I was very disturbed to learn about experiments carried out at University of California San Diego that are inflicting “simulated birth injuries” on female rats to study pelvic floor disorders in humans.
The researchers at UCSD are studying whether a proprietary hydrogel can repair injured or aging pelvic floor muscles that lead to urinary incontinence and organ prolapse in some women. To do this they inflict injuries on pelvic muscles of female rats by placing a balloon attached to a weight in the vagina and leaving it in place for two hours before forcing it down the birth canal. The rats are then injected with the gel and killed so that their pelvic muscles can be dissected for analysis and to investigate whether the hydrogel repairs the injury.
These experiments not only subject large numbers of animals to pain, suffering and death but they are unnecessary. It is now widely recognized that experiments on animals rarely offer relevant information for treating human medical conditions and are considered clinical failures at least 90% of the time. In particular, the pelvic floor in humans is vastly different in four-legged animals, making this line of research especially inapplicable using animals. That’s why scientists have developed numerous cutting-edge and non-animal methods for studying the female reproductive system.
Human-relevant methods for studying female pelvic floor disorders include computer and biomechanical models designed from 3D MRI scans of actual humans and a sophisticated microfluid device known as EVATAR that recreates the female reproductive organs in miniature, including biomechanical, cellular and hormonal interactions. Genetic screening has shown that urinary incontinence may have a genetic component in up to half of all cases, including the specific pathway involved.
Modern, human-relevant methods are needed to efficiently study the multifactorial aspect of human pelvic floor disorders which are impacted by lifelong hormonal changes and human genetics, something not possible using cruel animal experiments.
I strongly urge UCSD administration and researchers to end these cruel experiments on rats and replace them with valuable and physiologically relevant human methods.
