And so I really started to get interested more in these computational tools to do that to answer some of these biological questions. And it was then that I really started kind of realizing wait, maybe there is other ways out there to answer very certain questions, and that's what I wanted to pursue. And so, you know, I found myself at the National Anti-Vivisection Society almost um by lu by luck, you know, there you I was in the right place at the right time and really proud to be part of this movement to really bolster the new technology that we're seeing out there to help people understand that there are in fact alternatives to some of these questions, and so it yeah, so that's how I came to the NAS organization.
Claudia HirtenfelderAnd when when you were doing your degree and your PhD, um how exposed were you to alternative methods? Like you said, you know, testing on animals was the gold standard, but at any point during your undergrad, you know, were you even exposed to a question or an idea of alternatives or I guess even classes about the ethics of testing on animals? Does that feature in your syllabus or not really?
Lauren SteinNo, so it did not. I will say, you know, you know, the it was starting, those it existed, but it was in a very small group of people who were doing these skills. And so it was largely in the in vitro space where they were starting to develop that technology. My research focused on, you know, we would do some research in vitro, so in living cells in a dish to kind of identify something before going into the animal. And so in that I understood that, okay, you know, you don't go straight to an animal, there is a process, and you try to minimize as much as possible how you're using an animal and go in as well informed as possible. And then during my graduate school, we were exposed to the three R's. There was a big um movement. I mean, I don't know exactly when that happened, but for me, you know, it was like 10 years, 10, 15 years ago where they talked about um reduction or replacement reduction and refinement. And so that was my first exposure to this fundamental principle that scientists abide by to try to minimize as much as possible the use of animals. And so that was pretty much it. Uh there was always a section when you applied for grants, you know, are there alternatives to exist that exist to what you're proposing? And my experience was that was basically a cookie cutter statement that scientists would kind of share with amongst each other, saying there are no other alternatives that exist. I've done a you know uh scientific literature search, and this is the best way in which to answer my question. Um but really, you know, I don't know how deeply we were looking. Um that said, things have changed a lot. So I will say there wasn't a lot of alternatives to some of these things. And there still aren't, right? Um so so so yeah, so that was really my main exposure to it. But as far as like real ethics on using animals, yeah, I was not exposed. I didn't have a class like that.
Claudia HirtenfelderIncredible. And um, Richard, how about we we learn from you? How how is your transition or movement from doing experiments on animals to thinking now about anti-vivisection?
Richard MillerWell, you know, in some ways it's similar to Lauren's, but um, excuse me, but um it it covers a much more extended time period because I started actually doing research in the 1970s when I was doing my PhD. And you know, I'd always I mean I loved science and I desperately wanted to be a scientist. I also liked animals. I hadn't really put the two things together, and the first day I was it went into the lab, they asked me to kill some rats, and I thought, no, I can't do this, but um, at some point I had to do it, and then you just kind of segregate it into some little corner of your mind where you don't think about it because I mean, actually, it turns out that scientists, by and large, are not sadists, right? But they have to have a way of carrying on with vivisection, otherwise, they won't get their grants, they won't get their money, they I mean, it's uh they'll be fired from their jobs. I mean, it actually is um a very, very complicated situation to talk about, and perhaps we'll get into that about why scientists do these things. Um now, I over the years I did it, but I started to think about it more and more. And then at some point I thought, you know, because you know, as Lauren said, um, the argument is what well, we have to do these things, you know. I mean, it's always been this way. And in fact, I mean, animal-based research actually started with Aristotle, you know, in the third century BCE, and uh and and and you know, in in modern times with people like Descartes and William Harvey. It wasn't till the end of the 19th century that we got an anti-vivisection movement. The first Nash NAVS was founded in 1876 in London. Anyway, I asked my I started to ask myself, you know, is this really true? I mean, um, it just didn't feel right. And I started to investigate the whole thing. And um, first of all, as Lauren pointed out, in you know, in the 17th century, maybe William Harvey was a great physiologist and used over 30 animals in his research, including his wife's parrot. Um, I I uh maybe he had to do these things. I mean, there wasn't much of an alternative. But what about these days? Are there alternatives? How good are they? How are we going to um engage with them? This is something that Lauren pointed out. So that was one thing. But there's something else, I think, which which impressed me, and that was something that is even more compelling than the science per se. And I think you can make scientific arguments that are very powerful. And I'll read you a quote, actually, um by philosopher in the 19th century, Jeremy Bentham, who was a great utilitarian philosopher. And um, you know, a lot of the arguments about animals and why we could use them, which which come down from Aristotle, really, are that, you know, animals are different. Aristotle said animal soul is different from a human soul. Because if animals and humans are the same in in many ways, you can't do things to animals that you couldn't do to humans if that was true. So you had to be able to separate them in some way. And and the argument would always be things like animals don't have a rational soul, they're not rational, right? Well, animals don't have language, so they can't really be, you know, um intelligent like a human being. So this is what Bentham said about it. Bentham said, the question is um not whether they can reason or whether they can talk, but whether they can suffer. And I mean, to me, that is the thing. I actually don't think, I mean, even if there weren't any alternatives to animal experimentation, I think it's I I just came to the conclusion that it's it's not an ethical thing to do. And that we shouldn't be doing it. I mean, there's lots of things you could do in the world that might get you somewhere, but you don't do them because they're not ethical. So I think there are, I mean, I gradually became convinced, a by studying the history and understanding it, which is very, very important, I think, to understand how we got here, thinking about the alternatives to science, and then thinking about the moral issues that were involved, then I just decided, you know, that's it. And uh that's how I and then I actually wrote a book about it. I and then I thought, well, how could I be helpful in some way? So I actually, fortunately, the the the American navs, which is, you know, um in some ways descended from the the English navs years ago, is actually in Chicago. So I just turned up at their office one day and I said, Hey guys, you know, I mean, why don't I um give you a hand with all this? And they said, Yes, so that's how I ended up with with navs. Yeah.
Claudia HirtenfelderAmazing. Um, okay, there's a lot of both what you two have said here that I'd like to hopefully touch on over the course of our conversation. One, kind of the how systematized I think the use of animals is, right? Like how built into the system you spoke about grants, you spoke about education, um, how it's actually in some ways, especially for young scholars, might feel impossible to do anything else. So I'm hoping we'll talk about that. But perhaps let's start at a more kind of fundamental question, which is what is vivisection?
What Vivisection Means Today
Claudia HirtenfelderSo uh, you know, and from my for prepping for today, what I learned was just vivisection is uh to cut open a living being. So as opposed to dissection, which is to cut open a dead being. Uh and that vivisection, while a lot of us, especially in the animal studies realm, might think of it as in relation to animal and animals experiments, that it's not something that was exclusively historically used on animals. That vivisection, the cutting open of a living organism, has been done on both humans and animals, um, and that there's a long history of doing this. Richard, could you tell us a little bit about that history? Where did vivisection begin and how are humans and animals kind of part of its history?
