Medical research: there is often a long way from mice to humans
SURVEY – Researchers regret that too many scientific publications do not specify in their title that they relate to work carried out on animals, which sometimes leads the mainstream press to give false hope to patients.
“Just say it’s in the mouse!” annoys James Heathers, creator of the @justsaysinmice twitter account. Since April 2019, the American scientist has been tracking down the press releases and articles that rave about the successes of medical research … without specifying that these were obtained on an animal model. “Presenting preclinical research as something that directly affects people here and now is like pointing your finger at a bunch of two-by-four boards and a dime bag of nails and calling it a cottage.”, he wrote in an article explaining his approach.
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However, there is still further from the mouse to the man, no offense to the high-sounding titles which regularly announce “Breakthroughs” and others “Medical advances” sensational, without specifying how they were obtained. “Here I do not know how many times that Alzheimer’s disease in mice has been cured”, also notes Susan Molchan, geriatric psychiatrist, NIH researcher and expert in
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