Animal testing

BlitzKrieg

This is just for some debate i have next week so I was wondering what are the points for and against animal testing for scientific research...thx.

Gordon

For - Provides a cheap and pro-human way of testing pro-life ideas.

Against - You never can tell 100% if your results will be certain for human beings.
Against - Animals are living beings that feel pain and stress just as any human.

mike65

The one thing anyone should ask themselves is - if I had a disease or condition which would kill me without use of drugs would I want animal testing to be used to determine
the effectiveness of the drug in its early stages of development.

Mike

WhiteWashMan

why harm the poor animals?

there are enough homless people on the streets that can go missing and no-one would give a crap.
why not use them?

after all, they do it in brazil.....

bonkey

Its a thorny issue alright.

A lot of research is done using lab-animals which isnt even "testing" per se, but rather research. Now, while you can clearly argue that it is cruel to deliberately breed (for example) genetically modified mice to research certain things, the end results can potentially save millions of lives.

In other words, the "pro" argument is simply that there are so many medical advances which would simply not have been possible without animal testing and/or animals used in research.

The anti argument is simple - it is cruel to the animals in question. This point cannot be argued - no-one can claim that it is not cruel.

I find it interesting that if you mistreat your pet dog in most western countries you can get reported (and in trouble) for cruelty to animals, but if you deliberately give a lab-monkey some terrible disease, its fine because its in the name of science.

Gordon makes a valid point about never being 100% sure about the results being safe for humans, but in general science doesnt take this stance. The work on lab-animals is not supposed to give 100% sure results for humans, but it is supposed to do a lot of the initial groundwork.

At the end of the day, I think there should be far tighter restrictions on animal testing, but not necessarily a complete ban. I am completely against animal testing for "trivial" things like makeup testing. However, medical research is a different kettle of fish.

Sure, you can call it cruel, but if you look at so much of our environment, it involves us "leveraging" our superiority over other animals - fishing and farming for example.

Let me put it simply - the next time you go to the chemist, the doctor, or just your drugs cabinet, stop and think. Pretty much everything you get prescribed today has been tested on animals. If you are that set against it, will you refuse the medical treatment? If not, who is worse - the person carrying out the research using lab animals, or the person who condemns the methods of research but still avails of its benefits.

jc

Baz_

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
why harm the poor animals?

there are enough homless people on the streets that can go missing and no-one would give a crap.
why not use them?

after all, they do it in brazil.....

I agree fully, especially the ones that wait beside a bank machine looking for money, waste of natural resources if you ask me.

Baz_

BlitzKrieg

Its not cruelty its...

"Animal testing is needed for the advancement of scientific research" Or something along those lines. It doesnt say cruelty exactly but thats going to be the basic topic. I'm against I have to say it isint which puts me in a screwed position from what i read.


I'll say the homless thing just for humour and ironic relief. somehow.

Gordon

Well the homeless thing may be slightly happening as people are paid to endure tests.

Not sure where that fits into the whole scheme of things.

bonkey

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
"Animal testing is needed for the advancement of scientific research" Or something along those lines. It doesnt say cruelty exactly but thats going to be the basic topic. I'm against I have to say it isint which puts me in a screwed position from what i read.

Tough side to be on, other than playing the cruelty card. To say something is "needed" is an easy way out....because it doesnt look at the moral implications.

One line you could possibly take is that science could put research into finding alternates to using animal testing - such as testing on manufactured cellular structures. To my knowledge, there is no major research being done into alternates to using lab-animals simply because they are viewed as necessary.

Compare to the fossil-fuel debate. For decades, the argument has been used that fossil fuels are "necessary" for economic development and prosperity. Now that they are becoming scarce, real effort is put in to finding alternatives, and significant progress is being made.

Why not encourage the same in testing - if testing on animals was banned, how long do you think it would be before they found an alternate? Not long, I'm willing to bet.

jc

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

Why not encourage the same in testing - if testing on animals was banned, how long do you think it would be before they found an alternate? Not long, I'm willing to bet.

Spoken like a true mathematician jc- there's just one problem. Certain species have amazingly analogous pharmaceutical physiology to our own- especially several species of rat. There's not a verifiable alternative for early testing unfortunately. It's worth mentioning that we do in fact use willing human test subjects to test medical drugs on (it's called a clinical trial), these are usually conducted double blind, so in a sense, both the praciticioners and the patients are guinea pigs to some extent. It may be cruel to test medication on animals, deliberately infecting them with a deadly pathogen, etc- yet animal cruelty in some shape or form is inescapeable in modern society unfortunately.

I'm vegetarian, yet every time I take a drug, I've assented to animal testing. How many times have people on boards.ie used glue? For that matter, how many campaigning in favor of animal's rights have used glue to make their placards? :P

But seriously, if animals had to be subjected to cruelty, then this is the most merciful form I can think of. They are usually killed in the terminal stage of a disease to alleviate any further suffering, more than can be said for the animals in a slaughterhouse. Whichever way you look at it, it can't be condoned, yet it's a necessary evil of modern medical science. It's impossible to get an animal's consent in the matter, so they are obvious and easy targets for first-line testing, and with the pragmatic choice to be made, governments have made it: Humans > Other Animals.

I do not however, approve of classical experiments (like the TB rats) being repeated again, this could be easily accomplished through a computer simulation.

Occy

bonkey

Originally posted by Bob the Unlucky Octopus

Spoken like a true mathematician jc- there's just one problem. Certain species have amazingly analogous pharmaceutical physiology to our own- especially several species of rat. There's not a verifiable alternative for early testing unfortunately.

OK - you're the doc, so I'll take your word on it, but are you also saying that if these species were (for any reason) unavailable in the future, that medical research would effectively dry up, and that no alternative is possible?