Richard MillerWell, as I say, I mean it began with Greek science, which was the earliest science. The first real biologist to have an extensive research program was Aristotle. Aristotle used animals, he did whatever. The Greeks, in fact, weren't allowed to go anywhere near they weren't allowed to do experiments on live humans, and they weren't even allowed to do experiments on human corpses because they were thought to be um uh you get polluted by them. So so they used plenty of animals, and then later on in the Roman Empire, there was a very famous doctor called Galen who really established the whole of what ancient medicine and uh um create, and so by the time the Roman Empire fell in 476 uh AD, you had this Galenic medicine, which then spread all over Europe. It spread to the um Arab caliphates, you know, the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates that were you know conquering um Andalusia and all of North Africa. So it was really the way of doing medicine. But then what happened was, you know, science really disappeared after the fall of the Roman Empire. There wasn't any science for actually a thousand years until we get to um I would say uh the the 15th century, the 16th century. So that's a long time. There really wasn't any science. And in six the 16th century, I would say if you take the year 1543, there was really the start of science. Um the first of all, there was the book written by Copernicus, where he showed that the earth went round the sun, De Revolutionabus, right? Um, rather than the other way around. And then there was the book De Fabricum by Vesalius, where he actually did dissect human corpses um and started to make uh alterations to the things that we'd inherited from the Romans in terms of new knowledge. And then we get philosophers like Descartes who come along about the same time and saying human and an animal are both machines, except the human has something else as well. It has a soul which is given to it by God. An animal doesn't have that. So, okay, so it's fine to do experiments on animals, right? Because they don't have a soul and they're just machines. And actually, it's really the Cartesian form of Cartesian thinking, thinking of Descartes, that animals are machines, is really how we still do science, frankly. That's that's the model. And so after that, and the the you know, the revival of science during the Enlightenment in the you know 17th and 18th century, down to the present day, it's that kind of thinking that really powers the idea of um how we do science. Um, now again, I don't know because I think Lauren should butt in now, but something we should talk about later, perhaps, is why it is these days, because we're not in the 17th century now, um scientists still feel compelled to do these things, and a lot of that's got to do nothing to do with science. Let me just say one thing. I mean, I like to distinguish in my brain between two things. One is science, and the other is what I call having a life in science. And most scientists today that work at drug companies or universities are having a life in science. That means there's a huge amount of pressure on them, a huge amount of politics, a huge amount of things that have got nothing to do with science at all, which really compel them to do these things. And and and And and you know, we started getting a reaction to this with the National Antivisection Society. I guess I think Lauren should take over and talk about that, yeah.
From Aristotle To Modern Medicine
Lauren SteinOh, well, in in in the UK, when the UK National Anti-Vivisection Society was created, it was largely created by women. And I think that the anti-vivisection movement really struggled because of sexism. People believed that women, um, it was their emotions that were driving their rationale for not using animals in research, and that was more important to them than the scientific rationale. And so for a long time, you know, this idea, again, like what Richard had said, this relationship between animals is as a tool for us to better understand scientific physiological processes, really maintains is still pervasive. And so we don't think about the ethical or emotional component. I think that has a lot to do with the foundations of the movement and sexism. In the 19 in 1929, the National Anti-Vivis Section Society was created by three people, one being a former actor, uh George Arles. And, you know, we we've been around for a hundred years, and and for a long time, the argument was more of an ethical uh moral underpinning to why we shouldn't use animals. And what we've seen over the past hundred years is that really evolved slower than we would have liked because of this infrastructure that Richard's talking about and the external pressures that scientists face. But we're starting to see that there really are alternatives that can be taken seriously and that there are scientific underpinnings for why animals shouldn't be used, in addition to discussing the ethical moral component, which most scientists are very uncomfortable to talk about. Um even today, to you know, still it's it's kind of you compartmentalize.
Richard MillerIn all my years in science, which is a lot, I have never once had a colleague come up to me and have a conversation or start a conversation about the ethical constraints of what they're doing. Never, not even one time. I mean, I've I've bought it up with other people.
Speaker 1What? That blows my mind a little bit. I'm like constantly questioning the ethics of everything.
Richard MillerYou you you you can't do that really if you're in this box. Um and we can talk about that. Uh I do want to say one thing, and I the the thing about women is very interesting because in the 19th century, I mean, there wasn't just um, you know, uh laws coming into play about um treatment of animals, but there were laws coming into play about the treatment of women and and the treatment of slaves, right? And all kinds of things. They're all related in a way. And very often it was the same women who were involved in all these movements. The other thing that was uh always interests me is that at the same time there was a very big movement in um in the Western world uh for what we call spiritualism. There were things called like the Theosophical Society with Henrietta Blavatsky and things like that. And most of these women were also very strong adherents of spiritualism as well. So there's a lot of things cooking there in the 19th century about uh about, you know, providing freedoms and changing laws for a lot of things that weren't right. You know, there was socialism as well. I mean, there are all kinds of things going on there.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah, the 19th century, there's a reason books and books and books have been written about, especially the second half of the 19th century, because it seems like a lot seems to change and happen um over the course of that. I mean, every century is obviously packed with stuff, but the 19th century there seems to be a lot of social change and social um mobilization uh in new and interesting ways. So there's three kinds of dynamics with regards to, I guess, the continued experimentation on animals. Um, and I'm going to assume here when I say animal experimentation that it includes experiments on live animals and dead animals.
Richard MillerSo I think actually the term vivisection has changed a bit. I mean, originally it did mean cutting up animals, but I think these days it means it's used in a way that means any experiment on live animals. Because you know, you can do behavioral experiments on animals, which are incredibly cruel, like you know, taking the babies away from the mom and things like that. And you're not vivisecting them, but I think vivisection has sort of come to mean any experiment on live animals these days.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah, yeah, that's that seems to be my that historically it started with this act of cutting open live animals, which I think still happens, but it happens with anesthetics and that testing on live animals like that still happens. But the common discourse scientists don't seem to use the word vivisection anymore. They'll use animal research or experimentation, and activists will tend to use the term vivisection. Is that what you've found, Lauren?
Lauren SteinThat's exactly what I found. I think scientists view the term vivisection as a little anachronistic because they're thinking of it as the literal definition and historical definition of cutting into a live animal. But like I had mentioned, you know, there's this the advent of Iacooks, so institutional animal care and use committees, there's regulatory agencies that are overseeing everything is done to try to minimize pain and suffering in animals. Um, you know, I think by looking at it as its historical literal definition, we lose sight of really what it is, what it really is, and it's that relationship between using animals for some some other purpose, right? And so I think vivisection really does encompass that. But it does, you know, it is hard when you're engaging with scientists because I do think they, you know, they can write us off as, okay, well, that's not really being done like it was, you know, in the 1500s. We've we've come a long way. And so in that way, I feel like using the term vivisection can kind of hurt us when engaging with the scientific community. But um, I do think that there's this broadening, though, of the definition within the scientific community as well as as far as like what vivisection is.
