Animal Testing - Right or Wrong?

[fattyjwoods]

When I said "that assumes the animal is sentient," I meant, in summary, "that assumes that the animal is capable of liking or disliking things, feeling pain, and generally having feelings in the same way humans do."

 

cant animals feel pain? i mean when you step on a paw of a dog, he yelps and pulls away. (or tear you to bits)

 

 

But you can't, because they are another species snd not sentient. You are projecting human emotions and ideas onto another species -- saying that they "think" and "feel" the same as you. The Golden Rule applies among humans, not between species.

 

As I noted, male rats are quite capable of looking at newborn rat pups as a tasty snack. Should we put your projection in reverse? If a rat eats its newborn and likes it, why shouldn't you? Put yourself in their shoes and go out and eat babies!

 

im just saying pretend ur an animal. they wont feel exactly like a human but they will most likely not enjoy pain-being stabbed by needles all day long

 

 

i mean i have nothing to say if someone was trying to come up with a cure for.... say bird flu and he (scientist) would have to test an animal. that isnt entirely wrong. but there are some people out there who do tests on stupid things like if rat poison really kills the rat.

[immortal]

im just saying pretend ur an animal. they wont feel exactly like a human but they will most likely not enjoy pain-being stabbed by needles all day long

 

Have you gone into their minds and felt that they will not enjoy the pain. I know that I exist but rats don't know that they exist.

 

Lucaspa you have got a good sense of humour

[Paralith]

i mean i have nothing to say if someone was trying to come up with a cure for.... say bird flu and he (scientist) would have to test an animal. that isnt entirely wrong. but there are some people out there who do tests on stupid things like if rat poison really kills the rat.

 

but if they didn't make sure that rat poison kills rats, and they sold rat poison that doesn't really work, then you would get more rat infestations in buildings with people, and more small children may suffer painful bites and possibly get terrible diseases. Animal testing can benefit human life in many more ways than just vaccines, though most people agree that testing cosmetics on animals is pushing the limit.

 

However, I think it's rather silly to question whether or not rats feel pain. They way they struggle and squeak when you stick them with a needle should tell you that at the very least they'd much rather be doing something else. If we're going to do animal testing, I think it's important to accept that yes, it can be painful, and yes, they probably don't enjoy it. Then you take what you're doing seriously, and you don't start testing cosmetics on rats because who knows if they feel it anyway.

[Sayonara]

cant animals feel pain? i mean when you step on a paw of a dog, he yelps and pulls away. (or tear you to bits)

 

What you have to understand is that a response to pain is NOT indicative of the state of suffering, which is the key issue here.

 

Sufferance in animals has already been extensively discussed in this thread (amongst others) which is why I recommend reading it through.

[lucaspa]

cant animals feel pain? i mean when you step on a paw of a dog, he yelps and pulls away. (or tear you to bits)

 

That's not the same. If you notice, posters (including you) were also looking at emotional pain, not just physical. You can't extrapolate emotional pain at all. And it's really difficult to extrapolate physical pain. For instance, when we do surgery on rats we create a huge incision and make a bone gap. We do give analgesics for the first 3 days, but I've talked to people who did these operations first about 20 years ago, when analgesics were not required. The rats never gave any overt sign of pain. A human would be writhing in agony. The rats gave no sign that they felt any pain at all.

 

All animal experiments are required to include appropriate pain-killing medication unless there is an overriding scientific reason not to. As you said:

 

i mean i have nothing to say if someone was trying to come up with a cure for.... say bird flu and he (scientist) would have to test an animal. that isnt entirely wrong.

 

So, if the experiments had to be conducted without pain medication, you would approve, right?

 

but there are some people out there who do tests on stupid things like if rat poison really kills the rat.

 

If you are making a new rat poison, don't you need to test it to really see if it kills rats? Also don't you need to test to see if it will kill the family cat or dog?

 

Do you realize that EVERY animal experiment has to be approved by an Institutional Animal Use and Care Committee? This is made up of 5-8 scientists at the institution, at least one veterinarian, at least 1 non-scientist from the institution, and at least 2 non-scientists from outside the institution. The purpose of the committee is to ensure "humane" treatment of the animals and that none of the experiments are "stupid" so that animal lives are not wasted.

[lucaspa]

However, I think it's rather silly to question whether or not rats feel pain. They way they struggle and squeak when you stick them with a needle should tell you that at the very least they'd much rather be doing something else.

