Sorry, I didn't realize that this was a personal issue for you. I'm certainly not saying that anyone who believes in using non-humans as human models is a bad person. On the contrary, I think the majority of researchers are good people who really care about helping other people. And my hope is that the more we encourage scientists to be creative and continue to explore more accurate ways for conducting experiments, the more accurate our results will be, and the more healthy we will all become.

As for references, most of the stuff I know is old news (Thalidomide, for example is a big one most people know about), but I did read the NAVS.org (http://www.navs.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ain_sci_medicalresearch) medical research page when writing my above comment. My point isn't to claim absolute proof that non-human models are dangerous (or not), it was just to point out that it's not a clear cut issue, and that the views expressed about this topic are more opinion than fact. Urbpan's comment made it sound like it was a fact.