Topic Of The Week: Animal Testing - For or Against?

W

wibble

Corpse
This week’s topic is something that is going on in the city where I live, but as it is such a big and controversial issue, I thought it would make good discussion topic. Basically, there is an animal testing laboratory being built in Oxford, and people have been protesting against it (in both peaceful and non-peaceful ways). This Saturday just gone, both people in support and against the laboratory were in the centre of Oxford, though luckily the police managed to keep it under control when both groups of protesters converged.

So, questions I ask: are you for or against animal testing? Or are you on the fence? Whichever way, what are your reasons, e.g. why do you think it should or should not be allowed?

Head to head: Animal research lab

Oxford University students are taking to the streets of Oxford to protest in support of an £18m biomedical research lab which will conduct experiments on animals.

Alistair Currie, campaigns manager for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, and Iain Simpson, of Pro-Test, appeared on BBC News 24 to argue their points of view.

IN FAVOUR OF TESTING

Iain Simpson is a member of Pro-Test, which is in favour of the new lab.

"Basically we want to get out there and make the point that at the moment medical research involving animals is essential if medical science is to move forward.
We're hoping for a good turn-out today. It's kind of hard to guess what it's going to be in advance, but hopefully we'll have quite a few students turn up and try and get their voice out there. We'll have to see what happens. We're out there to make an entirely peaceful protest and get our message across. A lot of money and time has been put into looking for alternatives for animal testing, and we hope that one day there will be a time when it is no longer necessary. Whether it's scientifically necessary at the moment, I think that's a scientific judgement.

I will defer to the vast majority of scientists publishing in peer review journals who are of the opinion that for the time being it is necessary. I think increasingly we are seeing a move towards methods of scientific research that don't involve using animals, but we have to remember there are limits to what we can do in terms of stuff like computer models."

OPPOSED TO TESTING

Alistair Currie is the campaigns manager for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and is against animal research.

"We respect the right of these protesters to go out there and stand up for what they believe in, but what they believe in is something unfortunately neither morally nor scientifically justifiable. Essentially there's a fundamental flaw with animal research - what you learn is what happens to animals, not to human beings.

It is possible to say millions of animal experiments are conducted around the world each year. Every so often you throw that mud at the wall, some of it sticks. But is that a productive, effective or safe way of generating new medicines or doing research? It isn't. It belongs in the past.

It's also, quite frankly, not justifiable. The notion that if we hurt animals that's OK because it benefits us is a crazy notion... it really doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I think it's a shame that people are actually taking to the street to defend that principle.

Unfortunately, at the moment, all drugs are tested on animals. And we wouldn't say to anybody 'don't take drugs' , they don't have an option here. What we are saying is 'as we move forward in the future what are the most effective and efficient ways of producing the cures that we all obviously want and support?' We don't think this is the way."
Click to expand...

Article from www.bbc.co.uk
 
To think about it without emotion and only logic, small mammals on average produce more offspring in one birth than humans do.

Of course, most people don't want to see the cute little animals die, me included. :(

I read an article about animal testing...in Scientific American, I think it was? Some countries (not US obviously) have restrictions on animal testing or products that use animals for testing.

And there's always better technology coming out. The article mentioned something about synthetic skin I think?

But for now, I suppose it's a necessary evil for human safety. I don't really agree with it, and I don't see the necessity in a thing like makeup anyway, but I'd rather not have someone in my family getting hurt by dangerous chemical reactions.
 
I'm for it. :)

Sometimes in medical field, we even test new medicine on human, and it's not a secret...when it's about saving more lives, I'm all for it.
 
I'm against it. It's not ok to conduct tests on animals because they have sense perceptions too no matter how small they are. I don't think the tests aren't gonna be painful. Who wants to suffer? Who likes to suffer? To me, it's a shame and cruel of us to use animals who're helpless for our own benefits. I'm not saying everything should stop, no progress needed or anything like that. Definitely not. But I think scientists and people in general should think of ways to conduct tests without the need of animals. People can be brilliant. Many things deemed impossible in the old days are now common things in our lives. Instead of hurting animals, why can't they put effort and focus into the posibility of discovering methods to run tests without the need to use animals or even human as guinea pigs(no pun intended)? This is just my opinion but I can't say it doesn't carry emotions on my part because I strongly do not believe any living being has the right to hurt another nor should one feel human are superior than animals. :(
 
I´m for it...I mean I think it´s horrible, but some things are more important. I hate the fact that we test on animals, but if it´s gonna save lives then I´ve got to say that I´m for it.
 
