A few weeks ago, a study from the Victor Chang Institute generated headlines of a medical breakthrough. Researchers had apparently found a major cause of miscarriages and birth defects - a lack of vitamin B3 in pregnant mothers. They claimed increasing a mother’s levels of the vitamin would reduce the risk of these tragic outcomes. But no humans had actually been given the vitamins in the study. All the proof was in mice. Yet, the researchers were confident their results would translate to humans down the track.

Journalists and scientists themselves must be cautious when reporting on animal trials. What proves to be a fantastic medical intervention in a mouse or another lab animal, can in some cases be catastrophic if given to a human. Human and animal physiologies can be very similar but, in some critical aspects, also very different. Ri Scarborough explains that results in animals are replicated in humans less than half the time. And she takes us through cases when the mismatch between animal and human trials led to tragic consequences.

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