The following is taken from Bette Overell's ANIMAL
RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer,
pages 276-278:
In New Zealand it was reported in Dominion Sunday Times,
October 15 1989 that Dr Charlotte Paul, Auckland Hospital Researcher, published in the NZ
Medical Journal that more than 20,000 women every year had been prescribed
Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive, many without their knowledge or consent,
despite the fact that the drug had always been banned in the USA where it caused cancer of
the breast and uterus, loss of bone density and anaphylacis (an allergic reaction which
causes the patient to stop breathing) and other damage.
The method of testing Depo-Provera carried out by its producers
Upjohn prior to prescribing it to women in hospitals, birth control clinics and doctors'
surgeries, was, according to information circulated to doctors by Upjohn on Form No.
A1.030.1, as follows:
"Endometrial response tests on immature and ovari-ectomized
rabbits."
"Subcutaneous injections in experimental animals."
"Tremendous doses in chronic toxicity studies on intact female
and spayed immature rats" and "beagle dogs".
The following is an extract from Side Effects as stated in the
circular:
"Beagle dogs treated with medroxyprogesterone-acetate developed
mammary nodules, some of which were malignant. Although nodules occasionally
appeared in control animals, they were benign and intermittent in nature, whereas the
nodules in drug-treated animals were larger, more numerous, persistent, and there were
some breast malignancies with metastases... their significance with respect to humans has
not been established."
At the US Food and Drug Administration Public Board of Enquiry into
Depo-Provera in 1983 which unsuccessfully attempted to lift the US ban on the drug, in
questioning the relevance of beagle dog trials to human users of the contraceptive, Upjohn
argued as follows:
- "Beagles are not appropriate animals for use for
such trials."
- "There is no perfect animal model"
- "In a sense the final animal model for a drug to be
used on human beings has to be the human."
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