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Animal Testing?
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16-07-2008 12:02am#1
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Eh, not so much. I don't really believe in 'animal rights' as a concept. We kill and eat animals to survive. We always have. We're (more or less) biologically dependent on their meat to live, in the same way that most carnivores or omnivores kill and eat eat other in order to survive.
Oh come ON. Animal testing is still a very heated debate, but the idea that we need to use animals for food was proved false decades ago. Every single nutrient the body uses, vitamins, minerals and all can be derived from plant sources. I'm vegan, and I'm also one of the healthiest people I know. Many of my friends are vegan, and they're nearly all in far better shape than my meat-eater friends.
If you ask any doctor, nutritionist, or even informed member of the public they will tell you that a completely vegan diet is as good as - and generally healthier than - a non-vegan diet.If it's OK to breed, raise, kill and eat a cow then I find it hard to draw a line at an arbitrary point down the line and say "This amount of disregard for their life and well-being is OK, but this amount is too cruel!" I think there's some value to be derived from not being unnecessarily cruel to them, e.g., kicking a puppy for sh*ts and giggles wouldn't sit well with me. But testing animals for life-saving drugs? Definitely OK. And testing animals for cosmetics? Eh, not a fantastic reflection on humanity, but no worse than, say, battery-farming chickens as a cheap food source.
You're completely right, and I agree with everything you have just said. Vivisection and animal farming are just as bad as each other. The problem is, many people still think killing animals for food is morally justified - it's not. It will never be okay to destroy everything an animal has, lock him up for life, treat him like an object and ultimately kill him to fulfill our most trivial pursuits. They did something similar with African slaves in the 18th century. Slavery was wrong then, and it's wrong today.Poor logic. Number one, while I'm not a scientist (well, not a proper one) I'm pretty sure using only one experiment as a basis for your thinking is a poor application of the scientific method, i.e., you should do multiple tests for the harmful effects of something like tobacco smoke over a range of species. Secondly, you need to consider the converse; how many drugs have been tested on animals and found to have harmful effects there, and therefore not been tested in clinical trials and not released on humans, thus saving lives?
Penicillen. The first anti-biotic, the drug that revolutionised medicine and got us to where we are today, is fatal to a lot of animal species. When they tested it on animals, and it killed them, they shelved it because they figured it was fatal. It was only 15 years later that Arthur Flemming, being an incredibly stubborn man, decided it was worth a try on human subjects. We all know where that led.
That's the problem with animal testing; the species difference is so huge that drugs fatal to humans slip through, while potential life-savers are deemed unsafe. Regarding the experiment I mentioned, that was just one example. If you do the research you can find many similar cases where animal testing has cost thousands of lives. I'm hardly going to list them all out here, but Vioxx and Thalidomide are two of the major examples here.Furthermore, how would not testing those drugs that you mention on animals have saved anyone? Current process: Going through animal testing, in vitro testing and clinical trials, sometimes things get released onto the market that have a harmful effect on the wider population (because clinical trials are far from perfect; harmful drugs can and have slipped through). How does removing one level of testing help with that problem? Animal testing as a substitute for the other two is bad, but not because of the ickle fuzzy wabbits, but because it's stupid, lazy and risks human lives.
The previously mentioned life-saving drugs that failed when tested on animals. Vioxx and Thalidomide, which were shown to be safe on animals but killed hundreds, even thousands when applied to humans. But obviously it's not just a question of benefitting humans. Literally millions of sentient, feeling beings are tortured and killed every year in labs. That's the issue here, and it is only made worse by the fact that this barbaric torture also yields completely futile results.Ever swatted a fly?
Not since I was a child. Although I regret it, I think I can be excused because as we all know children have no concept of morality.Polarity, all experimental data has its limitations and results should only be viewed in the context of those limitations. You are being disingenuous by suggesting that just because animal testing gives us an imperfect view (in some cases massively flawed view), that it is of no use. Theres a reasons that drugs and treatments go through human trials as well as animal testing. In fact you cite some difference between how dogs/monkeys respond to drugs as opposed to humans, this knowledge was only gained through animal testing.
Animal testing is cruel, its barbaric in every sense of the word, I'll even concede thats its immoral, since its mostly a case of the ends justifying the means. However there is also an inescapable practical necessity for it. Maybe it doesn't need to happen as much as it does or be conducted in the fashion it is, but it is needed.
The true necessity of it is something that is being debated here. You concede yourself that is often gives a massively flawed view, and we all know how many billions of lives it has cost (human and non-human being counted).
