Animal Rights

[!ightoftruth]

i have just read this article in the bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4753333.st m

I personally think that anyone with any link to huntingdon life sciences or any company which tests on animals is no better than anyone who profited from the holocaust because animal iis just as sick and pointless as the holocaust.

[edited by AB]

[flip-flop]

lot has gone remarkably quiet on this issue - perhaps it realises the foolishness of the crass comment (which has been edited) it came out with.

[!ightoftruth]

I have been quite becuase i have been in lessons flip flop.

I think that in this debate many points have been raised, and passions have been been stirred up. Imafraid this post will be quite long so here goes

To try and resolve and discrepensies with my points i will list the points and rebutalls i have made.

1) That vivisection has made great advances in medical science.

I said- Animal experimentation has not produced a single breakthrough, simply because animal experiments have been involved in a breakthrough does not mean animal experiments were what casued the breakthrough.

2) if i have ever taken medication then i can not be against animal experimentation

I said-Just because drugs have been tested on animals doesn't mean that the tests were relevant, useful or valid. The drugs would have been produced more speedily and more safely without animal tests. Clinical developments may have followed animal experiments but that does not mean that there is any connection between the two. Medical progress continues despite and definitely not because of vivisection.

3)Drug have to be tested on animals to make sure there safe.

I said- due the huge mental,genetic and pyhsiological diffrences between humans and any animals any data atained from animals would be useless in determinig toxicity in humans and that drug development without animal testing is possible as seen by the lord dowding fund.

4) i said that animal experiments are done as it gives drugs companies a perfect legal get out if things go wrong

this point has yet to be rebuttled

[!ightoftruth]

...continued

My main moral ethos on animal experimentation is that as humans and have a "higher intellect" we should realise that we have no right to inflict pain and suffering upon our fellow creatures. In the end all life is life and all life should be preserved. I can honestly say that i have never killed a fly or spider and always trap them and realease them.

As for my comment on killing the vivisector i think you have shown me that this is probably not the way forward however you have not changed my stance on the subject and it is probably the case that i havent changed many of the other debater opinions on the matter.

I have found this debate most enjoyable and i have to say that whilst i believe all poster have made excellent points i belive it to be Dr Hungry who has had the most balanced argument

[admarlow]

LOT, you are just representing you beleifs as FACT and without ANY evidence. I think some has been reading too many leaflets!

[!ightoftruth]

sorry admarlow-if you were reffering to my last 2 posts i was simply trying to sum up my points. I do have an abundance of evidence to support each question. If you would like evidence for a particular point just post the point number and ur email (like dr hungry did) and i will be more than happy to send you the evidence.

As a smaller note i have read leafelts on the subject but have also read several books on the subject and have done my own reasearch. However to truly develop your own ideas you must discuss the topic as is the purpose of debate

[admarlow]

ok lot, how would you have gone about this in 1889?

In 1889 Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski showed that removing the pancreas from the dog produced diabetes. This was the first demonstration that there was an antidiabetic factor produced by the pancreas which enabled the body to use blood sugar properly. The term insulin was coined for this factor by Schafer in 1915, some years before it was actually identified or isolated.

[Rabelais]

These "vivisectors" as you so kindly are repeatedly calling people who are involved in animal experimentation rarely, if ever, cut up live animals, but you could hardly make them seem so "evil" if this fact was acknowledged. Computer modelling as a replacement for in vivo testing of drugs is only as good as the information you program into it (and take a wild guess where those parameters come from). In Vitro tests, such as cell culture, only test drugs in isolation and, while a useful tool, are no indicator of a drugs action in vivo. It might also interest you to know this was the major indicator of the action of the monoclonal drug that caused the adverse reactions in the recent drug trial debacle.
As for animals being different to humans, of course they are, that's why it's called an animal model. But after thousand upon thousand of tests on animals using drugs and there comparison to how they act in humans it allows the modelling of how an unknown drugs action in the animal model will extrapolate to man.
But the facts always seem to get lost in the lies bandied about in the propaganda battle. I suppose the simplest way to think about it is why would scientist who work to a scientific rational do something with no scientific merit or purpose. It just wouldn't make any sense. As for the lie "animal experimentation has not produced a single breakthrough", this statement is so breathtakingly crass it beggars belief

[elerrina]

admarlow i believe you're wrong there.people always cite through animal testing we got insulin but this isnt the case.

Although the clinical signs of human diabetes have been known since the first century AD, not until the late eighteenth century did physicians associate the disease with characteristic changes in the pancreas seen at autopsy. As this was difficult to reproduce in animals, many scientists disputed the role of the pancreas in the disease.
Nearly a century later, in 1869, scientists identified insulin-producing pancreatic cells that malfunction in diabetic patients. Other human pancreatic conditions, such as pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) were seen to produce diabetic symptoms, reinforcing the disease's link with the pancreas.

Animal experimenters continued to interrupt the nicely progressing course of knowledge regarding the pancreas and diabetes. When they removed pancreases from dogs, cats, and pigs, sure enough, the animals did become diabetic. However, the animals' symptoms led to conjecture that diabetes was a liver disease, linking sugar transport to the liver and glycogen. These animal studies threw diabetes research off track for many years.

[admarlow]

RUBBISH!!! they would have never made the link without the tests, documented FACT

[elerrina]

well you can call it what you like admarlow but it remains the truth

!ightoftruth can i have your email addy as i would like to speak with you on this matter and i could do with your help.

[admarlow]

.....and answerbank becomes a [edited by AB]

[Rabelais]

Gosh I never knew all the work that Dr. Frederick Banting and Mr. Charles Best did in the twenties testing insulin in rabbits and dogs that they won the Noble prize for that led directly to a treatment regiment for diabetes is made up is it ellerina? God some people are so full of it it's a wonder it doesn't leak out their ears

[!ightoftruth]

sure ellerina i would have no problem diiscussing the topic with you my email is [email protected]

[PhilBy]

Why are you not posting all these facts here, why do we need to contact you via email?

[PhilBy]

Would I be right in presuming that the anti animal research lot would like to see more stories like this in the news......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1517171.stm

[elerrina]

i didnt say it was made up i said that animal testing delayed the development of a treatment for diabetes

[!ightoftruth]

I cant post the evidence behind my facts because it would take up by far too much space.

[!ightoftruth]

Of course i would not want to see the exploitation of poorer countries and there people pilby. Such events only confirm my belief that drugs comapnies are theyre to make money then to care for the wellbeing of the human race.

I would also like to see a lot less of these occurances

http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/research/t halid2.html

[PhilBy]

A strange link you have added there lot, is for or against? quote from the link:

prior to the introduction of thalidomide Gr�nenthal did not carry out animal tests specifically to demonstrate teratogenic (malformation causing) effects

[PhilBy]

btw: I am old enough to remember the Thalidomide tragedy and how it was concluded that not enough testing had been done and it had been rushed onto the market. Alnother problem with that link is that I can not find any reference to any evidence to back up some of the claims mentioned against, I do see a mention of 'as reported in the British Sunday Mirror' but other than that nothing!