Claudia HirtenfelderWell, it's it's interesting because I think it has some conceptual and ethical baggage, particularly um, I mean, both with regards to humans and animals. I think, you know, humans were also historically tested on in this way. And what's interesting is if you compare the two discourses of how the history of vivisection on humans and the history of vivisection on animals is discussed, it doesn't have the same kind of moral contempt attached to it. Um and I think rightfully so, Richard, speaking back to what you were talking about earlier, that at some point you realize it's not a question of whether there are or are not alternatives, it's a question of whether this is something we should or should not be doing, um, irrespective. And I think there comes a point at which, at least amongst humans, and again, what's written down and what actually happens in practice are not always the same things, it becomes somewhat accepted that testing on live humans in this way is morally repulsive or or not acceptable. Whereas that is not the case with animals, or it seems to be changing now, and I think you you mentioned a lot of this with the society, that there is a shift, at least from the general public, with regards to this, if not from scientists just yet.
Richard MillerWell, that that that's that's that's true. I mean, all the work that's done on animal law, animal safety, um being against vivid section, that's all, I mean, at a university. That's all done in the humanities. There are no there are no scientists who are anti-vivisectionists. Well, there's one, that's me, and there's a maybe a couple of others. But really, that simply doesn't happen.
How New Tools Enable New Harms
Richard MillerThe other thing I'd like to mention before we go on is that, you know, this thing about, well, we can use anesthetics now is is is all very well. And there are certain things that we do with anesthetics that would be just somebody like William Harvey would have done, which we just can't, you know, we just would throw our hands up. But unfortunately, um the use of anesthetics now allows you to do different kinds of what we call survival surgery. That is to say, that you can use anaesthetics to change an animal in such a way that you can use techniques like there's one called optogenetics, for example, or there's one called chemogenetics. So that you can now have a live animal that didn't suffer during its surgery, but now is surviving again, but it's changed in such a way that you can do absolutely ghastly things to it. More ghast more ghastly things.
Claudia HirtenfelderCan you tell me about what what do those mean? What what what are you what are you talking about here?
Richard MillerWell, the point is, for example, um uh I if if I want to cause an animal a certain kind of pain, right? I mean, by the way, it uh scientists don't use animals as models to make them happy, they're trying to mimic diseases, right? So so so anything you do to an animal in science is bound to be like something horrible. They're not like uh trying to, you know, investigate, try and make animals, you know, more happy. You know, I mean, except from the point of view they're trying to cure a disease, which is true. So, for example, what's the technique? Well, so there's a technique. Let's say I want to give give animals a certain kind of pain. What I can do is I can make an animal so that it expresses a certain kind of protein in its pain nerves, right? And then if I flash a laser light at those nerves, it'll feel pain. Even when it's so the animal will have have an operation or something like that, it'll survive. Now it's walking around. But if I flash a certain kind of light at it, it will feel pain because I'm activating these nerves. And that's just the start of it. I mean, the preparation of live animals is becoming increasingly complex as far as experimentation is concerned. And I mean, people, I mean, this isn't a science lecture, so I'm not going to go into it, but you can do increasingly more complicated, more horrible things to animals, even though you're not, you know, hurting them when you actually necessarily do operation because you've got an anesthetic. So I mean, basically it's just switched from from really, or in some ways it's switched from like not hurting animals anymore than the way we used to, but making much more sophisticated ways where we can hurt them in currently.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah. So like sometimes we speak about breed as having like torture breeds, we're breeding, we're breeding into some animals, uh, specific dogs or cats, torture mechanisms, and here science is being used to kind of intervene and insert, I guess, torture mechanisms of sorts. I know I've seen um, I mean, I've seen rats that have human ears that have been growing on their backs, or like, or cartilage at least, or that have been inserted with specific types of cancers so that they grow or they become lame. You're literally fundamentally changing the constitution of the animals that they can't experience the world the way they would want to. They have absolutely no choice in how they experience it. It's unlike a cage. You there is no option of even exiting or leaving that cage. They are fundamentally changed.
Lauren SteinYeah, I well, I was gonna say too, you know, these animals do not develop human, a lot of these human diseases at all. So this is a completely unnatural model, I guess, that we've generated. And I mean, a little bit to what Richard was saying too, you know, this happens a lot in neuroscience. And I think neuroscience has a long way to come if we want to maybe double-click on that a little bit. This idea of how can we possibly, without using a living organism, um, understand how the brain is controlling, you know, a a whole a whole organism or how behavior occurs. And so there are these very invasive procedures in which you know a steel rod is basically placed into the animal's brain in a very specific location in which you can administer drugs, you can administer um light to kind of study these different behaviors, and those, you know, while they give us some information about the neurocircuitry, it I I just pause to think, you know, don't we have similar tools that we can study the the human brain uh and this neurocircuitry with in a very non-invasive way that is more relevant to human behavior?
Richard MillerYeah, yeah, Lauren, and that gets us all into the subject of like what are these alternative techniques? And and you're very right, very it's very true that in neuroscience, for example, you have imaging now, which is becoming more and more sophisticated. Whereas the animal models of things like you know, schizophrenia, which rats don't get, by the way, at least I don't think so, or um, you know, park uh or Alzheimer's disease.
Lauren SteinBipolar, bipolar.
Richard MillerYeah, I mean they're looking more and more useless, which they always have been, actually. Um I always I mean it's always interesting to me, and I always tell people this is that, for example, I mean, if you want to make a uh, let's face it, like morphine is an incredibly valuable drug. Maybe it's the most valuable drug that humans have because it addresses pain. But of course, it does have side effects like stopping you breathing, addiction. So, um, okay, so let's let's make morphine a better drug, right? Um, and uh we'll test it on animals and this, that, and the other. Well, you know, people started trying to do that in 1848. And and until maybe last year, and I'm not even sure then. Um it depends how you look at it. Nobody has created a better anesthetic, a better uh uh analgesic, rather, than morphine using animal experiments in all that time. It's never been done. They've created other versions of morphine, which are opiates that work this way or that way, or other drugs like you know, new uh like lyrica and uh and amitryptylin and things that you can use. And none of these would develop using animals.
Claudia HirtenfelderIt's just does that seem unsigned unscientific then? Like the the pursuit of asking the same question, like is that, I guess on the one hand, is that very scientific to keep pursuing the same question for uh over a hundred years, or is that not scientific at all to keep pursuing the same question for a hundred years?
Richard MillerNo, it's very scientific. It's just that the models we were using, which are basically animal models, were just no good. And the fact is that because animals are different, and in certain key respects, very key respects, when you're developing a drug, those key respects are often very important. It could be like one amino acid is different in some protein, right? It can be very important, and um, you know, uh, we haven't really, I mean, the animal models just aren't aren't any good. And as Lauren says, we're we're developing much better models now that we can use on humans.
Claudia HirtenfelderWell, you you had mentioned earlier that there are three kinds of things happening here, Lauren. You had said that there has been something of a moral revolution, a technological revolution, and I think we spoke about institutional constraints. And I think what Richard's getting to here is perhaps some of the technological revolutions that are happening in science. So things like organoids and stuff, I'm guessing. So maybe you could walk us through some of these. Um, I guess, yeah, what are what are some of these alternatives?