 

But the point is that they DON'T always struggle and squeak! They do so the first couple of times, but that may be due to the stress of being handled, not the pain of the needle.

 

Many years ago I witnessed an experiment where the rats were being injected in the abdomen every day for several months. After the first 3-4 days, I saw the researcher simply reach into the cage and pick the rats up by the scruff of their necks. No gloves, just his bare hand. The rats just hung there passively while the researcher used his other hand to stick a long 20 guage needle into their abdomen and inject the material. No squirming, no squeaks, NOTHING. If anything, they acted "bored".

 

So, were they feeling pain or were they suffering? Not from any outward sign.

 

Then you take what you're doing seriously, and you don't start testing cosmetics on rats because who knows if they feel it anyway.

 

This gets to another question: what is important enough to humans that we can justify experimenting on animals? Many people say that cosmetics are important because people do not have to wear cosmetics.

 

However, if you accept the premise that humans are going to wear cosmetics and buy them, then the manufacturer has a responsibility to test to see whether those products are irritating or toxic to the human. And then you have animal testing.

[lucaspa]

Lucaspa you have got a good sense of humour

 

Thank you, but I wasn't trying to exercise it there. I was simply generalizing the criteria of "projection" to avoid "special pleading".

 

Fattyjwoods was making a criteria to justify not using animal experiments: projecting human feelings and moral behavior onto animals. That's very specific, but if a criteria is valid it can't just apply to the one particular set of circumstances you made it for. The criteria must be more general and apply to similar circumstances.

 

So, this criteria says, in general, that behavior and feelings within human species tells us how other species feel and what is moral for that other species. IOW, we can "project" the moral behavior of one species to give moral behavior in another species.

 

But there is no reason to say this goes only from humans TO other species. That would be special pleading. In order to be a general criteria, it must also go from other species to humans. What is "right" for their species must also be moral behavior for humans.

 

But that doesn't work. My example shows the absurdity of using that criteria as a general criteria. Therefore Fattyjwoods is using the argument of "special pleading", which is invalid.

 

Looked at another way, it is making the criteria a hypothesis and then testing it. In this case, the hypothesis failed testing.

[someguy]

It depends which animals. Some plants react to touch all plants will follow light. reaction to stimulus does not indicate self awareness. when you wonder if an animal feels pain it is not enough to notice that it reacts to stimulus which is known to cause pain in humans, even if the response is indicative of feeling pain since the animal could not be aware of itself and therefore not really "feel" pain, or rather not know that it is feeling it. some animals are self aware humans are one such type, most aren't. so knowing that then I would have to say that testing on the non self aware animals is perfectly ethical. It's like testing on machines that can grimace. but still, i wouldn't want to be the one doing it.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

cant animals feel pain? i mean when you step on a paw of a dog, he yelps and pulls away. (or tear you to bits)

If you put something on a person's face as they sleep, they try to wipe it off (while still asleep), but that doesn't mean they consciously felt anything.

[sciencewiz]

I personally don't see what's so wrong with animal testing.

 

 

I can't believe that some people find no harm into hurting animals, testing animals for anything is a complete and utterly rediculous thing and should be stopped immediatly for good. No matter how much somone thinks it needs to be done, it shouldnt. The truth is animal testing is worse that starving your pet, abusing it, or even abusing a child. Animal testing is a harmful act, police arrest many people throughout the world for performing animal cruelty but yet have reached the arrest in the companies of the testings. Animal testing kills more that a million a month and a thousand a day. Animal testing is not the result for help, it should never be used, animals are not humans, shampoos that get inserted into the eyes of harmless rabits to see its effect is rediculous and leaves a living thing tortured till death. Just so some companies can make money. Animal testing is worse than a homicide, animal testing needs to be stopped.

(see more at http://www.peta.com watch animal testing 1 2 3 if you dont believe me)

 

People complain all the time there is no peace in the world, you may not think you can do anything but help stop animal testing and it will lead the path to the beautiful sunrise of a new world

 

Have you gone into their minds and felt that they will not enjoy the pain. I know that I exist but rats don't know that they exist.