I will even concede that in some cases animal testing can be useful. I don't think there was ever a case of a vital piece of knowledge that we simply could not obtain from any other source, but animal testing is certainly more convenient in many cases. And I won't deny that several advances have benefitted somewhat from animal testing. But Nazi experiments on concentration camp victims also furthered our medical knowledge vastly. In fact those experiments were even more informative than experiments on animals, because the Nazi doctors were able to use live human subjects.
Are you going to defend those experiments too? It's very easy to make medical breakthroughs when morality isn't a concern.Yes, I know I did just invoke Godwin's Law.. Bear with me.
I'm not denying that activities like that may go on but the OP started this post asking about colleges use of animals.
I know very well what the OP said; maybe you should scroll up.
Have you ever been inside the TCD animal house or any other animal house for that matter? The animals that are housed there have the highest quality standards. The people who work there are so strict about what happens to "their" animals. Anybody who works with animals has to pass and animal handeling course before they're allowed near the animals. Before ANY experiment with animals is carried out for the sake of college research it has to pass an ethics review. During that process, other mediums such as in vitro or cell cultures are looked at as alternatives to live animals. If animals have to be used then the species has to be decieded on. You always start with the lowest ranking animal, so flys, caterpillars, moving on up to mice, chicks, rabbits etc. Then they decided on the lowest possible number of animals that they have to use to get a useable result. Most people who work with animals will tell you its not ideal but it is NECCESSARY. Originally insulin used to treat diabetics came from studies carried out on pigs, so there is a relevencey to working with animals for medical benefits.
I have to admit, I have never been inside the TCD animal labs. For some reason they are extremely secretive, and I have never been allowed in. However I have a wide knowledge of vivisection and in my experience, no matter how well intentioned the researchers may be, it is never humane. Have you been in there? Have you seen the experiments? If so, try putting youself in the place of one of those animals. Would you really want to live like that? No matter how big the cage is or how often you get fed, would you really want that life?
You're right that insulin was derived from animal studies - that does not mean it couldn't have been acquired any other way. Every drug ever produced has been tested on animals, because of convenience, tradition and legal reasons than from any scientific merit.0 -
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Me thinks you were a wee bit untruthful with that statement given some of your more recent posts!
To be fair, when I made that post I really wasn't looking for a debate. I was hoping to get some info on the matter from Trinity students who might work in the labs, as the staff are very close-lipped. I didn't think I'd get very far if I admitted to being an animal rights activist!Please, I don't down play the immorality of animal testing, likewise don't down play the huge benefits to human life which have result from it. Be honest and say "this is what we get and this is the cost and I think the cost is too high".
Yes, people have benefitted from animal experiments. People also benefitted from the Nazi experiments. My point is that the ends didn't justify the means then, and they don't now - especially when so many effective alternatives exist.Don't make out its an exercise in cruelty for the shake of cruelty and don't draw parallels with what the nazi's did.
Why not? I'll admit, Nazi analogies are usually inflammatory and useless in a real debate, but in this case there really are strong parallels.TCD animal house staff are also "secretive" because they're working with vulnerable animals. By that i mean animals that have been raised in protective enviroments, having very little exposure to anything outside a sterile lab. These animals are extremely sensetive to infection so is it any suprise that access is limited to people who are properly equiped?
Heh, vivisectors always say that. Those animals aren't nearly as vulnerable to the outside world as you think, as is shown by the thousands rescued in ALF raids over the years that are now living happily in open environments.0 -
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Polarity wrote:Oh come ON. Animal testing is still a very heated debate, but the idea that we need to use animals for food was proved false decades ago. Every single nutrient the body uses, vitamins, minerals and all can be derived from plant sources. I'm vegan, and I'm also one of the healthiest people I know. Many of my friends are vegan, and they're nearly all in far better shape than my meat-eater friends.
I'm guessing you're slightly more informed about this than me and thus will probably hand me my ass on this point, but nevertheless: don't you need to take a decent amount of vitamin and mineral supplements to compensate for taking meat out of your diet completely? Stuff like vitamin B12 to avoid anemia, or iron supplements (though in the case of the latter I think there's some kind of beans that fulfill our iron needs relatively well). Which suggests to me that while we can survive without meat, we're not exactly designed to, which makes me question the idea that there's some kind of moral reason not to eat other animals to survive. Do you think it's "wrong" for a fox to eat a chicken? If you do...well, then I'm just going to give up right now. But presumably you don't, due to the fact that animals are inherently less than human; they're not capable of rational thought at the same level, or of moral or philosophical reasoning at the same advanced level. But in conceding that animals are less-than-human in terms of their sentience, surely we're acknowledging that, on some level, they're beneath us, and once you've acknowledged that, you really have to ask yourself why it's not OK to use them for our advantage.
