Thalidomide animal tests 'no answer'

28 Jul 2012, 7:17 pm   -   Source: AAP
Thalidomide tests on pregnant animals wouldn't have stopped the drug hitting the market. (AAP)

Thalidomide tests on pregnant animals wouldn't have stopped the drug hitting the market. (AAP)

Thalidomide tests on pregnant animals wouldn't have stopped the drug hitting the market and deforming unborn human babies, Humane Research Australia says.

Further testing of thalidomide on animals would not have prevented the morning sickness pill's devastating impact on thousands of unborn human babies, a lobby group says.

Humane Research Australia's (HRA) comments follow revelations that pregnant Australian women were used in world-first trials of the drug from May 1960, before it was tested on pregnant animals.

A 1962 letter from an executive for thalidomide distributor Distillers Company (Biochemicals) said "no tests were carried out in pregnant animals before Distaval was marketed", court documents show.

But HRA says tests of thalidomide on pregnant animals conducted after its approval for human use had failed to produce similar deformities in the animals.

It says tests on pregnant White New Zealand rabbits produced deformed offspring only after the animals were given up to 300 times the standard human dose.

Abnormalities also were eventually found in monkeys, but only at 10 times the normal dose, the group says.

"The bottom line is that more animal testing (before the drug's approval) would not have found the side effects... thalidomide would still have gone to market since the vast majority of species showed no ill effect," HRA said on Saturday in a statement.

"It is only possible to produce specific deformities in specific species, and chances are the right species would never have been used."

HRA's Chief Executive Officer Helen Marston said humans will "always be the guinea pigs" whenever a new drug goes to market as animal tests can't properly predict human results.

She said research by the US Food and Drug Administration found nine out of 10 drugs deemed successful in animal tests fail in human clinical trials.

HRA says drugs work on humans despite animal trials, not because of them.

Drug trials should embrace modern, species-specific research technologies such as computer modelling rather than "relying on data extrapolated from a different species".

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