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Do you support drug companies using animals for testing in order to develop new medicines for humans?

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I hope those who voted "NO" do not use any cosmetics. I remember years ago seeing tests done on rabbits, where they had a large room full of rabbits, each one held motionless, and they were applying some cosmetic (I believe perfume) directly into their eyes. That really bothered me. For cosmetics, these tests should be eliminated.

But for medicines, many (not all) tests on animals are important.

13 ( +16 / -3 )

Thunderbird2Jan. 29 11:29 pm JST

Plenty of murderers and rapists around... use them.

It is unacceptable to harm or kill animals but OK to torture or kill humans? I think your moral compass needs realigning!

9 ( +10 / -1 )

No. Animal testing is not right. We should be able in this day and age to find other means to our ends

What do you mean that we "should be able"? biology is one of the most difficult sciences because new important variables are found every day. We are very far from even understanding clearly what a living organism really is, replicating it is completely out of the question. At this point is just science fiction.

That does not mean we have small portions figured out, for those parts tests can be done in cells or even computers simulations without using animals.

Never understood this kind of testing as our biology is very different is it not?

The test are for results that do not depend on being exactly the same biology. In general they are used to see a general response in animals or in mammals. X thing is used to activate Y part of the immune system, something that is common to humans and mice for example, all studies until now say this produces Z effect, but it is impossible to see if other effects would appear, you put X in mice and see if Z is produced safely, if the mice suddenly die you now need to see why, if not you can now have a minimum proof of safety to test on humans.

Some 80% of drugs pronounced 'safe' through animal trials fail at the clinical trial stage. 

This is precisely the justification of animal trials, all the 100% of drugs that were considered "safe" are only a tiny part of the drugs screened, that means that in order to find that 20% of drugs that are actually safe in humans you would not have to test 5 times more humans but 500, 5000 times more humans. Healthy, young people that have never taking any medicine or had any important disease since birth.

7 ( +14 / -7 )

Animal models as a substitute for the human model are intrinsically flawed.  actually no it isnt especially for Chimpanzees and monkeys that share more than 98% the same DNA as humans.

7 ( +12 / -5 )

"So far no effective vaccine for HIV/AIDs has been developed". That's an oddly specific requirement. Are we just going to ignore the treatments that have turned HIV into a long-term condition rather than a death sentence? How about a vaccine against asthma or diabetes? Ridiculous. Treatment that restores lifespan will do while we figure out how to tackle a relatively new disease.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Everybody that uses a health intervention implicitly is supporting using animal testing.

As long as there are strict ethical guidelines being observed I think is rational to allow for it. Doing something in science in an ethical way means that advances immediately get reflected in less and less animals being used every time.

6 ( +11 / -5 )

Six men were hospitalized — and one of them was pronounced brain-dead — after a drug trial in northwestern France,

This example have no importance in the discussion about chimps being a flawed model or not for humans, many drugs have showed unknown side effects AFTER being tested in other humans, do that make humans a flawed model for humans? obviously not.

If you want to say that chimps are not an adequate model you have to show that a large percentage of the drugs that work (or are safe) for them do not work (or are safe) for humans. But a single example out of an unknown number of successful trials prove nothing.

Also, if you considered bad that people die while testing a new drug it makes no sense to say that human testing should replace animals, it would prevent none of the deaths and it would increase them instead.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

Again with only three choices for a complicated issue. Yes No Depends and I don’t know.

Dropping make-up in the eyes of rabbits and monkeys blinding them is cruel and dumb.

Giving a monkey or chimpanzee a shot of a new anti-HIV medicine or a new and more comprehensive anti-flu shot is more logical and beneficial.

I’d rather scientists used computer modeling but that’s not always as real as needed. It’s -slightly- better that a chimpanzee sacrifice themselves than a human. Especially when they are making a medicine that could save literally millions of lives.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

murabito - well said. Tried to + you but yet again it wouldn't allow me.

Toasted HereticJan. 29 08:26 pm JST

Humans are animals.

They can say "no" or "stop - you're hurting me".

Test them, instead.

Invalid argument, scientifically and morally unacceptable.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

I don't like it but I can't see how it can be completely avoided. I would rather have them testing on animals than on people. But much of the animal testing can probably be eliminated though.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

Wasting time and resources on models that are not human models and give no indication of how the particular drug will act in humans? Why not just test on human volunteers? (You know, models that can say 'OK' and 'No, that hurts, stop'?)

Because they do give indication?

no matter how many exceptions you mention, the reality is that MOST of the drugs that go up until animal tests never reach human volunteers, all those rejections are also part of the deaths that are saved from humans by animal experimentation. You still are arguing about killing more people to find out something that we can do with animals.