My friend volunteerd to be tested a new medicine last year, and they paid her about 500$.....she's fine.

I'm against kill the animal cruelly,but yes, no death,no life.
 
I'm against it, it's cruel and often not even necessary. I also don't believe in those experiments saving lives because in the end they don't. They only cost lives, we just like to think that our lives are more important then the lives of animals. I really think animal testing is one of the most disgusting, accepted, form of cruelty we as human beings ever invented.
 
i volunteer walk dogs at a research facility on campus. they do nutritional and behaviour based studies. thats what they told me when i started, and since i see the dogs every day i know they arent having weird procedures or surgeries done. they are some of the sweetest and most loveable dogs i have ever met. they are at this facility for a few years to do their study, then they are adopted. now, these animals are doing tests to benefit other dogs. how can a company throw together a diet, claim it does all these wonderful things for your dog, then have no proof of it? its necessary.
as for testing on animals for human benefit, i also agree its necessary. people who are against it say its pointless because drugs and such will affect animals differently than humans. but lets face it, our dna is so similar, we can suffer from the same diseases that will have the same cure no matter the species. if you are willing to be infected with something to test out a treatment or therapy, then fine. but it wont do the good that replicating an experiment many times on rats will to get the proof it works.
banning animal testing will severely hinder any new medicines, that could be life saving, from coming out. would you really be willing to test a medicine that they have no idea the side effects of? when it comes right down to it, would you die testing a new medication that may not work in order to save a rat?
 
I am both for and against animal testing:

Opposed:
I believe that testing beauty products on animals is completely wrong - there is no reason to do this - if a company doesn't think the product is safe then they shouldn't put it out for sale.

In Favour:
Testing some drugs on animals can be very benificial in the medicial world so I agree that animals can be used. However, I only agree to animals being used medically if the scientists/doctors/whoever think there is a very good chance of the treatment working - if they know it isn't going to work or will put the animal through severe distress then they should not test on the animal.

x-x-x
 
SO against, those animals are abused, and unneccessarily killed by those stupid guys who call themselves scientists.
I'm a vegetarian too, those animals are so badly treated.
By the way, the technique is so far, that they can test those medicins with the computers.
 
RoosCSILover said:
SO against, those animals are abused, and unneccessarily killed by those stupid guys who call themselves scientists.
I'm a vegetarian too, those animals are so badly treated.
By the way, the technique is so far, that they can test those medicins with the computers.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! I'm a vegetarian too and I'm more than totally against animal testing. Most of the medication that are tested could be tested another way. But they take animals because they can't fight back. They are helpless and abused in a horrible way. Saying we need to test everything on them is a sorry excuse for many laboratories to defend their laziness (believe me I know that) because they are used to torture animals and not willing to change methods. It's human nature that you hurt the small, weaker one, the one that hasn't enough power to protect him/herself or fight back. So humans take animals to test medication & make up products on them.

(I could go on forever picking up child abuse and such but I think I'll leave that out because it's about animal testing. Was just another comparison for taking advantage of the weaker creatures.)
 
Animals can feel pain and just because they don't talk to us in "Human language" makes it ok to put them in experimentation? When we are babies we are in the same state as an animal--helpless and unable to communicate until the parents learn the cries for needs. Well animals have cries too you just need to pay attention to those cries.

I think that to really know how the product, it would have to be tested on humans.
 
i have a question for anyone against animal testing, im not trying to make you angry, i just thought id ask. if you were dying of cancer, and there was a treatment plan out there that could cure you, but it was developed through animal research, would you turn it down? or if you were paralyzed, or had heart disease, would you accept stem cell therapy or organ regeneration surgery that was perfected on animals?
there is so much going on right now in the field of biomedical engenering and i dont think it could happen if all animal tests were banned. you cant go straight from the drawing board to human trials. like i said before, would you volunteer yourself to be infected with a deadly virus to test a treatment that may never work?
i love animals, dont get me wrong, but in the long run, isnt beating cancer, curing dementia, not having to die on a waiting list for a new organ worth the life of a rat? again, im sorry if anyone is offended, but how could you sit back and watch a loved one die who could have been spared if just one more study was done?
 
allmaple yes I see your point. Now the thing is a life is a life and suffering is suffering and just because it is an animal makes it ok because it "might" save a human life.

Lots of research has been done to no avail and then you have the research that is being done for things like cosmetics and vanity things that truely have no right to be tested on animals just so we can look better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top