 

Lucaspa you have got a good sense of humour

are you saying animals dont have feelings because they do, animal testing is just one big massacre that kills hundreds of billions a year

 

If you put something on a person's face as they sleep, they try to wipe it off (while still asleep), but that doesn't mean they consciously felt anything.

the animals are awake, there are no things that anyone does to help them

theyre thrown in a foot long cage no matter their size, dont pull garbage out to make it seem nice when animals are killed in thousands a day

about 200 for every 5 minutes

put an end to the terrible tourture

[lucaspa]

The truth is animal testing is worse that starving your pet, abusing it, or even abusing a child. Animal testing is a harmful act, police arrest many people throughout the world for performing animal cruelty but yet have reached the arrest in the companies of the testings.

 

Animal testing is often no more harmful that Phase I and II clinical trials. No one gets arrested for that. No one arrests sugeons for trying modifications of procedures on their human patients. Research on animals MUST be done with the appropriate pain medication.

 

Animal testing kills more that a million a month and a thousand a day.

 

The testing doesn't kill the animal. Instead, research animals are painlessly euthanized at the end of the experiment. There are only a few methods of euthansia allowed, and all of them are painless, unlike the hypobaric chambers used to kill unwanted pets.

 

Animal testing is not the result for help, it should never be used, animals are not humans, shampoos that get inserted into the eyes of harmless rabits to see its effect is rediculous and leaves a living thing tortured till death. Just so some companies can make money.

 

I'm afraid you have done what is called 'synedoche" -- taken a part for the whole. Yes, some chemicals are tested on animals. Would you rather they were tested on humans? However, a lot of what we are talking about in this thread is medical research done on animals.

 

Now, I have used rabbits as experimental animals to test a new treatment for osteoarthritis. This treatment would completely cure arthritic knees and prevent people from having total hips or knees done because of the pain and crippling of arthritis. Would you have me stop? If I do, then you and any of your loved ones will never get that cure.

 

are you saying animals dont have feelings because they do, animal testing is just one big massacre that kills hundreds of billions a year

 

Even at a 1,000 animals a day -- the number YOU quoted -- that is only 365,000 animals a year! You need to get your own facts straight.

 

the animals are awake, there are no things that anyone does to help them theyre thrown in a foot long cage no matter their size,

 

Someone seems to have given you some really faulty information. Both the FDA and USDA set minimum cage sizes, and those cage sizes vary from species to species. Mice have cages about 2 feet long and 1 foot wide. Rabbits have cages that are 4 feet x 4 feet. I've seen them.

 

Do you know what an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee is?

[dean845]

 

I think that humans should be tested on of they are either paid for it, or voluteered for it![/Quote]

 

you have no choice you can't just vollenteer because they'll just pay you for it and also if a test goes wrong you can't fine them or take them to court because they make you sign an agreement saying that if you become blind ect.. you won't fine them but the good side is for every test they do on you you get like $10,000 or so which is like 10 tests and you got enough money for a year.

 

not necerceraly on the subject it is horrible how they make masses of meat by special breeds of the animal e.g. meat chicken is a type of mass meat and the bad side is that after 12 weeks the chick is so big and fat that it can't even stand up which means it can't even walk to the water and food bowls is the pen and in one 3ft square pen is about 15 odd chickens so they have like enough room the size of a piece of A4 paper to move around i saw a video of it in school it was horrible it also turned my vegetarian.

 

poor poor animals

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You do realize that the video was probably horribly biased, don't you?

[Mr Skeptic]

I think Animal testing is dreadfull! and WELL WRONG! when it comes to testing things for humans!

 

WHY should they have to suffer? half the tests done aren`t acurate anyway as their physiology is different!

 

we have a load of a$$holes on death row that have been proven guilty and yet they get to die with no data gained, it`s a total complete and utter waste of potential, I say we use these rapists and child molesters and murderers/terrorists etc... and exploit their physiology, ok, maybe they`re a little less humane than animals with the behaviour that got them there, but the results should be alot more compatible, and who cares if they die??? they`re gunna get fried anyway!?

 

NO! to animal testing!

 

Well, it all comes down to your values and priorities. Animal testing speeds up research and in doing so saves human lives and increases human comfort. But it kills animals and increases their suffering, by a lot more than it benefits humans. Call me racist, but I would rather animals suffer than humans. But whether I would agree or not on doing a particular experiment would depend on what animal is involved (eg fruit fly vs chimpanzee) and on how important the experiment is. You can't look at the world in such black and white terms. What I am more concerned about is the systematic elimination of habitats; while you are crying for a tortured lab rat, several species are going extinct.