The initial clinical trials are the first time any drug is properly tested. Test on tissues, cultures, etc., first, then go on to clinical trials. More reliable results, and way less suffering and 'sacrifice'.

No, that is not true, all the suffering and sacrifice would be the same, only in humans. You have provided no information at all about all those deaths that are not produced thanks to tests in animals, probably because defeats your whole point.

There are no dead bodies on my plate, no flayed skins on my back or on my feet. I get no entertainment from animals suffering.

As long as you live on this planets there are millions of dead bodies in your plate, only hidden from your view, everything you use, you eat is based on resources that are taken from animals killing them by pollution, hunger, etc. Your position is unfortunately hypocritical since its only based on you feeling fine as long as the animals are killed without your express permission, even if you end up benefiting the same from their deaths.

I give me and my family more importance than every other creature, including humans, who are not part of my family. Some members of my family have four legs. Others have fins.

And that is my point, humans giving more importance to humans is simply an extension of that, its desirable, its natural, it brings adaptation and evolution. We as humans have the possibility of restraining that with ethics, exactly how is done with animal experimentation, but the irrational and illogical position of giving animals the same importance is like asking you to give every other human the same importance as you and your family, simply not something that would or should happen.

I use/have used some of the resources available to me to house and nourish a variety of dogs, cats, birds, fish, rodents, tortoises..

And since those resources come from the planet Earth you are at the same time killing many more animals simply because irrationally you prefer some of them. Every grain of rice you take for you or whoever you give it to is taken from animals that need it to survive. Doing it for medicine is simply the same.

No you can't. The two are diametrically opposite.

False, that is just your personal subjective, irrational opinion. Unless you have objective data that would be true for anybody irrespective of their preferences you have no argument.

How many potential benefits to humans have been abandoned or ignored because those drugs didn't work/were harmful in animals?

a tiny, microscopic segment, because science have methods that improve constantly and at every moment new differences are identified and cataloged, the same drugs are re analyzed taking in account those new variables and anything that may have slipped gets a new chance to be tried, constantly.

On the other hand every person that was saved because a toxic drug was found before it was tested in humans lived his life to die from other things. The positive aspects of animal experimentation keep accumulating while the disadvantages keep diminishing, its a winning proposition for everybody that can consider things rationally and ethically instead of having double standards about animal rights.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

We all seem to be assuming the animal dies. Often that is not the case. The chimp or pig or rat is ‘given’ a disease then a new drug is administered. The science people want the new drug to work. (As does the chimp, pig, or rat, I’m sure.)

Using their brains and computer modelling, science can get very close to an efficient medicine. But living things are more complicated. So they use animals rather than, possibly, causing harm to a human.

The polio virus, for example, was too small to be seen. The only way researchers could test it was to give it to monkeys. Through their research of forty years, Salk was able to save the lives of millions of children. Yes, polio kills. 350,000 cases per year in 1980 to 17 in 2016. All because they could use animals to study the disease, learn to stop it, and come up with a cheap (25 cents/dose) vaccine.

Currently mice are being used to study pancreatic cancer which has a kill rate of 99%. And only humans get it. Should we only experiment on humans until a cure is found?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

If you cannot tell the difference between inadvertently causing harm in the course of our daily lives, which I admit we all do, and deliberately, consciously and with cold, planned forethought causing pain, distress, mutilation and ultimate death to millions of animals for results that can and should be better and more effectively obtained by other means,

Well, that is the point precisely, you have give absolutely nothing that could be considered as "other means" except letting people die testing drugs, if that is acceptable then you should also consider acceptable to die of hunger instead of being the cause of billions and billions of animal deaths, but for no reason at all you apply a double standard.

That said, there is a huge difference between the killing of an animal quickly, painlessly and humanely, and prolonged torture involving mutilation, poisoning, debilitating infection, genetically engineered cancers and the myriad of other unspeakable things that go on in laboratories supposedly in the name of 'science'.

If you accept there is a difference then you accept there is value in what science do to improve animal experimentation, which again is completely different from your absolutist proposition at the beginning where everything and anything is the worst. Animal suffering is reduced year by year in the scientific research, that is not something that can be said in the meat industry and the opposite is true in the production of food where animals only mean pests.

Where are all these dead wild animals that have died on account of my supposed hogging of the rice fields?

