Government Spends Over $1mil Dollars in Eye Experiments On Kittens

Over one million dollars of Australian taxpayer’s money has been spent funding NHMRC grants given to the University of Sydney for an experiment which uses kittens as a model for eye disease of premature infants.

The disease, Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), is a disorder of the retina which can result in loss of vision.  With the increasing survival rates of premature babies less than 1kg and 26 weeks’ gestation there is an increased risk of ROP.

However in an attempt to recreate the effects of ROP, researchers at the University of Sydney have exposed kittens to high levels of oxygen within a hyperoxic chamber.

In one experiment[1] researchers placed kittens aged between one and four days’ old with a lactating mother in the chamber (which consists of 60-70% oxygen in the air – normal air contains 20% oxygen) for up to 4 days. The purpose was to observe changes to the cells and blood vessels.

The reason for these experiments, according to the researchers, is that depending on the level of oxygen administered to neonates, the resultant hyperoxia can result in severe vessel constriction and delayed vascularisation.

But according to US human eye specialist Dr Stephen Kaufman, the applicability of the animal model is questionable because the method of induction of disease in the kittens differs from that in humans.

Dr Kaufman says “The research protocol involves “vaso-obliteration” or “localized vessel regression”, while in ROP the problem is neither: it involves failure of normal blood vessels to develop in the first place.  While the kitten and human condition might resemble each other, even subtle differences in pathogenesis can result in differences in disease manifestation at the cellular level at which these studies are focused.  Further any differences between cats and humans in normal retinal structure at an anatomic or cellular level would compromise the application of animal data to humans”.

Although after expending huge amounts of government funding and donations from the philanthropic organisations, Financial Markets Foundation for Children and the Rebecca Cooper Medical Research Foundation, the researchers summarised the study by saying even “more work is needed” to verify the conclusions of their research!

HRA argues that to simply pour more money and resources into this animal model for human disease is not only wasteful, it is unscientific (to base this research on animals).

In fact, according to Dr Stephen Kaufman “It is possible that data directly relevant to human patients could come from autopsies from babies with Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) who died of complications of their prematurity”.

Break Up Of Funding For This Experiment

What can you do?

Please write to the NHMRC asking them to stop funding animal experiments and instead fund epidemiological studies

Prof Warwick Anderson,
Chief Executive Officer
NHMRC
GPO Box 9848
Canberra ACT 2601

Email:

And write to the following expressing your disappointment at such wasteful and futile research

Dr  Michael Spence
Vice Chancellor
University of Sydney, NSW 2006

Email:

And also write to the following philanthropic foundations expressing your disappointment that they funded this wasteful and misleading animal-based research:

Financial Markets Foundation for Children
GPO Box 3655
Sydney NSW 2000

Email:

Rebecca L. Cooper Medical Research Foundation
142 Glenayre Ave,
Bondi NSW 2026

Email: