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GD
News
Replacing of Laboratory Animals by Cell Experiments:
OECD recommends Cell Experiments for
the Test of new Drugs, Chemicals and cosmetical active Substances
The Bundesinstitut
für gesundheitlichen Verbraucherschutz und Veterinärmedizin
(BgVV) (Federal Institute for Sanitary Consumer Protection and Veterinary
Medicine), resident in Berlin, reports in a press release of 15 November
2001 about an encouraging breakthrough for the protection of animals.
Correspondingly, two animal experiment models, so far internationally
stipulated for the testing of new drugs, chemicals and also new ingredients
of cosmetics, will probably soon be replaced by animal-experiment-free
tests worldwide. On the occasion of a meeting end of October at the BgVV,
expert committees of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development) have recommended to the OECD member states to test the phototoxicity
and etching effect at the skin in future by means of animal-experiment-free-cell
test. These tests allow an evaluation of the corresponding hazard potential
of chemical substances just as exact as the animal experiments usual to
date.
The recommended alternative methods have been mutually developed by the
BgVV and the industry and experimentally tested under centralized control
of the Zentralstelle zur Erfassung und Bewertung von Ersatz- und Ergänzungsmethoden
zum Tierversuch (ZEBET) of the BgVV (Center for Recording and Assessment
of substitutional and supplementary Methods for Animal Experiments) concerning
their applicability. In the animal-experiment-free method of the phototoxicity
test which is among other fields required for drugs and new UV filters
of sun protection agents, cells of mice or human skin are treated with
the test substances during cultivation in incubators and radiated with
UV-light. According to information by the BgVV, this cell culture test
predicts much better phototoxic reactions in humans than the animal experiments
with mice, rats, guiney pigs or rabbits performed in earlier times.
For a test of the etching effect at the skin, so far realized with living
rabbits and which was very painful for the animals, there are now even
two alternative cell culture tests available. On the one hand it concerns
an in-vitro method developed in Great-Britain with isolated rat skin preparations
and on the other hand it is about a method developed by the ZEBET based
on biotechnologically produced, artificial human skin models. The test
of the etching effect at the skin is internationally stipulated for hazardous
substances in the frame of the industrial safety and transport protection.
It has direct consequences for the labeling, storing and transport of
these substances. (jk)
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