So if you don't see dead cats in the streets it means all the strays are immortal? Of course the dead animals exist, is terribly naive to think that natural life with its constant presence of death magically stops happening in any place that produce what you use. They don't coming to a place where they could live means they die because they are not able to use the resources, they die as usual, as normal, as expected but with the huge difference that the reason for them not to be able to live is because you want to use their resources (space, food, water, etc) Every living thing is doing this, using natural resources to live even when it means that others will die, the difference is that we humans can notice this (better said, we should be able to notice, there is always people that live in denial thinking their life is pure and there is no deaths on their plate)

You kill animals with everything you do, and every decision can be related to the death of more or less animals, buying a phone, getting new clothes, going to the doctor, its not different. More animals die making the box of a pill than by experimentation because there is no need to keep killing them once you know what is to be known about it, but a new box is needed all the time and natural resources taken from animals constantly.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I voted yes. But then again, I have no problem eating animals as well.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

To you, perhaps. But the same emotional reaction can be applied to the reprehensible treatment of animals by the big pharmas

That is what is wrong with it, emotional reactions are worthless, in comparison a scientific or moral argument wins every time and that is why we still use animal experimentation, because its opposed only by emotional reactions.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Fascist regimes in WWII performed gross experiments on people and that was wrong. I would rather see medicines and drugs and such tested on animals first because there are some DNA similarities with humans. Animals are for our use but not for sadistic pleasures - just like plants. I eat steak, bacon, hamburgers, etc. and I wear and use leather goods and stuff but I don't believe they should be mistreated just for the sake of it. I'm against bull-fighting, cock-fighting and dog-fighting and I don't kick dogs or cats around. Animals, like plants are there for our utilization and food, and I'd rather see tests done on these things than on people. Scientific research done correctly can be beneficial to mankind, and even to animals themselves. Genetic engineering has improved food yield in plants and animals. Testing animals in a responsible manner can improve our lives.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Well, Japan is forced to import tens of thousands of America rice every year, which sits in silos for a couple of years then sold off for animal feed.

Once again, unless is brought from Mars it is produced using resources on the planet, which obviously could be used by wild animals that have to die (or be killed) for it to be used by humans. The point is that humans simply cannot survive without killing or making animals suffer, and animal experimentation is both a much more limited enterprise and also much more controlled to produce the least amount possible of suffering and death, so complaining about it but feeling completely fine about eating its not rational.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Cell culture. Tissue culture. Common sense.

Do you even understand anything about the topic? in vitro testing is the step done BEFORE testing in animals and humans, obviously its being done right now what you are complaining about is the step AFTER it, so obviously you cannot replace animal testing with another round of cell testing because that only gives you the same information, you have no other option for animal testing but human testing, which would only increase the number of human fatalities.

The only way to reduce the suffering is to stop using animals.

Sorry but that is nonsense. There are many different ways to reduce animal suffering, not only on animal experimentation but in every other aspect of life, once again you try to impose your uninformed opinion as fact when it is not.

 If they aren't in the streets, the plains and forests should be knee-deep in bodies.

grasping at straws now? is that what you think happens in nature when something die? you make less and less sense in every reply just because you refuse to accept the reality that for every luxury you take animals have to suffer and die, yes I know its more comfortable to live in denial but its not a very productive approach and someone may misinterpret it as hypocrisy.

It isn't only killing, it's the pain and suffering imposed.

So what? its the same, a pill studied means there is no need for any more animal death, pain nor suffering. The boxes (as well as everything else you do in your daily life) still means taking resources from animals and causing them death, pain and suffering.

 It's totally unnecessary 'research' that subjected large numbers of animals to unnecessary suffering.

Obviously,

I mean, that is the position of the scientists as well, and every reputable animal experimentation ethics committee ask for a full investigation about who allowed that research to be done because it is NOT in line with what should be permitted, it is contrary to the 3 Rs of animal research and considered scientific malpractice.

It is completely different to say that there are still problems with animal experimentation and saying that animal experimentation is the problem, if you find out a doctor is performing unnecessary surgeries for profit do you think this can be used as an argument for the abolition of the whole field of surgery?

And once again, because you keep deflecting the main point like when I put you the example of the steak, it does not matter at all how "unacceptable" you find animal experimentation, as long as you keep using the medical science to keep you and your family healthy (not only drugs but the whole scientific approach) you are supporting animal experimentation. Whatever you say its negated the first step you take inside a doctor office, or check the daily nutritional recommendations on a label, or wash your hands after coming back home. You are like the guy that asks for animals not to be killed for food but eat meat 3 meals a day.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Do we? I find the suffering more problematic.

But only when you choose not to ignore it like you do with the suffering you cause by you consuming resources, and of course the medical treatments that you keep getting, at that moment you stop finding anything problematic.

Viz the Monkeys-breathing-exhaust-fumes scandal I mentioned higher up the thread.

Which is still a problem FROM the point of view of animal experimentation, you still have no argument.

It seems a lot of effort in the current 'studies' is being spent on trying to develop mice with human-type pancreatic cancer, rather than trying to cure the cancer in humans.

