It appears that you are refering to animal models as representatives for
humans in describing and studing spontaneous or naturally occurring
disease conditions. Further it sounds as if your focus in the post was
aimed at inborn-errors which resut in diseases. Would what you're saying
also apply to structural and functional damage caused by xenobiotic? You
said that models should not be based on phenotypical characteristics.
That may be true if one is studying geniticaly-based diseases but I'm not
so sure that such a broad statement is applicable if one wishes to
examine the structural or tissue damage brought about by an insult from a
chemical. Phenotypic expression, especially involving the target organ
of toxicity, seems to very important.
Does anyone else have any comments?
Maybe the question we need to address is "Why do we use/need animal
models?????? I think I identified this as an important question in my
original post that initiated this discussion (1Feb96): "Why do we use
animals in toxicology (which may be related to the question: Why do we
use animal models in biology?)"
I may be wrong, but I get the distinct impression that the comments in
Wolff's post are directed at areas other than those which would have as
an end-point (or at least a milestone) a dose response curve. Does
anyone else get thatis impression??????
