Dr Pandora Pound on the Animal Free Labcast
Published on October 11, 2023
Dr Pandora Pound – Rat Trap: The capture of medicine by animal research and how to break free
Dr Pandora Pound
If you’ve ever wondered how – and why – it’s become the norm to use animals in medical research, then my conversation with Dr Pandora Pound in the latest episode of the Animal Free Labcast reveals all.
Dr Pandora Pound, who is Research Director of Safer Medicines Trust, is fascinated with the question, ‘where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?’.
She tells me that whilst the medical research establishment has traditionally considered the efficacy of animal research to be self-evident – often stating generically that animal use has been responsible for all medical progress – in reality, there’s little evidence to support these claims.
Our conversation delves into how medical research has been trapped by using animals – and what could be achieved if we weren’t held back by an outdated and ineffective research methodology.
Pandora also shares her personal motivation for advocating for better ways to generate breakthroughs for patients. Having lost both her father and brother to devastating diseases, she’s convinced we can accomplish so much more for patients with the exciting array of human-relevant research methodologies now available.
Point of view
Our podcast
We’re often told that new treatments for devastating diseases are being discovered all the time – that a life-saving new drug is just around the corner. But despite the promises of new breakthroughs the media loves to shout about, sadly these aren’t materialising at the rate patients and their families so desperately need them.
People want hope – of course, we all do. And the source of our hope should be the growing move away from developing medicines based on animal research to developing them based on our growing understanding of human biology. Because, as a scientist said to me recently, humans are not big mice!
As you’ll hear in the episode, Dr Pandora Pound has just published a new book, Rat Trap: The capture of medicine by animal research and how to break free. It’s a compelling tale about the rise of animal research, and its inevitable fall – which is finally showing signs of decline thanks to the animal-free technologies you support, and which are helping to make new medicines more effective.
What you can do
We’re all busy people these days, so whether your hope is for better treatments faster for your loved ones, or an end to animal suffering, here are 3 quick things you can do right now to make a difference:
- Listen to the Animal Free Labcast with my thoughtful guest Dr Pandora Pound – available on Spotify, Apple and wherever you get your podcasts
- Arm yourself with all the arguments against animal research you’ll ever need by reading Pandora’s book Rat Trap: The capture of medicine by animal research and how to break free
- Make a donation, if you can, to support the transition to animal free research
With heartfelt thanks,
Carla