Because its a much more useful and quick tool, its infinitely easier to find a cure when you can modify thousands of variables against the same disease (yes, that is why its human cancer) it has worked before, it may work this time also, and its of course much more productive than killing patients at the same rate to get much less meaningful results.

Surely these people are desperate for anything that might offer the chance of a cure? Study people, not rodents.

The subject of the study is neither people nor mice, its the disease, if you can model a disease and treat it successfully that is a huge advance, you can do it killing people or killing mice, anyone reasonable and without double standards can see which option is more ethical.

And no, you cannot study it on cells, every failed candidate of treatment has already passed the cells stage and has to be tried to see if it kills faster the cancer or the patient.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I think you are the one not understanding. In vitro is looked on as an alternative to animal testing.

Duh! from the beginning animal experimentation is done to get results that CANT be done on in vitro experiments. Let me go slower on this for you, for ANY kind of test that can be done in cells animals are not used, which of course means that any test that is done now in animals is only done because it cannot be done on cells, you cannot replace in vivo tests with in vitro because they are only done because they cant be replaced.

Scientist work constantly to replace in vivo for in vitro, that is required by the ethical guidelines for animal experimentation, they do it when they have a viable option, just saying "they should replace everything" without giving the alternative only means to replace it with human testing, which is nonsense.

You know what would be a huge pressure for scientists to abandon animal experimentation? that the people that are against it would refuse the use of everything that medicine has thanks to the experiments (which of course practically means everything in health care), but people (including you) simply don't do that. We simply put the health of ourselves and our family members as more important than the animals, which is the reason why there is animal experimentation on the first place.

The sooner you understand that we (as humanity) are simply doing exactly the same as you (personally) are doing it will become easier to see why there is no way we can abandon animal experimentation without at least a century of advances in science.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Animal testing is not the goal, the goal is to develop medicines that can be used for humans. So we try them on animals first before we try it on ourselves. If you don't take any medicine whatsoever, feel free to object. If you (I mean the hypocrites) have the nerve to use even the simplest antibiotics, even soap, toothpaste, fragrance, dishwashing soap, detergents and so on, sorry. You are also benefiting from this madness.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

It knocks a hole in the claim that chimps are particularly good. If trials using chimps were so good, why are so few used?

That was not what you wrote, you tried to prove they are a flawed substitute for humans, which they are not, now you give different reasons? what if the researcher have money, can handle them and does not get his face bitten off? would that make them a good animal model for you?

We (I hate to include myself in that 'we'...) use smaller, easier to handle animals whose DNA is very different from ours, not because they're the best model,

So now you accept that chimps are a much closer, better model? that is completely different from what you said before,.

And the vast majority of the tests they are used in, will be useless.

if they prevent loss of human lives they are not useless, provide a citation then than the vast majority of test resulting in their death is actually innocuous on humans for example.

I consider it bad that anyone, whether with two, four or six legs, should suffer and die needlessly.

As long as you live in this planet you are the cause for this to happen and for reasons much less important than prove the safety or efficacy of a drug, most of the time you are causing the death of many animals just to get a better tasting or nutritive meal. Of course also every single time you use any medical intervention.

Then the researchers could concentrate their efforts on cures that work in humans, instead of wasting time torturing animals.

That is precisely the point, you are not providing any solution to the use of animals to prevent human deaths, especially to prevent the deaths in human subject for trials. The use of experimental animals save uncountable human lives just by identifying the thousands of unexpected toxic side effects from all the drugs that are rejected. Those rejections are absolutely necessary to find the drugs that will work, and without animals the only other option would be to kill human subjects.

Ever since HIV showed its ugly face some 30 years ago, monkeys have been used in research to find a cure.

And so for every other infectious disease, once again you think finding one failure means that the other 99.99% of the cases where a successful drug is found suddenly has no meaning.

You know who does more to end animal suffering than people that complain but buy the treatments anyway? Researchers that provide ethical standards, that develop better statistical methods to get the same results from less animals, molecular biologists that make possible the replacement of monkeys with mice, mice with worms, worms with cell lines.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If we use animals to test for human products, then we should equally use humans to test for animal veterinerary medicines. If this is unacceptable, then I agree on computer modeling and in vitro tissue experiments as the way forward. 

Those two options are the same thing, the whole point is to test something as much as possible before including humans, in silico and in vitro testing is already done as much as possible (since its easier and cheaper than in vivo) eliminating animals is exactly the same as testing humans in the first place.

 We need to have a clear aim, ie to wind down animal vivisection and experimentation ever more sharply in order to abolish it, understanding that animals feel pain just as keenly as human animals.

That makes no sense, you yourself are causing animals painful deaths every single day, both directly (with your own body) and indirectly (because every single thing you do and buy has a cost in animal suffering) comparing with the cost you happily pay to have better clothes, food, entertaiment, etc Medicines are a much higher purpose with a much less cost in animal lives, in a lab at least there are rules about decreasing suffering as much as possible, something above most of the animals sacrificed for you to enjoy your life.

So many humans apparently have trouble with their frontal cortex and seem to be unable to put themselves in others' shoes. The disregard for anyone, or any-thing, that is not them is astounding.

That is false, there are mechanisms in place for the elimination of all unnecessary animal sacrifices and suffering, your problem is not understanding what life is, and the reason we have such variation in life in the planet. In short, for every species their own is the one that is more important, and that is necessary to have a competition and better adapted species on each generation. You are giving yourself more importance than every other animal, simply by the fact that you are still alive while the resources you use could keep alive animals that suffer and die every day. Animal experimentation is only different because of the inherent obligation to do this with the least amount of death and pain as possible.

As if being against inhumane treatment of animals is being actively in favour of human suffering, actively in favour of congenial illness, actively in favour of epidemics. Ridiculous.

That is the whole point, you bring false dichotomies when in reality you can be completely against inhumane treatment of animals and still be pro animal experimentation, on the same way that you can be against suffering but still eat food that is denied to them.

If Alexander Fleming had tested his new penicillin on guinea pigs or hamsters (which it kills) he would never have used it on humans and the field of antibiotics would have been delayed who knows how long.

That is much more a reason to test in animals closer to humans than to stop testing on animals, guinea pigs have a special sensibility to the death of gram positive bacteria, something not shared by humans, rabbits, mice, rats, dogs, cats, etc. Yes, it would have been very unfortunate to test in precisely the animal that get sick from it, but that is to be avoided not by stopping the testing on them but by testing in many species.

Thalidomide was (supposedly) thoroughly tested in animals.

Which again is talking about the exception instead of the rule, how many other drugs have been tested in animals that resulted in toxicity and therefore not tested in humans? 10, 1000, a million? one case out of thousands (where the screening failed) is still a hugely better bet than doing all the testing directly in humans and getting the same problems.

Once again your only argument is to discard something that is not perfect without giving anything to replace it thinking that increasing the number of dead people somehow is better, that makes no sense.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

No time to answer all your points, gotta go and fix a meal. Just one thing that is so ridiculous I cannot let it pass...

Every grain of rice you take for you or whoever you give it to is taken from animals that need it to survive

This is just sheer rubbish. If people didn't go out in the fields, till the land, plant the seeds, add fertiliser etc., the rice (and other crops) wouldn't be there in the first place. The food is not being taken from any 'animals that need it to survive'. No animal is starving on account of me, or anyone else, eating a bowl of rice.

Be serious.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

This is just sheer rubbish. If people didn't go out in the fields, till the land, plant the seeds, add fertiliser etc., the rice (and other crops) wouldn't be there in the first place.

That does not matter at all, the fields are not in mars nor the moon, they are in land of Earth, in a space that can sustain literally thousands and thousands of animals that are not tolerated anymore.

No animal is starving on account of me, or anyone else, eating a bowl of rice.

Of course they are, even if you don't want to accept it, resources in this planet are limited so everything you are using is something that is taken from another living being, obviously your whole argument is based in you not accepting it but it is still the reality. If a researcher say that their animals are not natural but cultivated there does it make it easier for you for them to use them? if not you should not feel fine either if your food is also cultivated, every human being is cause of death and suffering but apparently as long as you cannot see it it becomes completely fine.

Compared with that experimental animals are just a tiny portion, not even a millionth of the total, and for those you are ALSO using them every time you take a medicine, go to the hospital, listen to a health related recommendation, because they exist thanks to animal experimentation.

What would you think if someone say that people should not kill animals but pays happily for a big steak every time he has dinner? its the same.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

virusrex, thank you for a cool rational presentation of the facts in the midst of so much misguided emotional reaction.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

@Aly Rustom - No. Animal testing is not right. We should be able in this day and age to find other means to our ends

Some very interesting arguments against using animas for drug testing. Perhaps those who are against it would volunteer themselves or their children to be used as drug testers. Or, would they prefer to suffer any side effects from untested drugs? As much as using animals may seem cruel, it is a necessary part of pharmaceutical development.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

No.

I myself have probably benefited from products tested on animals that I am unaware of.

Never understood this kind of testing as our biology is very different is it not?

Anyhoo...it's not right, and I'd prefer other methods were used.

