No one relishes using animals for experimentation, but the medical community has long insisted that such research helps develop potentially life-saving drugs and treatments. Is this justification compelling enough to continue using animals for medical research?
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What Confuses Me
in response
the reason scientists test on many types of animals is apparently due to certain organs in the animals that resemble humans organs.for instance testing on the nervous system of a cat would be more percise than a nervous system of a dog or other such animal.this increases the amount of animals that die in research and scientists are unfortunatly slowed in there progression of a cure but these are much better than useing humans for research.waiting for a cure and dieing from there sickness is better to most people than useing something that could shorten their already shortening lives and since no one can safely say when someone will die i find it hard to beilieve the sick would sighn up for that.in fact almost no human would sighn up for something that could harm them.prisoners might get a higher turnout ,but there familys might take legal action agianst the state for inhumane treatment or some other such allegation.i just dont see people no matter what there views are could watch and allow another person to suffer and have long term effects of suffering or die.
- death
June 26, 2009 5:57PM
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Again...
...I fail to see the point of testing any medicine on living organisms for whom the medicine is not intended. Cat, dog, mouse, and rabbit organs may "resemble" human organs, but by definition, they are NOT human organs and therefore do not function exactly as human organs do.
Take tobacco testing and lung cancer , for example. The tobacco companies used the results of animal testing for decades to dupe people into believing humans couldn't get lung cancer from smoking . By the mid 1960's, they had spent millions trying to develop lung cancer in animals with tobacco smoke (often force-fed in insanely excessive and non-applicable amounts) and had absolutely zero success. They couldn't get dogs, cats, rabbits, or mice to get lung cancer, no matter how hard they tried to give it to them, and so scientists extrapolated the animal testing to mean humans couldn't get cancer from smoking either - no matter how much they smoked or for how long.
Not only does this illustrate the pointlessness of testing anything on animals to determine it's effects on humans, it also makes me wonder why the National Institute of Health (NIH) is still issuing million dollar grants of taxpayer monies to scientists who continue pointless animal testing of tobacco products.
If it's too difficult to handle the suffering and death of a person, why is it not too difficult to handle the suffering and death of an animal? Are we not all flesh and blood? Do we not share nervous systems with pain receptors? Aren't the biological similarities between human and non-human animals (the ones that dupe people into thinking animal testing is justified) the strongest argument against irrelevant animal testing? We think animals are similar enough to humans to be able to extrapolate meaningful data from torturing them but not similar enough to humans to deserve any consideration for living without pain? The abuses of power we exercise on non-human animals only makes us less worthy of our dominant position.
Human animals are, by far, the most savage beasts of all...
- opiper July 1, 2009 1:26PM
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sorry for the late response
i fully acknowledge that animal testing can be sketchy and a bit of a gamble when applied to humans.however those animal tests gave scientists a new question "why did so many animals not develop cancer but humans did?" with research and study people might learn something new about human biology and they might even get a clearer understanding of the cancer's smokeing cause.so even though scientists were not able to convince the populace of the dangers of smokeing they did get food for thought and ultimately i would say set the ground work for new scientific studies and tests.i feel that animal testing is relevant still because somewhere in an animal test relevant information can be found, though it might not be the info the scientists are looking for, it is still valuble to some feild of study.
ultimately as alternatives become more advanced and succesfull animal testing will have a diminshed purpose in scientific research but unless exstensive evidence prooves animal testings utter impotance at obtaining new and relevant information would i agree that animal testing should be Completely wiped out as a scientific tool.
the last part of your response covered philosophy and it being quite late i am unable to type my philosophies on the matter.if possible your next response could further cover your philosophies so that i can have the main bulk of my response geared tords my thoughts on the matter.
- death
July 3, 2009 5:32AM
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How do you think animals lives are saved at the vets?
So you have never vaccinated or wormed your pets ? Never had to take them to the vet?
It's not all about 'humans'
- Kelly616
July 27, 2009 11:01PM
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Read My Original Post
Yes, I have vaccinated and wormed my pets . And I've given them various pharmaceuticals too. I take all my pets to the vet regularly. But I'm wondering if you read my original post on this subject. I said "If the medicine was veterinary, then yes, definately test it on the intended subjects." My point is simple: testing human medications on non-human animals is cruel and unneccessary. If the medicine is veterinary, test it on animals, but if the medicine is meant for humans, don't test it on animals, test it on humans! Regardless, I totally agree with you about one thing: it's not all about us!
- opiper July 28, 2009 11:46AM
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