Turkish Medical Journal Takes Stand Against Animal Studies

Editor Cites ‘Lack of Applicability’ in Decision to Publish Only Animal-Free Science

For Immediate Release:
September 2, 2015

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

As more people oppose experiments on animals, scientists gain further evidence that data from animals doesn’t reliably translate to humans, and superior non-animal research technologies become more readily available, The Turkish Journal of Gastroenterology—the journal of the Turkish Society of Gastroenterology—has officially banned studies involving experiments on animal from its pages. In a new editorial titled “Moving Beyond Animal Models,” journal editor Dr. Hakan Şentürk writes that the policy represents “growing concern about the lack of applicability of animal research to humans.”

“When we recognize that the reliance on inherently flawed animal models of human disease are largely responsible for clinical failure … it does not make sense to continue to promote this practice,” Dr. Şentürk writes of the journal’s decision.”…[P]ublishing animal studies would mislead the scientific community into futile research and give the general public false hope. This is unethical. We encourage submissions of studies with human-relevant approaches such as clinical, in vitro, in silico, and other non-animal methods, and we challenge other scientific journals to do the same.”

“PETA applauds this journal’s forward-thinking approach to promoting ethical and modern science that doesn’t involve sickening, mutilating, and killing animals,” says PETA Director of Laboratory Investigations Justin Goodman. “We’re joining Dr. Şentürk in calling on other journals across the globe to follow suit in relegating cruel and ineffective experiments on animals to the history books.”

There’s growing acknowledgement in the scientific community that experiments on animals are slow, expensive, and unreliable. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that nine out of 10 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans tests because they don’t work or are dangerous. Modern human-relevant research technologies, like Harvard-developed organs-on-chips, more accurately reflect human biology and disease and can screen large numbers of drugs and other chemicals for safety and effectiveness much faster and less expensively than animal tests.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.