QUOTE]Originally posted by More4 News Forum Ed: Today's More4 News is asking the question if scientific research on animals is justified?
What do you think? Is it a necessity practice or an unethical tool?
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It is not only unnecessary, it is positively harmful to humans. It also wastes precious time, effort, brainpower and money that could be spent on useful, efficient and worthwhile research that does not involve animals.
People keep saying 'if you had cancer' - but the cancer research is absolutely mindnumbingly useless. Cancer will never be understood while we keep using radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery. It is absolute madness the way orthodox medicine views cancer.
Just read up about the doctors who have been absolutely marvellous in treating cancer patients, resulting in the most amazing recoveries. You'll find that they have been persecuted and hounded - sometimes imprisoned - always they have been criminalised and their medical practice closed down.
Something tells me that the hugely powerful pharmaceutical companies want to wipe out TRUE healing. If we all learned about real healing, then the drug companies would lose their power and their money.
Animal testing is just one aspect of the corrupt drug companies.
Time people started thinking for themselves, instead of just believing and going along with the powerful drug companies.
I really don't like it when I find myself hissing and spitting at the television, as happened this evening. I was watching the personal opinion of the Texan professor who was banned from the UK, and I couldn't help myself. He publicly supports an organisation that takes part in terrorist actions. His argument that it was counter-terrorism really doesn't hold any weight with me; these people threaten individuals, destroy property, "set free" animals which are not equipped to live in the wild, and have a pretty skewed sense of priorities. His lofty ideals of rights and freedoms of animals are all very well, but when we have many human beings living without rights and freedoms on this planet, they take priority. Furthermore, it's even harder to take him seriously when you catch a glimpse of his shiny leather shoes.
I would not be alive today had it not been for medical testing on animals. It's a simple fact. The medications I take daily keep me alive, which most would argue as a good thing. I think there is a sharp divide between testing on animals for cosmetic purposes, and testing for medicinal purposes. The former I find abhorrent, and the latter, though distasteful, is absolutely necessary. There is currently no way to do all the testing that is needed purely on human subjects - the wide variety of tests that are required are just too vast.
I'm usually all for boycotting produce or companies for terrible ethics, but there comes a point where remaining alive becomes more important - there are some drug companies I inevitably use whose work practices appal me, but you will find that your ethics go out the window when it comes to survival.
Oh, and in reply to the above post, it's all very well preaching that there are alternatives to conventional cancer treatment, but when you line up the relatively few cases of alternative treatments working next to the many millions who survive as a result of chemo, radiation therapy and surgery, it becomes a little futile. Add to which, cancer is being used as an example - there are many other crippling and life threatening conditions which require the use of medications or treatments that have inevitably been tested on animals.
Nobody relishes the idea of using animals in medical research, and alternatives are being developed and used, but while the researchers tell us that animals are important for some purposes, they should be allowed to use them. Naturally, this should be well regulated and the animals dealt with as humanely as possible. If the animal rights groups succeed in stopping the use of animals in research in this country, it will be a sad day not only for British medical research but also for animals, because the research will not stop, it will simply be transfered from Britain, where it is more closely regulated than anywhere else in the world, to other countries where controls will inevitably be weaker.
The only way to settle this question once and for all is to have an independent scientific evaluation of animal testing - something which has never been attempted. Early Day Motion 92 calls for such an evaluation - please ask your MP to sign EDM 92 - 116 MPs already have.
Using animals in scientific experiments is morally wrong. Simply pointing to the benefits for human beings of vivisection does not justify it. Our exploitation of non-human animals in laboratories is based on a prejudice against taking the interests of those who are different from us into consideration, a prejudice no better than the prejudice of ignoring the interests of other races or genders. Racists believe that every member of their race are more valuable than members of other races, simply because they are members of their race, similarly speciesists believe that all members of their species are more valuable than members of other species, simply because they are members of their species.
Obviously there are differences between humans and animals which justify different treatment - dogs do not deserve the right to free speech because dogs are unable to speak, but dogs can feel pain and they therefore deserve the right not to suffer in factory farms or laboratories. Animals deserve to have their interests counted as equal to the similar interests of human beings. It could be claimed that humans are more intelligent than other animals and this fact justifies their exploitation but there are some human beings, babies and the mentally disabled, who are less intelligent and less self aware than many of the animals used in experiments. Would scientists be happy to use these 'marginal humans' in painful experiments? If not, then they are showing a bias in favour of members of their own species over members of other species.