-1 ( +13 / -14 )

In general, they use animal in the paper, but use human testing in countries that have no regulation. There is others methods today to do science. We know the body enough. I am clearly against that kind of animal testing. They are suffering and anything that use life to bring it pain should be on a list to be stopped..

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

the whole point is to test something as much as possible before including humans

Wasting time and resources on models that are not human models and give no indication of how the particular drug will act in humans? Why not just test on human volunteers? (You know, models that can say 'OK' and 'No, that hurts, stop'?)

The initial clinical trials are the first time any drug is properly tested. Test on tissues, cultures, etc., first, then go on to clinical trials. More reliable results, and way less suffering and 'sacrifice'.

you yourself are causing animals painful deaths every single day

I admit I have no problems swatting a mosquito or flattening a cockroach - pests that have the potential to harm me and mine. I might also step on the occasional ant without noticing, or cut through a worm when digging in the allotment. I try not to. I use pest repellants that make pests want to go and eat someone else's lettuces, not pesticides that kill (Don't want poison on my lettuces anyway).

There are no dead bodies on my plate, no flayed skins on my back or on my feet. I get no entertainment from animals suffering.

You are giving yourself more importance than every other animal,

Ha, now there's a false argument, and one that doesn't help your 'humans are more important than animals' stance. I give me and my family more importance than every other creature, including humans, who are not part of my family. Some members of my family have four legs. Others have fins.

simply by the fact that you are still alive while the resources you use could keep alive animals that suffer and die every day.

I use/have used some of the resources available to me to house and nourish a variety of dogs, cats, birds, fish, rodents, tortoises.....

you can be completely against inhumane treatment of animals and still be pro animal experimentation

No you can't. The two are diametrically opposite.

how many other drugs have been tested in animals that resulted in toxicity and therefore not tested in humans?

How many potential benefits to humans have been abandoned or ignored because those drugs didn't work/were harmful in animals?

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

every human being is cause of death and suffering but apparently as long as you cannot see it it becomes completely fine.

No, it does not become 'completely fine'. If you cannot tell the difference between inadvertently causing harm in the course of our daily lives, which I admit we all do, and deliberately, consciously and with cold, planned forethought causing pain, distress, mutilation and ultimate death to millions of animals for results that can and should be better and more effectively obtained by other means, then I'm sorry but we have no common ground on which to continue any kind of meaningful conversation.

What would you think if someone say that people should not kill animals but pays happily for a big steak every time he has dinner?

Personally I find it distressing and disgusting that anyone would want to eat a dead body or part of a dead body, and the total collapse of the meat industry would make me very happy; but I know I'm in the minority on this point. That said, there is a huge difference between the killing of an animal quickly, painlessly and humanely, and prolonged torture involving mutilation, poisoning, debilitating infection, genetically engineered cancers and the myriad of other unspeakable things that go on in laboratories supposedly in the name of 'science'.

it is produced using resources on the planet, which obviously could be used by wild animals that have to die (or be killed) for it to be used by humans. 

You don't know very much about how biology works, do you. Where are all these dead wild animals that have died on account of my supposed hogging of the rice fields? By your account the streets should be piled high with furry bodies, since the concrete jungles we all live in should in the natural course of things be plains or woods or swamps or jungles where wild animals live free, getting fat off the land. Yet I don't see them, do you? No. Why? Because when the resources are not available those animals don't get born in the first place.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Invalid argument, scientifically and morally unacceptable

To you, perhaps. But the same emotional reaction can be applied to the reprehensible treatment of animals by the big pharmas.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Animals are no longer, biochemical nor able to compare as A probable portals without a high risk of XME/RSA laser common subject and d-prob infectious disease commonality doing a human generic experiment testing.

“No animals are good placebo, however, bad humans are solid hazardous toward animal infestation.!

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Do you even understand anything about the topic? in vitro testing is the step done BEFORE testing in animals and humans

I think you are the one not understanding. In vitro is looked on as an alternative to animal testing.

http://www.sgs.com/en/news/2015/07/in-vitro-testing-alternative-methods-to-assess-toxicology-and-efficacy-of-cosmetics

It offers an effective and ever-improving alternative to animal testing. In some areas, such as cosmetics destined for the EU, it replaces animal testing completely. In others it can be used to reduce the number of animals and tests required, or refine procedures to limit animal impacts.

Note too that in the cosmetics industry in vitro has progressed largely thanks to the EU ban on cosmetics testing on animals; If researchers are allowed to use quick-and-easy animal testing, they will, not because it's the best way, but because it's what they've always done (they know no better) and they have no incentive to find anything better. Tell them they can no longer torture mice and monkeys, and progress in in vitro technology will take off.

Animals are for our use

Animals, like plants are there for our utilization

Mmm, no they're not. What makes you think they are?

I'd rather see tests done on these things

You see, there's your problem. You see them as things. They're not. They're sentient beings, every bit as capable as you or me of feeling pain and fear.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

In short, for every species their own is the one that is more important, and that is necessary to have a competition and better adapted species on each generation.

Humans are the only species that take far more than they need. If humans were, in general, a little more decent as a species, we wouldn't be looking at wiping ourselves and the planet out so fast.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

The answer for me is no, I do not support them. I take the point that my life is riddled with inconsistencies, granted, but I do not think it is possible to be absolute about these things. Each does his or her best. The Jain sect in India wear masks and sweep the paths in order not to kill anything little thing, but they are breathing microbes.

My philosophy is that the human condition is like a bull forced to live in a china shop. We have a choice not to smash everything in the shop, but unfortunately we will occasionally break something, and wear out the carpet.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

you have give absolutely nothing that could be considered as "other means" except letting people die

Cell culture. Tissue culture. Common sense.

Animal suffering is reduced year by year in the scientific research

The only way to reduce the suffering is to stop using animals.

 if you don't see dead cats in the streets it means all the strays are immortal?

We aren't taking about stray cats, you mentioned the 'billions and billions' of wildlife that my bowl of rice is producing. If they aren't in the streets, the plains and forests should be knee-deep in bodies.

there is no need to keep killing them once you know what is to be known about it

It isn't only killing, it's the pain and suffering imposed.

There is an uproar at the moment about German car manufacturers shutting monkeys in an airtight chamber and forcing them to inhale high concentrations of car exhaust fumes. This research is not aimed at saving any human lives; it was designed to counter the 2012 decision by the WHO to classify diesel exhaust as a carcinogen and was aimed solely at helping the companies' bottom line. It's totally unnecessary 'research' that subjected large numbers of animals to unnecessary suffering.

We already know that exhaust fumes are toxic, but still the German monkey research went ahead. The facts do not back up your 'things are getting better' premise.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

We all seem to be assuming the animal dies

Do we? I find the suffering more problematic.

The chimp or pig or rat is ‘given’ a disease then a new drug is administered.

There are strains of lab animal, mainly mice, guaranteed to develop whatever nasty condition the experimenter wants. Vile things are done to animals, not always to cure them again, but just to see what happens. Viz the Monkeys-breathing-exhaust-fumes scandal I mentioned higher up the thread.

Currently mice are being used to study pancreatic cancer which has a kill rate of 99%. And only humans get it. Should we only experiment on humans until a cure is found?

Mice don't get pancreatic cancer. A classic case of trying to study something by looking at something else that is completely different. It seems a lot of effort in the current 'studies' is being spent on trying to develop mice with human-type pancreatic cancer, rather than trying to cure the cancer in humans.

75% of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die within a year of their diagnosis. Only 5% or so survive 5 years. Surely these people are desperate for anything that might offer the chance of a cure? Study people, not rodents.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

No!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

better that a chimpanzee sacrifice themselves 

The chimps sacrifice themselves?? No.

they are making a medicine that could save literally millions of lives

The pro-vivisectionists always come up with this argument. We killed/tortured millions of animals and came up with a drug/treatment that saves lives, so animal experiments must be a good thing! Think of the children!

As if being against inhumane treatment of animals is being actively in favour of human suffering, actively in favour of congenial illness, actively in favour of epidemics. Ridiculous.

If Alexander Fleming had tested his new penicillin on guinea pigs or hamsters (which it kills) he would never have used it on humans and the field of antibiotics would have been delayed who knows how long.

Thalidomide was (supposedly) thoroughly tested in animals.

Animal-based research delayed the development of a polio vaccine by decades.

http://www.safermedicines.org/page/faqs_faq06

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

@virusrex - being obtuse doesn't help your argument to look more sophisticated.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

borscht, two prejudices in here, quote: "I’d rather scientists used computer modeling but that’s not always as real as needed. It’s -slightly- better that a chimpanzee sacrifice themselves than a human. Especially when they are making a medicine that could save literally millions of lives."

"Better that a chimpanzee sacrifice..." means better for humanity, but not for chimapnzees, right?

"...save millions of lives." means human lives, right?

If we use animals to test for human products, then we should equally use humans to test for animal veterinerary  medicines. If this is unacceptable, then I agree on computer modeling and in vitro tissue experiments as the way forward. We need to have a clear aim, ie to wind down animal vivisection and experimentation ever more sharply in order to abolish it, understanding that animals feel pain just as keenly as human animals.

We need to sign up to this, to pledge, in much the same way as we fight against sexual harrassment and fossil fuel vehicles.