Or just that no alternative has yet been found? And lets face it - with lab rats being so damn useful, why waste huge amounts of effort researching an alternative when you dont have to?

I dont *know* the answer to the above - I'm not trying to be smart, so consider this an ill-worded plea for information, but I just find it hard to accept that there is no alternatives when (from what I can see) so little research has gone into the possibility of alternatives.


jc

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

A fair and valid point to be sure bonkey, hence why I said "no verifiable alternative". There are alternatives, just poor ones to our current methods. But given the vast number of species of rodentia easily available to us, the situation you propose will probably never arise. If it did, it would force us to ask some searching questions about first-line testing on human beings, possibly those on the fringes of society as WWman suggets- they seem like the likely victims of such a scenario. Which doesn't detract from the need for strict regulation of drug trialing that makes it marginally safe for human beings in the current system.

As things stand, we still have to trial drugs on human beings, which somewhat allows us to skate past the moral issue of first testing them on animals. The only difference is consent, which cannot be obtained from animals- a sticky situation to be sure, but one we will have to tolerate for quite some time. The problem, as many pharmacologists will tell you, is the haphazard means of testing and introducing new treatments. Most derive from a broad-based systemic action, and then try to narrow effects down based on observation in animals. This is very cruel, especially given the totally random in some cases, chance of success. Many drugs have been discovered entirely by accident (Viagra was originally intended to be used in cardiac patients, most antibiotics are derived from plant extracts, quinine and penicillin being the most famous). Only very recently have so-called "designer drugs", agents specifically targeted to a metabolic/disease process, been introduced. These might, at some future stage, skip animal trialing altogether, and make their way straight into double-blind trials. A combination of paranoia, uncertainty and human error in designing these complex metabolites are what contribute to the absence of this policy.

Animal rights are a slippery slope to begin with, I already find it difficult to comprehend that a pampered pet living in a developed nation has a better scope of rights than a human being living in an underprivelaged nation. We would have a farcical social fabric if animals were given legally enshrined rights past a reasonable stage. Awareness and consumer choice are the most sensible roads forward- "Furs for animals not people" was a successful slogan, and has raised people's awareness about such issues. The banning of illicit ivory sales also has received a huge response. Tackling issues like poaching, and the trade of luxury and medicinal goods involving cruelty needs to be stamped out firmly before we turn our attention to the stickier moral problem of medical research carried out on animals bred for that purpose.

It's not going to be resolved any time soon though, of that we can be fairly certain

Occy

BlitzKrieg

Though i wasnt debating my failure in collecting enough information has resulted in our teams defeat. Hang down our flags for we shall no longer battle. We got royally whooped.

nesf

Bob highlighted a good point in that the morality of animals specifically bred for testing is a slippery slope.

We tend to have a god-like syndrome when dealing with such things, since the animal wouldn't exist if it wasn't for it's purpose in animal testing, is there a moral objection to its very existence? An easier and broader case is the animals bred purely for human use, e.g. cattle for meat, horses for racing etc. Since without these human needs these animals would never have been bred, can it be argued that it is their purpose for them to die or be injured at our whim??

I don't support the above veiwpoint myself, but to be honest most animal-rights activists are far too righteous for my tastes. This civilisation was created by harnessing and abusing nature (including animals) for our own ends. How hypocritical are we to now demand animal rights, when the abuse of animals is engrained so deeply in our society that we no longer notice it? Also the effect of action at a distance, e.g. most ppl have never been inside a slaughterhouse, would they still eat meat if they had? This pre-packaged age we live in seeks to isolate ppl from the reality of the situation.

Now personally I've killed (as humanely as possible) fish and poultry for my own consuption. It's never stopped me from eating meat, but compared to most ppl I eat very little meat, as I simply don't like the taste and every so often I rememeber where it comes from.

Just a few thoughts, I'm trying to address both sides.


A tip tho Blitzkrieg, if you're against, try arguing the validity of the word needed and the absence of moral judgement in the title, it could put the proposition off-balance. Sometimes the toughest debates are on the wording of the title, and not the actual subject matter. For instance one could argue that the moral argument ignored in the title is so essential to any rationalisation of the subject matter, that the title itself is actually a poor representation of the subject and duely cannot be argued for while maintaining any form of realistic aspect of the public reaction to such testing and the inherent moral questions that must be asked when carrying out such experiments.

Hope that helps

nesf

Hmmm, sorry about that, was still writing the post as you posted! Ah well c'est la vie, hope ye'se do better next time!

Typedef

Testing on primates is so autrociously wrong that it can't be contemplated. Gorilla's have demonstrably communicated and held conversations via sign language and other communicative methods and to test on intelligences which are capable of so much, is appauling I won't say inhumane because, humanity seems hell bent on on the presual of man's inhumanity to man as a life skill and quasi-religious ethos.

While I accept that there are instances where the exploitation of animals for medical research can truly be beneficial I do think that testing on primates and higher mamals (a term invented by humans which puts humans at the top) is just plain wrong and I do believe if testing were outlawed or seriously curtailed that alternative methods would invariably and expiditiously arise, what do they say, necessity is the mother of invention?

Humans use animals for food amongst other things but, even for our food products there exist rules for the treatment of animals which protects them in theory from torture and mistreatement, thus I feel a kind of uneasiness at the seeming lax nature of laws governing the treatment of labotary animals. What real purpose can there be in grafting a human ear onto a mouse for example, to my mind that is questionable as to scientific merits when weighed against the torture of a life form? That just seems like torture in the name of science.

Without being called an Orwellian totalitarian I would also venture that animals are all too readily available to be exploited for the most pedantic purposes and access to animals for scientific research should be a process regulated by the state, a process which is accessable and scrutanizable or "transparent" to use a quilocialism, to the public.