Organ Chips Organoids And NAMS
Lauren SteinYeah, so the term you'll hear a lot is uh new approach methodologies or NAMS. Um and this is the definition is still continuing to be kind of fleshed out between different organizations or different govern governing bodies and different scientific communities across the world, but essentially it's identifying a tool that could replace um an animal to answer a biological question. And so what we're seeing come out that's really promising is um these microphysiological systems or MPS devices in which you are able to grow a layer of cells on a chip no bigger than the size of a thumb drive. You can hold it in your hand. Um and then this chip has different channels in it in which you can have fluids passing through. So mimicking, you know, blood flow, the flow of nutrients, drug delivery, things like that to on a on a very small scale model what's going on using human cells, and in some cases using a patient's human patient cells. And we can do that by you know uh taking a skin cell, some process using um uh chlorophant stem cells, IPSCs, um, in order to convert them, transform them into whatever cell type it is you're interested in studying. And so we can also with these within these little small devices mimic some of the more uh physical components. So stretching, like a breathing lung, you can expose the the cells to a breathing lung, or the idea of like having a beating heart. So some of these physical properties are also being mimicked as well. There's a lot of promise with these, I know in the toxicology space. The other is organoids that you'll hear a lot. Oh, so so the microphysiological devices, you'll also hear those called like organ on a chip. The problem, one of the problems with organs on a chip that uh the other scientists will say is you know, how you can't model a complex system in which you have multiple organs. You know, it's never going to mimic a whole organism with all, you know, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, and something.
Claudia HirtenfelderIt sounds like Russia doing a poor job of doing the thing.
Lauren SteinBut we're starting to see scientists connect these organ chips. And so now we're creating a circuit in which we are mimicking these different um organ systems, assembled.
Claudia HirtenfelderCool.
Lauren SteinAnd um, we also have organoids, and so these are self-forming cells that form a three-dimensional structure and can be made up of multiple different cell types uh that can mimic or that model that are, you know, major components of that particular organ, and you can better understand mechanis, you know, cellular mechanisms, um, cell-to-cell communication, uh responses to drugs, you know you name it, you can um answer a lot of these biological questions using an organoid.
Claudia HirtenfelderSo we're seeing I'm guessing computational methods in AI are also coming in as well.
Lauren SteinComputational methods in AI as well, um, using existing data um to I think one of the things, I don't know the exact numbers, but um, you know, drug companies are more and more focused on these off-label effects of drugs, right? So the drug was created to treat a specific or certain disease approved by the FDA to treat that disease. And what they're finding is there are off-label uses as well. And it's a lot cheaper to um, you know, reappropriate. And so I think computational tools are really play a big role in that. Screening drugs now uh to try and find you know good better targets is computation in the computational space really coming a long way. And I think we're really gonna start seeing some powerful um forward momentum is the combination of these organ chips with AI to better understand human physiology and human disease.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah, it's wild. I had Thomas Harting on the show, I don't know, it must be about two years ago or something. He spoke about, I think, organoids and brain on a chip, and my mind was just like, what? Because it sounds so science fiction, it sounds like the future. And I remember him saying, you know, animal experimentation just seems, and I think you say this in the open chapter of your book as well, Richard, that in many ways it just seems so dated in comparison to what a lot of this innovation is. You know, earlier on you mentioned, you know, scientists want to do science. So there's science and then there's having a life in science. And I get it because there's this pressure to publish, there's this pressure to produce, to look like you are smart and doing the science and doing the things, but not necessarily been given the time and the space to contemplate, to think, to do, to really, you know, the people that are able to experiment with these alternative methods have to have tenure and have to have the space to kind of experiment and play with ideas. So it seems to me, I mean, you it seems like there's a moral vacuum. You you know, you've said scientists don't tend to talk about this, but it seems like the science is there, it's coming along, the technology is coming along, but these institutional constraints are real and they're Serious.
Grants Careers And The Pressure Trap
Claudia HirtenfelderSo perhaps we could just talk a little bit about what these mean. Because sometimes it's easy to think about scientists as being these bad villains who are just out there to hurt the mice and the frogs and um No, no, they're not actually.
Richard MillerI mean, the scientists, you know, most scientists I know that do like experiments that I can't even talk about on air, then go home to their dogs and cats who they absolutely love. There's something weird going on. There are several things going on. So let me start and then hand it over to Lauren. I mean, when you work, and let's face it, there are two two big users of animals in research in the United States and Europe too, and in China and everywhere else, actually. And one is uh toxicology in the pharmaceutical industry, and the other is research in universities. So so they have slightly different considerations. But in a university, if I mean universities these days in this country have basically become corporations that are really only worried about their brand, you know, and they're only really worried about there's only one thing that actually matters to universities these days, and that is getting in money. That's the only thing you hear about. So if you're a scientist, the way you get money in is to get grants, right? So you just can't, I mean, and the university is pressurizing you all the time to get these grants, to bring in money, to pay your salary, and if you don't do it, you won't get tenure. And even if you've got tenure, you'll some other awful thing will happen to you. Who knows? Um, so so the the the point is that I mean, um this is this is the world scientists live in, and they just feel they can't rock the boat. So, I mean, science, the world of science, that all these scientists are in this little bubble, right? And they talk to each other about things, about how things should go. They're really sort of separated from the real world. I mean, if you show um somebody walking down the street a method section in a scientific paper, have them read it and say, What do you think of this? They'll go, you know, what is this like? An R-rated, an X-rated movie? But a scientist was first of all, they'll, as Lauren actually said, they'll substitute other words. You know, you don't kill animals, you sacrifice them. So sacrificing, or euthanasia, you sacrifice animals, it sounds like they're doing it.
Claudia HirtenfelderIs that the common word used in scientific literature? Sacrifice?
Richard MillerIt sounds like what so if you sacrifice animal, it sounds like the animal's doing it for some kind of spiritual purpose of its own.
Claudia HirtenfelderThat's the legitimate word used in scientific journals, sacrifice. Yeah.
Richard MillerIt could be you, it could be, it could be used at euthanased or sacrificed or somebody, you never say I'm gonna kill these animals. This just simply isn't that. And I mean, so scientists, um, their grants are reviewed by other scientists who are doing exactly the same thing as they are and have exactly the same constraints. And so, I mean, people just aren't really prepared to think out of the box on this at all because they're just too worried about everything. And I mean, I'm some of them have convinced themselves, I suppose, that they have to use animals. But, you know, if you really go into it in any depth at all, that's that's not true. And as Lauren points out, you know, these techniques are coming along. I mean, actually, it's inevitable that they'll come along. And I I would say, I don't know, in 10 years, maybe or 20 years, there won't be any more animal experiments. It's gonna disappear in the rear view mirror as these other techniques are brought on board. Because let's face it, an organism, right, like a human or a rat, it's it's an object. I mean, if you're an intelligent scientist and you use cell biology and biochemistry, you can figure out how, I mean, at some point you'll be able to figure out how a liver works, how a brain works in a human. What is it, magic? Uh, that humans have a different kind of soul like Aris? I don't think so. It's just science. So it's inevitable. And what we're seeing now is the tip of the iceberg, which is gonna turn into a tsunami of human-based experimentation and animal experimentation, frankly, is just gonna disappear. We're at that kind of tipping point at the moment. Do you think that's true, Lawrence?