 

If I recall correctly, there was at least one regime that condoned experimentation on condemned prisoners. Not very popular. I do think that some convicts deserve a harsher punishment than a peaceful death, and bonus if they can give back to society, but the ability to profit from the death and suffering of others is likely to be abused. And there is likely an international ban on forced human testing since the Holocaust, and it would also be illegal with the current interpretation of the Constitution (in the US).

 

In summary, I disagree with all your points. I'm a monster!

[Sayonara]

If I recall correctly, there was at least one regime that condoned experimentation on condemned prisoners. Not very popular.

You never know. Some civilisations might find "let's use these prisoners to cure [malady]" more acceptable than "Let's inject steam into these prisoners' rectums just to see how long it takes them to die".

[lovejunkie02]

while i personally think animals are suffering and testing on them is unforgivable, let's set that aside.

forget the debate about animal suffering and the sizes of cages and blah blah blah.

i just don't understand where people get off thinking that human lives are more important than other life. life is life. it seems that we are screwing with nature here, and if we'd left it alone, perhaps we wouldn't have nearly as much human suffering. the whole practice just seems incredibly barbaric and outdated to me.

[Mirabelle]

while i personally think animals are suffering and testing on them is unforgivable, let's set that aside.

forget the debate about animal suffering and the sizes of cages and blah blah blah.

i just don't understand where people get off thinking that human lives are more important than other life. life is life.

So, you are under the belief that the value of my children and others lives are equal to that of a lab mouse... Is that correct?

Is it seems that we are screwing with nature here, and if we'd left it alone, perhaps we wouldn't have nearly as much human suffering. the whole practice just seems incredibly barbaric and outdated to me.

Outdated and barbaric? What do you suggest be used as an alternative in physiological and pharmacological safety studies? Are you willing to sacrifice your family and your own safety?

Honestly, I am not willing to put myself or my children at risk.

[Sayonara]

So, you are under the belief that the value of my children and others lives are equal to that of a lab mouse... Is that correct?

"Equal lives" as a possible outcome of comparison implies unequal lives as another outcome, which is a meaningless concept, since the only states of life are 'alive' and 'dead'.

 

I think he (and therefore you, by extension) is confusing the state of life with a state of sentience, self-awareness, capacity to suffer, or some other anthropic attribute which we associate strongly with the "value" of human life.

[lucaspa]

you have no choice you can't just vollenteer because they'll just pay you for it and also if a test goes wrong you can't fine them or take them to court because they make you sign an agreement saying that if you become blind ect.. you won't fine them but the good side is for every test they do on you you get like $10,000 or so which is like 10 tests and you got enough money for a year.

 

Where did you get this?

 

In the United States ALL clinical research MUST go through an IRB -- Institutional Review Board. The purpose of the IRB is to safeguard the interests of the test subjects.

 

For a new drug there are 3 phases of human trials: Phase I, II, and III.

 

Phase I is only testing safety. There are few patients enrolled those are the patients that no other treatment has worked. For new cancer drugs, this means people who are terminal and will soon die from their cancer. The patients are monitored extensively for any adverse effects. I don't know of any payments at this stage.

 

If a drug passes Phase I, it moves to Phase II, which tests to see if the drug WORKS. If at all possible, this is a double blind study, where neither the patient or the doctor know whether the patient is receiving the drug or the placebo. Very often Phase II trials are conducted at several different institutions: usually academic hospitals. Again, I don't know of any case where the patient is paid. What usually happens is that the treatment is paid for, since at this stage insurance companies won't sanction the treatment. So the treatment is free for the patient.

 

Phase III is an extensive clinical trial. Again, the treatment is paid for, but the patient doesn't receive any money. Their "payment" is a new treatment that works better than any other treatment out there.

[Mr Skeptic]

i just don't understand where people get off thinking that human lives are more important than other life. life is life.

 

Do you eat plants? Is not their life as important as yours? Do you take antibiotics when you are sick? What about the poor bacteria!?! I think that any human is more important than an amoeba, a fly, a frog, a mouse, a chimpanzee, or a plant. Don't you?

 

Think carefully about all the resources you consume; they could be given to other living things. Even if you artificially created your own food from solar cells in outer space (so is to not impinge on the plants), that is food that could be given to some starving animal. Plants compete for sunlight, water, and nutrients; animals for food, water, and shelter. What one takes, is deprived from another. That's the nature of life. Competition and natural selection are not kind. Life is a competition, and we can compete pretty well.