I find it very worrying that Steve Best, a philosophy professor, can be banned from this country simply for stating that he supports non-violent direct action by the Animal Liberation Front. There are clearly some individuals within the animal rights movement who may use more violent methods to attain their ends, but this applies in many areas, throughout society and should not lead to a blanket ban on dissent. Animal experimentation is a contentious issue, especially since it is used for germ, gas and chemical warfare, household, industrial and agricultural chemicals, sun screens, psychological studies, as well as for medical research. In a survey of 500 doctors, commisssioned by Europeans for Medical Progress (http://www.curedisease.net) it was found that 82% did not trust animal experiments. Adverse drug reactions are one of the greatest causes of hospitalisation and death in the USA and in Britain. All these drugs had been tested as safe on animals. Vioxx was tested on 3 different species, including monkeys, our closest relatives, yet went on to kill people. Despite the fact that only a tiny amount is invested into alternatives, there are non-animal methods of research available and in the 21st century they should be used. Animal experimentation is unethical and unscientific but continues because animals are seen as a disposable resource, there is big money involved and easy grants. Before coming to power the Labour government promised a Royal Commission Enquiry into animal experiments. The time is now ripe to fulfill this promise.
While I do find it disturbing that this man can be banned for these views, I cannot help but feel kind of happy about it, as anyone that supports the ALF in any way is still giving credance to their more violent actions.
Using animals in experiments...it's always going to be a tough one, usually divided between those that see all life as sacred, and those that feel that life created artificially for such a purpose is just in that unfortunate situation. Personally...if a bunch of rats have been bred specifically for research then I find it somewhat ironic that people can fight against animal testing for their right to life. After all, what life would these animals have if it weren't for animal testing? They would have none, they wouldn't have existed.
For some this is obviously a preference, and I totally understand the arguments that if we create this life by creating the conditions for breeding then we should respect it too...but at what cost?
Scientists are divided, but some still do state that animal testing is required, not to create final issue medicines, but just to track effects in a biological species that computer modelling and a host of other techniques can't yet adequately reproduce since they require a base knowledge...something that is obviously lacking completion in research.
Yes, fine, hospitalisation is led to because of drugs tested fine on animals but were bad for humans, but what is to say that that will be any different when we move to computerised and engineered methods? What's to say that these instances won't get worse because there has been no biological stage of testing to see, quite simply, how things work in a living body that shares large similarities with a human one in the area being tested?
Bluebell2004 is having a laugh. Of course animal research isn't harmful to humans, quite the opposite. How many millions of people are alive because of insulin, penicillin, and even, dare I say it, conventional treatments for leukaemia and breast cancrer? If all these wonderful alternative treatments for cancer exist, it seems obvious that they would be used by one and all. Maybe those doctors were persecuted because they were seliing quack medicine, not because of some crazed conspiracy theory.
Before reaching conclusions about Best,based on a short tv programme, why not check out his extensive website, to get a fuller picture. Best puts his money where his mouth is and actively advocates for animals. He even has his own radio show dedicated to animal advocacy and vegetarianism - those 'shiny shoes' are more likely to be vegan!
Up until now,the UK has always been in the vanguard regarding freedom of speech and giving voice to dissent - ironically it rolls out the red carpet for dictators & religious extremists. Its citizens are now being denied the right to hear controversial viewpoints. Diminishing the opportunities for free expression may well fan the flames of animal rights militancy in the UK.
Leo the Lion really needs to get his facts straight and not just parrot the animal experimenters line. While he's online he should go to the EMP website: http://www.curedisease.net to find out the truth about insulin, penicillin and many other drugs claimed as due to animal experiments. Sabin stated that the polio vaccine was delayed for 20 years due to animal experiments. Many people have died from AIDS due to the delays caused by animal testing. Every species reacts differently and even within the human species there are differences depending on age, sex, race, build etc. Animal experimentation is big money - from the breeders to the cages, restraints, feed etc. And it's a slippery slope of disrespect towards other species. Why have scientists carried out maternal deprivation experiments on baby monkeys yet again (and found that they get depressed) when these same studies were done in the 1950s with the same results? Because they got a job/grant for a bit of easily done research, that's why!