Lauren SteinYeah, well, I do want to take a little bit of a step back too and talk about you know the institutional pressures and just add on that, you know, the people who are reviewing these grants, and you had said this, Richard, but just to be more explicit about it, you know, they're not trained in these new approach methodologies. And so if you want to get a grant funded, you know, you have to in some ways write the grant to who you think is going to be reviewing your grant to have the best opportunity. And then also when you're publishing your research, so many scientists who are doing uh these new approach methodologies are being asked to do animal experiments constantly in order to get their work published. And um you know, it's this bias that animals are still the gold standard, that um they've been validated amongst the scientific community. And um is is a real challenge for people who are trying to do research and publish because you know you're having to to really prove and uh that your technique beyond what an animal, you know, it has to be above and beyond what an animal is able to show you. So I think the bar is even higher too for scientifically higher for validation.
Claudia HirtenfelderI'd imagine that's also because money's built into this, right? So, like you mentioned earlier, there's the making of animals, there's the selling of animals, there's there's I mean, there's massive, so it's not just about the the scientific knowledge that we could gain from these experiments, it's it's literally industries built around the use of animals and the creating of them and the making of them.
Richard MillerAnd one of one part of that industry is what we call universities these days. I mean, it's all about money. I'm I'm serious. It's it's it's amazing. The other thing that uh Lauren, you I'd love you to comment on is it's something that is even more bizarre.
Legal Gaps And Invisible Animal Numbers
Richard MillerI mean, this gets like really bizarre, I'm telling you. So the question is, what is an animal, right? So, for example, you know, uh is a monkey an animal? Yeah. Is uh a giraffe an animal? Yeah, is um a skunk an animal? Sure. Is a mouse an animal? No. According to the law in this country, the law. I mean, I always thought in my more naive moments that the laws had to have actually something to do with reality, but in fact, they actually don't. Um lawyers tell me. Uh so in the United States, rats, mice, and birds are not defined as animals. So laws, the federal laws that cover animals don't cover those things. Now, different states can intervene to produce um um things that do protect those animals, but but the American law does not um does not even admit that a mouse is an animal. How can that possibly be? That's just, I mean, that's just bonkers, right? That's completely insane. I mean, how are we living in a country where such a thing can be actually on the books, right, Lauren?
Lauren SteinI mean, yeah, definitely. You know, a lot of this the the regulatory oversight, you know, the FDA and the NIH, EPA have all recently signaled that they're very interested in these new approach methodologies. The problem is creating a pathway for scientists to actually utilize NAMS to be assured that regulatory bodies are going to accept them as valid and that they can feel confident that the results of these methods are going to give information about whether or not the drug is safe and whether or not the drug is effective. And so, you know, that trickles down from the top. And also, we have no clue how many animals are being used in research because of what Richard is saying, the Animal Welfare Act does not cover the large, the most animals used in research are mice, rats, zebra fish now as well. Um and these are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act. And so while I cook so these institutional boards might require reporting of how many mice or you know rodents that you use or breed, that's completely black hole for us. And so we're talking millions of animals that just know hundreds of millions of animals that we just have no clue what the what they're what the purpose is for which we're they're being used. And we just have to what assume that these the scientific powers that be have deemed that this this experiment is necessary and we can only do this in an animal.
Claudia HirtenfelderAnd so, yeah, it's yeah, I mean it's it's it's fascinating because you're seeing here, I mean, these are very human problems to some extent, right? It's the management of your life, your day-to-day life. How do I pay my bills? How do I get a job? How do I sustain my status? These are human problems and real material concerns, right? Someone has a family at home, they don't want to rock the boat, as you say. That's a uh and and then I mean you start to think about students entering this, you've you've got less power, you're being funded by your supervisor, your ability to respond to or resist the experimentation is much great uh greatly reduced. So and then you've got institutions, universities as institutions, whose primary interest increasingly is making money. I mean, I'm always surprised by universities. These are the houses of knowledge, and what they do in their institutions often don't take on what the actual people in their walls are saying to do. Things with regards to how people eat, how the universities function, use of other technologies like, I don't know, solar panels, et cetera, they're not really integrated into university systems, even though those are the houses of where the knowledge is produced. So that points to disconnect between what universities say they are and how they're actually operationalized. And then on top of that, you've got policy and law, which is actually just the structure of social relations, right? And as you said, there's again this pressure. I know with in some countries, cosmetics have to be tested on animals. So you could even have something that goes through a research body that hasn't, for whatever reason, been tested on animals, only to reach a um regulatory barrier where they have to, where they have no option but to do it. So the the systemic use of the animals here is so ingrained that, yeah, I'm surprised, Richard, that you say that you think that in 20 years it might be gone. Because not because I don't think the tech won't adapt, but I'm I'm I'm less convinced that these institutions are able to adapt so quickly.
Richard MillerThe reason I say that is this. So as Lauren has mentioned, you know, we've got all these new techniques coming. Another one she hasn't actually mentioned is is is uh human uh genomics, where you can measure all the genes in humans in different diseases, okay, and find out what's going on, which is a very widely used technique these days. So we're a bit of a tipping point at the moment, actually, because there is, because of all these new techniques, it's becoming clearer and clearer and clearer all the time. I mean, you can't open a copy of a journal like Science or Nature these days and not see a NAMS-based paper. It's it's a very so there there is, as I said, a kind of tsunami of knowledge which is leading to that. Now, um the uh government has now changed the rules at the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, a lot, so that you can actually use these kinds of methods instead of animals, almost sometimes exclusively use them actually.
Claudia HirtenfelderWow.
Richard MillerWhat we're yeah, but it it it's coming, it's coming, okay? The government is hearing, and I mean, this is one of the only areas where Democrats and Republicans actually agree with each other, because they're actually hearing from their constituents that people don't like this kind of thing. So so this is moving along, and at some point, and this is the big point, you'll start to be able to get grants more easily doing this kind of thing because the writing's on the wall. Once scientists can write grants to do these things and bring money into the universities.
Funding Signals And Public Pushback
Lauren SteinWell, well, Rich, I will the NIH recently, you know, they put out this mandate that they are no longer gonna fund animal-only studies. Now, there's lots of stipulations that you know there's existing studies, you know, they'll continue to funding the funding those, I believe, renewals. So if you've been doing animal research and you apply for a renewal and it's only using animals, I believe that you know is is fair game. But they have signaled, you know, that you cannot submit a grant that only uses a new grant that only uses animals. And so that's a huge shift, and is real we're really gonna see um a big, big impact there. But again, the people are still doing animal research, you know.
Richard MillerIt's not right, but you know, we're at that, we're at that tipping point, aren't we? As soon as more grants, more money comes into the universities, the universities will say, and and and I mean, I'm talking about like 10 years from now, universities will say, Animal research? What the hell is that? You know, why are you doing that? It's like I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. It is it is it is now as a scientist, and I'm quite a sophisticated scientist, actually. I mean, I've been through all these things, these revolutions in technologies before. It is definitely going this way. It is definitely going to happen. There is no doubt about it whatsoever. Now, I have to say that I mean, um, of course, human-based science has all kinds of other ethical issues that are uh apropos for dealing with human beings and things like that, but they aren't the same issues that we have when dealing with animals who are defenseless creatures, right? So we'll see. But I have no doubt that um the animal animal experimentation is gonna be dead as a door knell in some years, you know.