Incidentally, pointing out that you and other vegans you know are the healthiest people you know does little when the healthiest people I know are meat-eaters, and the vegetarians tend by and large to be thinner and less energetic. "Well, my friends are X, ergo everyone is the same" doesn't really sway my (or most people's) views.Polarity wrote:Penicillen. The first anti-biotic, the drug that revolutionised medicine and got us to where we are today, is fatal to a lot of animal species. When they tested it on animals, and it killed them, they shelved it because they figured it was fatal. It was only 15 years later that Arthur Flemming, being an incredibly stubborn man, decided it was worth a try on human subjects. We all know where that led.
To my slow and painful death, as it happens, being one of a significant number of people who are allergic to penicillin. Which is, again, why broad tests are better - if Fleming had taken a small sample of humans to test penicillin on and gotten unlucky in terms of how many people among that group were allergic to it, it would have been shelved in the same way that it was due to failed animal tests. Which all supports my central point in relation to testing - more is better, whether on humans, animals or in a test tube.Polarity wrote:But obviously it's not just a question of benefitting humans.
I respectfully disagree. Ecological concerns aside, I'd sacrifice every single rat, mouse, gerbil, rabbit, hamster and whatever else you want to throw in there to save a few hundred human lives.Polarity wrote:Not since I was a child. Although I regret it, I think I can be excused because as we all know children have no concept of morality.
Touché. So let's get into some deeper semantics - ever washed? That's a couple of billion sentient bacteria gone. Walked through grass or any kind of woodland area? Care to take a guess at how many poor, innocent ants you may have inadvertently stepped upon? Picked a flower or used a product made from wood? Trees and plant life respond to their surroundings and it can be demonstrated that while they don't feel "pain" as such, they do react to negative stimuli. What differentiates their level of sentience from a fly? And the fly from the rabbit? And the rabbit from the monkey? My point is that you have to draw the line somewhere - presumably you draw it somewhere around the bacteria line? I draw it between "humans" and "the rest". 0 -
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I'm guessing you're slightly more informed about this than me and thus will probably hand me my ass on this point, but nevertheless: don't you need to take a decent amount of vitamin and mineral supplements to compensate for taking meat out of your diet completely? Stuff like vitamin B12 to avoid anemia, or iron supplements (though in the case of the latter I think there's some kind of beans that fulfill our iron needs relatively well).
Iron is actually very easy to get from plants (though yes, meat is a convenient source too). Quoting Wikipedia: Good sources of dietary iron include red meat, fish, poultry, lentils, beans, leaf vegetables, tofu, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, fortified bread and breakfast cereals.
As for B12, you're right that it is more difficult to get it from pants (except, perhaps, mushrooms). However, a large amount of foods are fortified with B12, including most breakfast cereals, soy milk, and a lot of other vegan foods. No, not B12 obtained from animals.
Even for someone who didn't eat any of these foods (unlikely) they could take a weekly B12 supplement fairly easily.Which suggests to me that while we can survive without meat, we're not exactly designed to, which makes me question the idea that there's some kind of moral reason not to eat other animals to survive.
Umm, what do you mean designed? You seem to be saying that that Darwin chap had it all wrong and that all life on Earth didn't evolve from a common ancestor through natural selection. I won't get into an Evolution versus Intelligent Design debate here though, that really belongs on the Athiest forum.Do you think it's "wrong" for a fox to eat a chicken? If you do...well, then I'm just going to give up right now. But presumably you don't, due to the fact that animals are inherently less than human; they're not capable of rational thought at the same level, or of moral or philosophical reasoning at the same advanced level. But in conceding that animals are less-than-human in terms of their sentience, surely we're acknowledging that, on some level, they're beneath us, and once you've acknowledged that, you really have to ask yourself why it's not OK to use them for our advantage.
A fair point, and one that I have heard many times. One difference between us and foxes is that whereas a fox genuinely needs to kill to survive, humans have no such need. Another is, like you said, rational thought and morality.
I think we can all agree that humans are more intelligent than other animals, and we have a far more developed language which gives us the means for abstract thought. I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "less than human"; they're not human, no.. they're very different. The main difference you seem to be talking about is our much higher intelligence. However intelligence is a poor measure of worth. You cannot draw a line at a certain level of intelligence and say "above this line you have rights, below it you do not and your interests cannot be considered". This is because even among humans, a large amount of the population is less intelligent than, say, a dog or an ape. Young children for a start, as well as many mentally-handicapped people and even the old and extremely senile.