Sir Alexander Fleming himself said: " How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s for penicillin would probably never have been granted a licence and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realised."
Resources currently wasted on animal experiments should be used not only be used to implement and develop non-animal methodologies, but also for health education and primary health care services, as many illnesses are the result of poor nutrition and lifestlyles. Even if animal research was scientifically valid, it is highly unethical that animals should have to suffer because of human folly.
SuzieB and Dadaba are just parroting the antivivisectionist line! How come an independent committee of the House of Lords looked at all the evidence and found that animal research was scientifically sound?
If readers want the other side - ie how animal research led directly to the development of pencillin, insulin, polio vaccine and many more medical solutions that keep us alive, they should go to http://www.rds-net.org.uk.
Any respectable scientist will tell you that animal research is difficult, expensive, and gets you into trouble with nasty extremists. So why do scientists do animal research - because it works. QED.
Animal models are not perfect but tey are massively preferrable to experimenting on humans or human made simulations, we may never know enough about physiology to do that perfectly.
You cannot deny the products of animal research. We simply would not have the therapies and medicines we have today without the use of animals at some stage of the medical discovery process. We currently cannot replicate living physiology without the use of animals which is why, for the time being, we rely on animal experimentation.
We (in the industry) would gladly switch to 100% non-animal methods tomorrow if they were up to task. Animal research is extremely expensive, very labour intensive and often requires significant development and analysis to reach conclusion. Conversely non-animal (human ex vivo tissue, human in vitro, computer models etc), are infinitely cheaper, and much, much quicker. The only reason we currently continue to use animal research is because we cannot obtain the answers we require when developing medicines or therapies without testing them on living physiologies.
Please remember that the UK has the highest standard of animal care in the world, and we have extremely strict laws which demand that a non-animal method must be use if there is no suitable alternative available. On that point we are investing significantly on alternatives to try and reduce costs in the long term, and hopefully develop superior techniques and models to those which currently exist.
If I may take some time to address specific points raised in this thread :-
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In a survey of 500 doctors, commisssioned by Europeans for Medical Progress (http://www.curedisease.net) it was found that 82% did not trust animal experiments.
Doctors are far removed from medical research, and in all honestly not really in a position to pass informed opinion.
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Adverse drug reactions are one of the greatest causes of hospitalisation and death in the USA and in Britain.
Are you willing to support this claim with evidence? ADRs don't even make it into the top 10 causes of death in either country. Often overdose or condrictication are given as ADR which is not the point you are attempting to make.
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All these drugs had been tested as safe on animals.
This is a horrible, horrible misconception, and honestly should not be stated. You are assuming that animal research suggested any given medication is free from side effects, which simply is not the case. Every single medication available to people have side effects, and it is up to the doctor to decide if the risk of side effects outweigh the benefits to the patients condition.
Absolutely no drugs are "safe".
Let me remind you that before a drug is released to the populus it has to go through several stages of human trials, which they need to pass as "safe" before being released. Seeing as all of the drugs you've mentioned passed these human stages, why point the finger of blame at animal research, and not the human research?
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Sir Alexander Fleming himself said: " How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s for penicillin would probably never have been granted a licence and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realised."
This is a misquote. He was actually referring to the fact that the high standards currently required by the FDA would mean that penicillin would not be granted a licence due to its side effects. Same goes for aspirin etc etc. There is a higher standard required for todays drugs compared to drugs from previous times.
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The Human Genome Project and Stem Cell Research render vivisection as obselete.
Are you able to explain why you believe this is the answer? What exactly will the genome project give us in terms of new medications or therapies? While the project might discover potential new targets for drug prosecution it certainly will not deliver a drug - that will still require animal research.
While stem cell research is starting to show some promise, most therapies will still need to be validated in animals before being tested on humans.
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Remember Thalidomide (and the rest) ..............
Thalidomide is a perfect example 'for' animal research, not 'against' animal research. Experiments on pregnant animals were not performed prior to this drug being released, so no one knew of the developmental effects of this drug. Animal experiments performed after it had caused problems in humans accurately predicted these side effects. You cannot blame animals if they experiments were not performed.
This tragedy results in all new drugs being tested on pregnant animals.
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If anyone has any specific questions I am more than happy to attempt to address them.
