Animal experimentation

[Peter Moran]

Is animal experimentation justified if used for medical purposes??





Peter-Eden Moran

[Camber dave]

of course,, you can't experiment on people

[lankeela]

I would, murderers, rapists, paedophiles, gravitate - you get my drift.

[Bigeye74]

Unfortunately all of the others have families and friends and groups of dogooders to protest against it. Besides if the testing is succesful you've helped a bad person (that may still be proven innocent).

Also, human testing is a subsequent stage in many testing regimes (I think).

[cruella]

At the larger teaching hospitals, they do ask for volunteers to take part in clinical trials, for which they get paid.
Patients are also asked in certain circumstances to take part in drug trials. They can choose to refuse. I am not really in favour of animal testing of make up.

[Lonnie]

I like lankeela's answer, but for myself, I think in some cases, yes, but as we 'progress'?, it should become less and less.

[Bigeye74]

Lets be realistic, how can you go straight from laboritory trials to human trials. Something has to fill the gap and until a more ethical solution comes up IMHO its justified.

[gelda]

Do the poor animals have a choice? no of course not, I for one would be available for medical science experiments.

[wildwood]

Yes, but only for life saving medicine development.

[meglet]

Its a difficult one for a lot of people. I think most people would agree that animal testing for makeup is wrong but for medical experiments its a different matter. A good friend of mine is a staunch vegan and is anti abuse of animals of any kind. She is totally credible insofar as she hasn't eaten meat since she was old enough to know what it was, doesn't wear leather, works for a pittance for the RSPCA etc etc.

When her mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer a couple of years ago I did wonder how she would feel about her mum being given drugs that were almost certainly tested on animals. For obvious reasons I didn't raise this with her though.

[GINGER BIRD]

erm i dont think it is justified in the slightest especially when its widely documented that warfarin is a medicine used to thin human blood in heart/ stroke patients and is used as rat poison. also asirin is poisonous to rats and other animals but is taken by humans daily.

[jake-the-peg]

The differences in animal and human responses top drugs are well known.

That doesn't invalidate the testing it just means reducing the risk further. It doesn't need to be reliable to be valuable.

You remember the case of those volunteers in Northwick Park hospital a couple of years back?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4807 042.stm

Without animal trials you'd see an awful lot more of these types of cases.

An interesting follow up question is whether it's justified to use any animals or whether some should be excluded.

Holland and New Zealand have outlawed invasive testing on Great Apes. I think we should follow suit. I think the level of intelligence and self awareness demonstrated in these animals warrents their exemption.