Claudia HirtenfelderI I now have two follow-up questions. One, so you said the NIH was funding, and that made me wonder where does most funding for animal research come from? Does it tend to be state funded, or do you have private industry that's funding it things primarily? And the second is Richard, if you could unpack what you're talking about with regards to how these problems with humans and animals are slightly different. So let's start with you, Lauren, and the funding.
Lauren SteinHow does the Yeah, the funding, I mean, the the vast majority of funding in the academic sector comes from the federal government, from the NIH. Um there are small.
Claudia HirtenfelderIs that the case globally? Like around the world, most countries.
Lauren SteinOh, that's an excellent question. I I actually I don't know.
unknownOkay.
Lauren SteinI would imagine it's the same.
Richard MillerThat most of it comes from the government? Yeah. Yeah, it comes from the government, uh, mostly in every country.
Lauren SteinYou'll you'll see some smaller like institutional grants, um, that the uh or that universities award, but large by and large it comes from the government. And so that speaks to, you know, while the NIH the NIH and the FDA are signaling that they're supportive of NAMS, we're also seeing cuts in in overall scientific funding, which is counterproductive to what we're trying to do. So just want to put that out there as well. But also there's tons of money on the pharmaceutical side, of course, um, that that is using animals as well. But in the in in the academic setting, yeah.
Claudia HirtenfelderThe the reason I asked is I just because I think, I mean, because you start to think about animals are used in a variety of different research realms, right? For research. So you've got animals in veterinary science, you've got animals in agricultural sciences, you've got animals in medicine, etc. Um, and it's just it's always interesting when you start to follow the money. Uh, because I'd be, I don't know the answer to this myself, but it would be interesting to see, you know, if you look at the agricultural sciences and the ways in which animals are being researched on there, is it primarily state funded or industry funded? Um, it would be, you know, and and because the state does provide agriculture a lot of subsidies, you could perhaps say, yeah, there's always just an interplay. I think in our imaginaries, we've got in our minds that animal testing is being driven by private interests. But there is a deep interplay here with the state and public interests, which is why, as you said earlier, Richard, maybe governments are responding, is because the public is saying that they're finding this increasingly difficult to stomach.
Lauren SteinWell, I do want to say on that point, so Gallup has been recording, you know, sentiment within the United States. Because if you ask somebody, okay, would you rather me cure your child who has cancer or you know, and and use an animal to figure out whether or not that that treatment is effective or not, you know, just painted in a ridiculous way, but you know, or not use an animal. And so it's kind of posed that way as a moral question. And we've seen more Americans than ever before believe it is morally unacceptable to use animals no matter the outcome.
Speaker 1What? And that's what the question is.
Lauren SteinWell, you would have to the the question is yes, are you morally opposed to the use of animals in science?
Claudia HirtenfelderBut does it use people's children? Like it's just it would be interesting to see what's I don't know how to do.
Lauren SteinLike, okay, well, yes, you don't want to use animals, but you also want to cure to cancer, and you can't have both. And I mean, our argument is you can. And there are these approaches. In a lot of ways, I feel like animal uh research has actually slowed us down, probably from identifying different treatments. Imagine all the drugs that fail in, you know, animals, mice and rats are not humans, and so drugs that maybe fail in mice and rats could have worked in humans, and we just have no clue whatsoever. And so, yes, there's been science, there's definitely been progress.
Claudia HirtenfelderDo you think those failed experiments will be revisited now that you've got, I guess, computationally for sure.
Lauren SteinThey and they already are. And I think there's using genomics, um you have uh multiomics, so looking at proteomics, genomics, transcriptomics, to really have a full picture of of how the cell is working in a specific organ system. And yeah, that that's all being done definitely for sure.
Claudia HirtenfelderAmazing. Okay, and then Richard, the the what you were saying, kind of the difference in problems that emerge between thinking about humans and animals. What were you what were you alluding to there?
When Human Models Raise New Ethics
Richard MillerWell, I mean, let's say you are building um a human brain out of uh stem cells, right? Which we are increasingly able to do. Um, somebody, I mean, there was a paper in Nature a month or so ago where somebody actually used stem cells to design an entire nerve pathway that led from, you know, the periphery, that is touching something that was too hot, right? Right up through the spinal cord and up to the cortex, where um, you know, things are conscious, you know, things become uh consciously evaluated as pain. So the the these um models of humans are becoming more and more sophisticated. So, for example, uh an issue would be okay, so I've now made something that is very similar to a human brain, right? Uh which we are going to be able to do, we're already nearly doing it. And the question is, is that brain conscious? And if it's conscious, what are the ethics behind that, right? In other words, the thing, I mean, we're starting with a cell. We've got it more complicated, more complicated. At some point, there's a gray area between whether we've got a human being or whether we've got something that we've constructed in a dish. And when we're in that gray area, you know, we've got to understand like what exactly are we creating? Is this something that feels pain? Is it conscious? I mean, that's that's definitely um a moral issue, right? And uh so people talk a lot, I mean, there's a lot of discussion about things like that these days. Okay, so that's the that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. As we as we as we produce more and more complex uh human models, right? Models of humans that that that come from stem cells and things. I mean, we we we are entering an area where we have to ask a lot of questions about what it is we're actually producing. I mean, they we may say, oh, this is a great, you know, model of the human nervous system, but if it's a model of the human nervous system, is it thinking? I mean, what the hell is going on here? So that that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Claudia HirtenfelderWell, I mean, what's what's interesting about that is we do know that many of the animals that we're talking about do think and experience and feel, including the rats. Birds and fish that you noted aren't listed as animals. So I mean we we know that already there. Um but as you were talking, it also made me wonder. So we we've spoken a little bit about how animals are used in experiments. So you've got a setup experiment to have, and you use the animal as a model to understand something. Um, but in talking about these alternatives, are animals used in any way to materially make these alternatives possible? So to process stem cells, to make these organoids, are these systems that kind of seem uh ethically neutral and different, are they still reliant on animals in any way?
Lauren SteinI mean, I think you bring up a really good point. And um, you know, part of the process of developing these NAMs is to validate them against the existing scientific literature. And so in a lot of cases, people want to validate against animal studies. And that's where I got to when I was mentioning reviewers asking for animal experiments. The problem with that is as we know, 70 to 90 percent of drugs that are tested in animals don't make it to clinical trials, right? That's a lot of time, money, and effort spent. So what are we really comparing these NAMS to? If animal studies are failing at the rate at which we think they are, are we setting up human NAMs for failure? I guess is what I'm saying. And you know, the bar being so high for human NAMS to be validated amongst the scientific community is a big challenge. And so I think that's what you're seeing. Some people believe a good transition would be to create an animal NAM. So create the organoid using mouse cells, and you you know, ask your question, you test a specific compound or try to understand a cellular mechanism there and say, is this exactly what we're seeing in the animal? And some people believe that's a good transition towards validating and getting uh human NAMS more widely adopted, but that is largely problematic for the reasons I had stated that animal studies are are flawed in in many, many ways and have not produced the outcomes that we would like to see. There are some like um some of the reagents rely on animals, so the matrix things rely on collagen or fetal bovine serum. So there are some things that are still uh use animals in that respect, but much into much, much, much lower degree. I believe that answers your question.
