Animal testing computer models?

Question

I've been trying to find a citable chart or source comparing the costs of computer model vs. animal testing. Anyone have ideas where i can find this, I've having no luck in school databases.

Answer 1

Computer models can only be used when all of the variables are known, which is not the case when dealing with living organisms.  The best technology available now to reduce animal testing is the use of cell cultures for some tests but this technique cannot be used for all of the testing needed.

When one considers the bizarre results obtained from computer models for weather and climate, the idea of using them for medical research is scary.

Answer 2

i have no idea sorry

Answer 3

Any information that you find is likely going to be biased anyway.  Animal rights groups will tell you that computer simulations save money on lab care and things like that.  The answers you've gotten already are pretty good, so I'll just add one thing.

A simulation cannot truly take into account the operation of a complex system.  Think vitamins - beta carotene and lutein in a carrot help strengthen your eyes.  But as supplements (vitamin tablets), they don't work as well.  The rest of the carrot is needed for "context."  Research on a computer model of a rat brain may be great at telling you what will happen to the rat's brain, but there might be a side effect that the simulation can't pick up.

Animal research is necessary until there's a perfect alternative.

Answer 4

Now how will a computer model give you the answer that would be at all acceptable?

We likely know with a single animal test that the new product is marginally safe. so what we have to determine experimentally is that dosages would have to be above 10 times greater than planned to produce lethal results. A computer model may tell us that this is true, but will anyone accept that as proven?

Product responsibility is about guaranteeing that humans will almost never be harmed, but to guarantee that we have to push the envelope in animal testing to know at what concentrations and amounts detectable harm will occur.

We would even like to confirm that  suspected carcinogenicity does not manifest itself over the lifetime of a rat. Yes, a computer model might predict that it would,  Are we going to let it lie at a prediction? Not likely. We insist on proving on the rate, then on a person. Totally ethical in a human-centric world.