-5 ( +3 / -8 )

So many humans apparently have trouble with their frontal cortex and seem to be unable to put themselves in others' shoes. The disregard for anyone, or any-thing, that is not them is astounding.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

I hope those who voted "NO" do not use any cosmetics

There are a growing number of cruelty-free cosmetics manufacturers. In fact the EU, Israel and India have laws banning the sale of cosmetics or cosmetics ingredients that have been tested on animals. Testing on human tissue cultures provides much more reliable results than dropping irritants into the eyes of restrained rabbits.

Animal models as a substitute for the human model are intrinsically flawed.  

actually no it isnt especially for Chimpanzees

Six men were hospitalized — and one of them was pronounced brain-dead — after a drug trial in northwestern France, the country’s health minister said on Friday......three men may have suffered irreversible brain damage....the drug had previously been tested on animals, including chimpanzees

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/world/europe/french-drug-trial-hospitalization.html?_r=0

Medical testing using chimpanzees is virtually at a complete stop, partly because the animals are too close to us - the apes in white coats are uncomfortable doing unspeakable things to the apes in fur coats - the animal model does not translate easily to the human model, and chimps are too big, expensive and difficult to handle as lab animals.

-6 ( +7 / -13 )

If we want to abuse other animals for conscienceless profit, then 'Yes' is your answer. If you see the pathological arrogance of assuming that we have any right to do so, then 'No' is your answer. In my usually vain optimism for Humanity, I must assume that many of the 65% simply do not have any idea of the kinds of abuse these individuals are exposed to. In any community in America, the people doing these things to nonHuman animals would be immediately arrested for abuse, imprisoned, and banned from even coming close to another nonHuman. Drug companies have the same morality as drug cartels, same business model. Pick your friends and, if they are corporations like the drug companies whose products kill more people in America than all illegal substances combined, know yourself for what you are, the moral dregs of Humanity.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

understanding that animals feel pain just as keenly as human animals.

Exactly! Humans forget that we, too, are animals. Many animals, especially mammals and marsupials (and more) feel pain just like we do. Get to know animals well enough, and you learn that they also emotion, just like we do.

Why not offer your own offspring for scientific discovery..?

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Humans are animals.

They can say "no" or "stop - you're hurting me".

Test them, instead.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

Absolutely NO. Animals are not humans.

Leaving aside the ethical argument, it's bad science.

Animal models as a substitute for the human model are intrinsically flawed. Substances that have little or no effect in animals can be harmful or even lethal to humans, and vice versa.

Drugs that have been 'proven' safe in animal trials have gone on to produce organ failure, brain swelling, heart attacks and other problems in humans. Some 80% of drugs pronounced 'safe' through animal trials fail at the clinical trial stage. More drugs are taken off the market when problems arise that were not apparent in animal tests.

And once we look at the ethical argument, there is absolutely no way in which it is OK to do vile and disgusting things to vulnerable animals who have done nothing wrong bar be born weaker than scientists.

-8 ( +11 / -19 )

a single example out of an unknown number of successful trials prove nothing.

It knocks a hole in the claim that chimps are particularly good. If trials using chimps were so good, why are so few used?

Because they're expensive, difficult to handle, and likely to bite the researcher's face off.

We (I hate to include myself in that 'we'...) use smaller, easier to handle animals whose DNA is very different from ours, not because they're the best model, but because they're cheap and easy to handle. A cageful of white mice won't give you anything like the hard time a single chimp having a bad day can mete out.

There is a whole industry dedicated to the mass-production of lab animals guaranteed to be genetically identical, guaranteed to develop all kinds of cancers and other diseases they would rarely or never develop naturally, and to which they do not respond in the same way as humans. And the vast majority of the tests they are used in, will be useless.

if you considered bad that people die while testing a new drug it makes no sense to say that human testing should replace animals, it would prevent none of the deaths

I consider it bad that anyone, whether with two, four or six legs, should suffer and die needlessly. If animal testing stopped, that would stop the suffering and deaths of millions of animals.

Then the researchers could concentrate their efforts on cures that work in humans, instead of wasting time torturing animals.

Ever since HIV showed its ugly face some 30 years ago, monkeys have been used in research to find a cure.

The only problem is, monkeys don't get HIV. They get SIV, which is significantly different. So far no effective vaccine for HIV/AIDs has been developed, and is unlikely to be developed from animals that don't get infected with the disease. In the meantime tens of thousands of monkeys and apes have been subjected to horrifying conditions and sickening experiments. All for nothing.

-8 ( +3 / -11 )

Plenty of murderers and rapists around... use them.

-8 ( +1 / -9 )

No. Animal testing is not right. We should be able in this day and age to find other means to our ends

-9 ( +14 / -23 )

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