Claudia HirtenfelderUh yeah, yeah, it does. So so I mean, just to just to animals are still entangled in these new technologies, but in far um far lower numbers than the other.
Richard MillerBut you know, even that's gonna go away because I mean, once you have a cell line, right, that came from a mouse, you don't really need the mouse anymore, right? You have a mouse IPSC cell, you can an IPSC is a pluripotent stem cell, right? That means it can be turned into any tissue in the body, like a zygote, like a fertilized egg, right? Can it can act you can actually make any tissue in the entire body. So once we have cell lines from mice and cell lines from rats and cell lines from orangutans or whatever it is, you don't actually need the animal anymore because you can actually create the animal tissues using these cell lines. You don't have to every experiment doesn't rely on you dissecting the animal anymore. So, in fact, I mean, and Lauren is absolutely right. I mean, we are again at a scientific tipping point here where people say, all right, that that that's very good that you've created this organoid, but how does it check out with a mouse organoid? Because there's a massive literature historically going back. I mean, we can't say that you, you know, science on animals hasn't provided any useful results over the years because it obviously has. So we've got this huge scientific literature, and so people will say, well, you know, is this really uh is this really a good model? Uh, how does it compare with the literature? The literature is based on animals. So there's a lot of people who will say, Well, before we we completely leap off the animal thing, can you compare it with what went before and see if it makes sense? I mean, there's a certain that's a reasonable argument in some ways, but as I say, you know, very soon, even now actually, if we wanted to be brave, we wouldn't need animals anymore at all. So I I don't think that that we really have to do even.
Claudia HirtenfelderAnd of course, we still have to come back to that moral question that if it if Well here's here's a way I like to put it to
Education Dissection And Early Scientists
Claudia Hirtenfelderpeople.
Richard MillerUm let's say it was 30 years ago, and I would I was doing science like crazy 30 years ago. Let's say you the government came along and it said um we're gonna ban animal experimentation 30 years ago. Well, the scientists would like totally freak out. What are we gonna do? You know, I mean, I mean, you may maybe we'll go and work for Bloomingdales. I don't know. I don't know what we're gonna do, right? But if you said that these days, if the law, if if a government came into power tomorrow and said, no more animals, you cut it off from you know, Monday to Tuesday, you wouldn't have that. If scientists would just pivot. They'd say, okay, we're not allowed to do that anymore, but we can use this and we can use this, because a lot of scientists are like ridiculously clever.
Claudia HirtenfelderBut isn't that what science is supposed to be? Science is supposed to be responsive to the circumstances and and to figure stuff out.
Richard MillerBut what I'm trying to say is that you know, scientists are convincing themselves that they don't have to do that. Some of some of it, I think, honestly, is just intellectual laziness. I I think it's intellectual laziness. But if you if you completely cut off scientists from the use of animals tomorrow, they'd all pivot. They wouldn't like all like you know, leave science. They'd just do different experiments. They said, well, we can use this this stem cell to create um this part of the I mean they they do it.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah, you'd see innovation happening very quickly if they couldn't do it.
Richard MillerI mean, I I mean it's just nonsense to say that.
Claudia HirtenfelderI think it's you're seeing this happen in Canada a little bit, aren't you? With the recent passing, they recently, at least in Ontario, they recently passed a law that they can't use dogs in um experiments anymore. And this is, I mean, it in in a micro scale, you're seeing what you're saying happening, right? Like, fine, it's one type of uh animal, and it's one type of animal I think is being phased out already in great numbers, in although no dogs are still tested on quite a bit. But it it was interesting to see how the scientific community revolted against that. Like there was a great pushback, but if the policy exists, they've got to figure out a way to adapt. Unfortunately, I think in this case it means that they're gonna end up relying on other animals more intensely. But yeah, sorry, Lauren, you were gonna say something.
Lauren SteinThat's why at NAV, uh who we're most excited about and we see so much promise, is these early career scientists and making sure that they understand and know that there are alternatives out there. You know, so so people going into graduate school, um even at the high school level, knowing what an organoid is and being aware and and being able to make that choice and go into go into a lab and say and push back on their advisor and say, I want to I wanna incorporate a NAMS into your lab, like that's where we're also gonna really see big shifts. And I think the younger generation does see this as the future, right? It's incorporating AI. We are moving in that direction, and so I'm really excited to you know see where this next generation really takes us.
Claudia HirtenfelderIf they need support in thinking through how to push back against some of these institutions and stuff, I'm guessing your organization is a good place to start.
Lauren SteinYes. Yes, they can, yep.
Claudia HirtenfelderOkay, great, because that that can be quite isolating. I think if you're doing this and you're feeling alone and you're feeling pressurized, um, knowing who to contact and how to navigate what's a messy world. So they can contact navs, and navs exists from what I'm gathering in numerous countries, but even if they're outside of your country, I'm sure they can reach out to you to ask for definitely happy to help give kids the verbiage and confidence in order to push back.
Lauren SteinAlso at the level of classroom dissection, you know, let's not forget that in high school, you know. Frog dissection or dissection is a rite of passage in a lot of places still. And so, you know, there are opportunities for and this is really where kids first are exposed to vivisection. And so letting them know even then that there are alternatives out there is is very important that they can that they have a voice and that they can say that they're not okay with this.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah, your book, Richard, mentioned quite an interesting history about frogs and how frogs became a um, because I think when people think about experimental animals, they often think about rats. But of course the frog is the go-to animal when thinking about classroom experimentation. And the history of frogs with experimentation is quite extensive, right?
Richard MillerWell, I actually I mean mice and rats, mice is is very recent. When even when I started as a graduate student in the 1970s, everybody used uh rats. Um it became mice because mice were easier to manipulate genetically, and so we we went to mice. Um before that, if you went to the 19th century, people weren't using rats at all, they were using dogs. If you look at somebody like Claude Bernard, who was a fabulously uh um great scientist that invented the whole concept of homeostasis, the uh milieu intérieur, right? Of great, great scientists, but he was very, very cruel. I mean, his wife left him because he was so cruel, frankly. He he he he he was using dogs, they'd cut up dogs without any anaesthetic and um you know it was disgusting, but he he was a very smart guy. And before dogs, I mean if you go back to the uh 18th century, yeah, people were using frogs a lot. The reason for that is that you know, the frog legs, right? You can easily make a preparation which attaches the spinal cord to frogs' legs, so that if you put something on the spinal cord, the legs will twitch like this. It's very easy to observe that. So all um neuros, all neuroscience and the idea that nerves are electrical comes from work by Galvani and Volta back in the 18th century who were using frogs. So, yeah, it kind of went, it was frogs, um, and as a and then it went to dogs, and then it went to rats, and now it went to mice, and now we're back to humans. Yay.
unknownAll right.
Claudia HirtenfelderWell, um, I mean, it's uh I I read portions of your book, it's really interesting. I'll just tell people every now to check out the rise and fall of animal experiments. It's very well done. I've appreciated your layout of the book. It's easy to follow, and the history is uh fascinating, and your moral voice is also quite strong. You raise questions throughout about um when this is happening and also questions of ethics and science. So thank you for that work. Uh, perhaps we could turn out your quotes before we
NAVS Programmes Final Quotes And Close
Claudia Hirtenfelderwrap things up. Uh, Lauren, why don't we start with you?