Therefore if you say humans are entitled to certain rights because of their intelligence, you have to exclude those who are below this level of intelligence. Any line you draw will be arbitrary, as will simply saying "humans are better".
To quote Jeremy Bentham - "The question is not "can they talk", nor is it "can they reason". The question is, "can they suffer?" "
Drawing the line at the ability to suffer is the only real approach that makes sense. Obviously suffering is universally unpleasant, and any animal that is suffering will want to avoid that suffering. Just like any human - mentally handicapped or otherwise - will want to avoid suffering. One would say they have an interest in avoiding suffering, and an interest in experiencing joy. Who are we to deny those interests?Incidentally, pointing out that you and other vegans you know are the healthiest people you know does little when the healthiest people I know are meat-eaters, and the vegetarians tend by and large to be thinner and less energetic. "Well, my friends are X, ergo everyone is the same" doesn't really sway my (or most people's) views.
You're right, anecdotal evidence is poor evidence. Maybe you should ask a doctor or nutritionist like I said in my previous post instead.I respectfully disagree. Ecological concerns aside, I'd sacrifice every single rat, mouse, gerbil, rabbit, hamster and whatever else you want to throw in there to save a few hundred human lives.
That's the kind of thinking I find morally abhorrent. You seem to be saying a human life is infinitely more valuable than a non-human life, but you provide no evidence to back this up beyond our higher intelligence (see above). Would you also sacrifice a mentally-retarded person to save a normal person? Would you sacrifice someone with an IQ of 100 for someone with an IQ of 140?
I'm willing to bet no, but why not? I would say it's because they can both suffer and experience joy equally. But from your post you seem to have this idea that human life is "sacred" while non-human life is not - my question, again, is why? Why should all sentient life not be "sacred"? Touché. So let's get into some deeper semantics - ever washed? That's a couple of billion sentient bacteria gone. Walked through grass or any kind of woodland area? Care to take a guess at how many poor, innocent ants you may have inadvertently stepped upon? Picked a flower or used a product made from wood? Trees and plant life respond to their surroundings and it can be demonstrated that while they don't feel "pain" as such, they do react to negative stimuli. What differentiates their level of sentience from a fly? And the fly from the rabbit? And the rabbit from the monkey? My point is that you have to draw the line somewhere - presumably you draw it somewhere around the bacteria line? I draw it between "humans" and "the rest".
Y'see, bacteria, like plants, are not sentient. At least as far as we can tell.. I'm not sure if we'll ever know for sure whether bacteria can experience pain. The difference with bacteria is that it is simply impossible to avoid destroying them. No matter how hard you try, you are always going to kill a few. Not so with animals. It's entirely possible for us to get by without harming a single non-human animal.
My point is that just drawing that line between "humans" and "the rest" is completely arbitrary, and if I may say so, discriminatory. 200 years ago the line was drawn between "caucasians" and "the rest". More recently it was drawn between "men" and "the rest". Even earlier it was drawn between "male, caucasian christians" and "the rest".. You see where I'm going with this? Logically, only beings that can suffer are capable of having interests. By that same token, ALL beings with the ability to suffer will have interests. Can we, as a species, really claim to be morally enlightened if we refuse to consider those interests?0 -
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Thanks roseic for the info. I do tend to get caught up a little in discussions like this - I do so love debating!
But yeah you're right, thread purpose by and large fulfilled. I think I've argued my point as well as I can for now, so unless anyone else wants to raise an issue with my reasoning I'll just leave it alone for the time being.
Incidentally, I'll be outside trinity again at half 12 Tuesday, if anyone is interested in taking a few leaflets or even debating some more. 0 -
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without animal testing we would never have developed a cure for polio, which has been eradicated in most countries. The vaccine developed in the 60's which is still used today was amplified in effectiveness after passing the virus through many monkeys. In total 100,000 monkeys perished in the development of the vaccine, however we have no polio in the western world as a result.
Also the treatment for leprosy can not be produced without an animal host to grow the leprosy bacteria as it cannot be cultered in vitro.
Similarly all research into developing a cure for AIDS would not be possible without studying the mokeys which carry the virus.
http://www.iaapea.com/101_page.php?id=87orly?To be fair, when I made that post I really wasn't looking for a debate. I was hoping to get some info on the matter from Trinity students who might work in the labs, as the staff are very close-lipped. I didn't think I'd get very far if I admitted to being an animal rights activist! 0 -
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