Americans For Medical Advancement (AFMA) is a not-for-profit organization that promotes biomedical research and the practice of medicine based on critical thinking and our current understanding of evolutionary and developmental biology, complex systems and genomics.
Our primary concern is the advancement of investigative methodologies that lead to effective cures and treatments for human diseases. As such, AFMA is opposed to research modalities that have been shown to be scientifically invalid—specifically, the use of animals as predictive models (also known as causal analogical models) for humans relative to drug and disease response.
While an immense body of empirical evidence has supported this conclusion for decades, new knowledge about genes, gene regulation, gene expression and gene networks—gained in large part as a result of the Human Genome Project—has significantly increased our understanding of why animals cannot be used to predict human response to drugs or the pathophysiology of human diseases.
Despite the development of an all-encompassing theory as to why animals are not predictive, there remains—much to the detriment of human health and medical progress—extraordinary resistance to abandoning the use of animals as predictive models. (For the reasons why, click on OPPOSITION)
The goal of AFMA, therefore, is to educate the scientific community, as well as the general public, of the urgent need for a move away from the ineffective animal model to research modalities that truly reflect the enormous strides we have made in our knowledge of living systems.
Drs Shanks, Greek, and Greek article “Are animal models predictive for humans?” in the journal Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine has been downloaded several thousand times and is one of the most “highly accessed” articles. The article can be freely accessed at
http://www.peh-med.com/content/4/1/2.
Dr Ray Greek responds to the accusations made by Adrian Morrison in his new book An Odyssey with Animals. LINK TO ESSAY.
Dr Ray Greek responds to propaganda by Dario L. Ringach and J. David Jentsch published in the Journal of Neurophysiology. LINK TO COMMENTARY
Drs Shanks’ and Greek’s long awaited new books are now available! Click here for more information.
Dr Greek will be going on a book tour this winter. Please contact AFMA if you are interested in Dr Greek coming to your area.
UCLA Panel Discussion
On February 16, 2010 Drs Shanks and Greek participated in a panel discussion at UCLA: The Science and Ethics of Animal Research. The video can be viewed here. This was a historical development and AFMA is proud Drs Shanks and Greek were asked to participate.
Dr Greek is now an expert!
Dr Ray Greek is now an expert on The Opposing Views ‘Animal Rights’ Center. Check out his blog.
AFMA in the news
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100330/full/news.2010.158.html
