white bunnyFor years, animal rights activists have argued that testing on animals provides skewed data at the cost of millions of lives. Well it seems that the National Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency have finally came to the same conclusion.

“There are differences between species. We are not rats and we are not even other primates, and so that [the] desire here is to see if we could do better,” said Francis Collins, director of the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. “Ultimately what you are looking for is [whether] this compound does damage to cells.”

Federal scientists have decided to collaborate on a new toxicology testing program that uses stem cell research and computer modeling rather than animal testing. The collaboration is the result of an agreement among the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Chemical Genomics Center under the National Human Genome Research Institute, and EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology.

The agencies teamed up in a five-year agreement to implement the recommendations of the 2007 report from the National Research Council, “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy.” The agencies are confident that the new testing methods will provide more accurate results at a greater speed and with lower costs.

“What is being proposed here is to move the 20th century paradigm of testing of one compound at a time in many animals to going to the 21st Century paradigm [that] tests 5,000 to 10,000 compounds against 20,000 conditions in cells that are very specific to human toxicology,” said NIH Director Elias Zerhouni.

In 30 years of animal testing, NIH has tested 2,500 chemicals. With the use of the new technology, it is estimated that same amount could be done in a single afternoon.

While the shift away from animal testing could take several years, say NIH officials, it is a huge victory for animal rights and public health activists.