Lauren SteinSo at NAVS, we believe the path to better science is through investing in better science. That means supporting human-relevant research, humane education, and rescue organizations that help animals transition out of laboratories. This is a complex problem that requires solutions on multiple fronts. And we're working to address each of them with the goal of creating a future where no animal is treated as a lab experiment. To learn more, visit us at nabs.org.
Claudia HirtenfelderGreat. And why don't you mention a couple of those? So I know you work on things like humane science, you work on policy, um, you talk about institutions, sanctuaries. Why don't you walk us through a couple of your programs?
Lauren SteinYeah, so we a lot of our we fund early career scientists through our partnership with the International Foundation for Ethical Research. We uh focus on graduate students and provide them with the resources they need to conduct their research. We also have a dissection alternative program called FIOLEAP. This provides a database of alternatives that teachers can use in the K through 12 of alternatives that exist that they can readily uh explore. We also have our ASAP grants. These are sanctuary programs, so any sanctuaries out there who are looking for support can apply for a grant and we'll um help that funding.
Claudia HirtenfelderDo you have funding? And this is a random question, but I know increasing numbers of social scientists are doing work on understanding sanctuaries and the ways in which they function. Because I, you know, what I found interesting about the NAVS website was you guys focus on everything from the beginning to the end of the process, right? So you're looking at um, how do animals get into labs and how do we stop that from happening by focusing on policy, how are animals actually tested on, and how do we stop that by intervening in schools and institutions and providing funding that gets alternatives on the table? And you provide support for animals that are exiting from lab experiments and lab situations by making sure that sanctuaries have the support they need if they're taking on beagles, for example, who I know are widely used. And I think that that's a really incredible model that you're focusing on on all these different stages. So, in terms of the research, randomly, in terms of the research you fund, do you also fund how the sanctuaries operate? Understanding how animals deal with trauma, for example, after exiting a lab?
Lauren SteinOh, that's fascinating. No, we don't at this time, but um something definitely to look into. Incredibly fascinating, uh aspect I had not thought of.
Claudia HirtenfelderOkay. Well, yeah, that's I think there's a lot of exciting stuff happening with sanctuaries at at the moment because they offer kind of microcosms of what an alternative world could be or could look like.
Lauren SteinThere are also organizations out there like Justify who are looking at the the welfare of people who have had to experience uh working with animals and the cog the psychological impacts of having to do some of these things. And um so that's great work too that I we definitely support. We don't have an active program, but it's definitely an important aspect of the anti-vivisection movement.
Claudia HirtenfelderI'll make sure the links are on the show notes. Um Richard, how about you? What's your what's your quote?
Richard MillerOkay, here's a quote from a fellow that I like. Says, Vivisection, in my opinion, is the blackest of all the blackest crimes that man is at present committing against God and his fair creation. Did you know who said that? I'll tell you, Mahatma Gandhi.
Claudia HirtenfelderYou have it right at the end of your book, right?
Richard MillerRight. In fact, Gandhi had a quite a there are quite a few nice quotes I could uh I could use. So yeah, I mean, I think that uh he was a great man and he said a lot of important things about how we can live peacefully with each other and with the with our planet, right? And with the other creatures. And so I think that's that says a lot, yeah.
Claudia HirtenfelderAnd um, yeah, I think that's a a great place to to leave it. Uh we didn't quite go as deep, I think, into the I mean, no, we we we sat on, I think ethics ran throughout this question. Um, you know, how do we take as a starting point that animal experimentation is wrong? And how do we start from where we are and develop a future that's not reliant on or even thinks about using animals? And I really hope that you are right here, Richard, that in in my lifetime I will see the end of this um this practice, that that science and institutions and policy will catch up with what I think many of us kind of know to be true, that they suffer and they are they're harmed in innumerable ways in these spaces. So thank you, thank you so much for your work. Before we close here, is there anything you want to mention about what you're currently working on and how folks can possibly get in touch with you?
Richard MillerI think Lauren, you mentioned the navs details already, but if there's anything else you want to note, well, I mean, if anybody's got questions about the science or science and animals, they can always email me. I'm always happy to answer questions. Um that that's fine.
Lauren SteinSame at navs, you can email us uh any questions you may have.
Claudia HirtenfelderIncredible. And and Richard, uh, you're a prolific author. You've got tons of books. Are you working on anything at the moment?
Richard MillerYeah, I just um I just finished a book about psychedelic drugs, actually. Psychedelic drugs is something that I actually work on quite a lot. And just to just to give you a final, it's funny you should mention that. So, psychedelic drugs, very interesting. They're actually the most interesting drugs people have ever come up with in terms of what they do to your conscious brain. So, how are you going to do animal experiments on human transcendence and things like that? I mean, there's a gigantic literature on doing research on psychedelic drugs using mice.
Claudia HirtenfelderWell, I think didn't they do it on dolphins?
Richard MillerWasn't there like a dolphin experiment decades ago when they fed acid to dolphins and acid's been given to every animal under the sun, but in terms of like our current, more sophisticated science, there's a huge literature on um giving LSD to mice and measuring this and measuring that. And you know, frankly, I mean, shoot me in the head, it's just like complete nonsense, right? Psychedelic drugs are very interesting these days because there's a whole renaissance of psychedelic drug use in terms of using these drugs for things like depression, PTSD, so on and so forth, and there may be a lot to that. So people are um very interested in making new molecules, you know, testing them to see if they produce more hallucinations, less hallucinations, better for this, better for that. So, like any other basic science, they need animal models. How are you gonna make an animal model? You know what the animal model is for the effects of LSD? The animal the mouse twitches its head like this. That's it. That's the animal model. He flexes it up, yeah, it gives a little twitch of the head. So that to me, that uh a mouse twitching its head uh has got very little to do with the reams and reams of uh of of of literature and poetry that have been written about the effects of psychedelic drugs. I don't really see that one, you know. It's just I mean, it just shows you how actually ludicrous these things can get.
Claudia HirtenfelderYeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, loads of people have spoken about their experiences on drugs, so I think you're right there. Um, all right. Well, that's uh probably the oddest place I've ended an episode saying that lots of people have written testaments about drugs, but maybe uh I think I think you're right. Uh there is a big question happening right now about um hallucinogenics and and their potentials, their medical potentials, really, their potentials for helping humans with trauma, for walking through. I mean, it's pretty exciting some of the things that are happening in the States with regards to helping people process past trauma and stuff. So I'm very much looking forward to that book. Uh, thank you for your work uh at NAVs, and thank you for your writing and for joining me on the show today. Thank you to Lauren Stein and Richard Miller for being incredible guests on the episode today. Thank you also to Casey Beaman for reaching out and uh suggesting them as potential guests on the show and for coordinating everything. It was really, really nice of you to do. As always, thank you to Jeremy John for the logo and Gordon Clark for the beard music. Thank you to Christian Mentz, Rebecca Schen, Carlo Solzani, and Hera DeBont for content creation and back of house support. I very much appreciate your help. Uh, this episode was produced and hosted by myself. This is The Animal Turn with me, Claudia Hirtenfelder.
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