[lucaspa]

we have a load of a$$holes on death row that have been proven guilty and yet they get to die with no data gained, it`s a total complete and utter waste of potential, I say we use these rapists and child molesters and murderers/terrorists etc... and exploit their physiology, ok, maybe they`re a little less humane than animals with the behaviour that got them there, but the results should be alot more compatible, and who cares if they die??? they`re gunna get fried anyway!?

 

Larry Niven did a series of science fiction stories exploring the unintended consequences of this policy -- as well as requiring those on death row to be organ donors. Basically, if your life and the quality of your life depends on criminals, it becomes VERY tempting to legislate more and more crimes as deserving the death sentence. In one story, the end result was that too many traffic tickets within a period of time was a capital crime!

 

i just don't understand where people get off thinking that human lives are more important than other life. life is life. it seems that we are screwing with nature here, and if we'd left it alone, perhaps we wouldn't have nearly as much human suffering. the whole practice just seems incredibly barbaric and outdated to me.

 

1. Did you read my post above where I noted that my research is meant to REDUCE the human suffering of osteoarthritis? I NEED animal testing to do that.

 

2. Should we really let nature alone? As Mr. Skeptic pointed out, antibiotics are "screwing with nature" in that we deliberately kill bacteria. How about cardiac bypass surgery? That is "screwing with nature" in that we are not letting people die of clogged arteries!

 

3. In nature, the lives of members of other species are NEVER as valuable as members of your own species. After all, don't lions think that lion lives are more important than wildebeast lives? They kill wildebeasts, don't they? That happens to EVERY other predator. Even the "peaceful" rabbit thinks that rabbit lives are more important than cowslip lives! Rabbits find cowslip quite tasty and eat those plants whenever they find them. Many ant species deliberately keep other species of insects as food! They think that ant lives are more important than the lives of those other species.

 

So, your perception of what nature is and that "life is life" is very mistaken.

 

Finally, did you read that animals used in research are required to be treated "humanely". Basically how we would treat human patients. What is your objection to this?

[DrDNA]

I believe that Nancy Reagan had it right.

Like human stem cell research, animal testing is wrong unless it is to help find a cure, or alleviate the symptoms of a disease that, specifically, *my* loved one or *I* suffer from.....

In all other cases it is just plain immoral and wrong.

[lovejunkie02]

So, you are under the belief that the value of my children and others lives are equal to that of a lab mouse... Is that correct?

 

Outdated and barbaric? What do you suggest be used as an alternative in physiological and pharmacological safety studies? Are you willing to sacrifice your family and your own safety?

Honestly, I am not willing to put myself or my children at risk.

 

yes.

and yes.

if we never started in the beginning, we wouldn't know any different and wouldn't consider it a loss, i think.

[Sayonara]

yes.

and yes.

if we never started in the beginning, we wouldn't know any different and wouldn't consider it a loss, i think.

 

Your first yes is meaningless, since as I tried to explain earlier, a mouse is no more or less alive than a child.

 

Unless you can give the "value" of different organisms a rational basis for comparison, equating them in an argument can only be seen as proposing a truism.

[lovejunkie02]

Do you eat plants? Is not their life as important as yours? Do you take antibiotics when you are sick? What about the poor bacteria!?! I think that any human is more important than an amoeba, a fly, a frog, a mouse, a chimpanzee, or a plant. Don't you?

 

Think carefully about all the resources you consume; they could be given to other living things. Even if you artificially created your own food from solar cells in outer space (so is to not impinge on the plants), that is food that could be given to some starving animal. Plants compete for sunlight, water, and nutrients; animals for food, water, and shelter. What one takes, is deprived from another. That's the nature of life. Competition and natural selection are not kind. Life is a competition, and we can compete pretty well.

 

nature taking it's course is one thing, and i don't think that's the thing we're all talking about here. of course it's impossible to live without causing some... death? i don't know the right word. but that doesn't mean that it's ok to cage animals and experiment on them.

and no, i don't really think human life is more "important" than any other. maybe we should try to define "important," as i do not think that in the grand scheme of things, human life carries any more value than any other life.

 

Your first yes is meaningless, since as I tried to explain earlier, a mouse is no more or less alive than a child.

 

Unless you can give the "value" of different organisms a rational basis for comparison, equating them in an argument can only be seen as proposing a truism.

 

i didn't pose the question. i'm simply trying to respond to it in a way that gets my point across the questioner.