Debate on animal testing?

Question

okay for a summer school class we have to debate on animal testing and i feel strongly on no animal testing (im also a vegetarian)

but can you help me?

i need responses on these questions i thought they would ask me

1.if they dont test on animals what will they test on?

2.they are not intelligent like we are, so we should test on them [not a question, but what do i say to that?]

3.what do animals do for us? besides, they are just animals and there are like a million of them

Answer 1

1. The ECIS is an allternative, here is a website for you:

http://biology.about.com/library/weekly/...

2. Its not about who is smarter of dumber, its about whether or not they CAN feel pain.

3. better question question is what do WE do for animals.

It doesn't matter if they DO anything for us, i doesn't give us the right to hurt them for no reason.

Why not use humans, there are millions of humans, whats a few in the name of science?

Answer 2

1. There is nothing else to test on short of people, and we don't approve of that. For important research, I have no objections to animal testing. I don't approve of unnecessarily cruel methods, or frivolous testing. But some testing is necessary for medical research.

2. Their lack of intelligence is not an excuse to use and abuse them as they see fit. Most people would object if you kicked their dog, even if they approve of animal testing.

3. This one is harder, it's a very flagrant disregard for animals that really doesn't care. But again, how would they feel if their family pet was used as a lab animal?

Answer 3

You might find these helpful:

http://www.navs.org/site/PageServer?page...

http://www.peta.org/about/faq-viv.asp

1. Human clinical and epidemiological studies, studies on cadavers, and computer simulations are faster, more reliable, less expensive, and more humane than animal tests. New technologies like mathematical modeling, in vitro research, and diagnostic imaging also have the potential to replace animal research. Scientists have even used human brain cells to develop a model “microbrain” that can be used to study tumors.

2. Many nonhuman animals are more intelligent than human infants and even some human adults who suffer from severe mental retardation. If someone can feel pain, does it matter how smart she or he is? We would never claim that infants or severely mentally retarded adults should be used in painful experiments just because they are less rational than we are. When it comes to experiencing pain, other animals are our equals.

3. Animals are sentient beings with interests. They don't exist for humans any more than women exist for men, or any more than black people exist for white people.

The fact that there are billions of animals is irrelevant. There are billions of humans on the planet, so does that make it OK to torture or kill people?

Good luck!

Answer 4

One of the most difficult positions you will have to defend is that for FDA approval, medical testing on animals is necessary.

Answer 5

Yeah, no one will offer his own flesh for testing, though he may still claim that a righteous or truthful one.

"It is easy for us to jeopardize how the historical tyrants like Patagonian & n**i dictators whom tested their power on the defenseless and innocent beings. What make us "different" from them by the way we treat the animals?"

I believe animal testing is a bit of a money making business, they get grants for it and it acts like a safety barrier, can't remember the name, but one drug gave people heart attacks... but it was ok because they said "oh well it was ok when we tried it on animals".

I had this info recently...

(1) Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals.

(2) According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree only '5%-25% of the time'.

(3) 95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately discarded as useless or dangerous to humans.

(4) At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in laboratory animals. They are allowed because it is admitted the animal tests are not relevant.

(5) Procter & Gamble used an artificial musk despite it failing the animal tests, i.e., causing tumours in mice. They said the animal test results were 'of little relevance for humans'.

(6) When asked if they agreed that animal experiments can be misleading 'because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans', 88% of doctors agreed.

(7) Rats are only 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer to humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.

(8) Rodents are the animals almost always used in cancer research. They never get carcinomas, the human form of cancer, which affects membranes (e.g lung cancer). Their sarcomas affect bone and connecting tissue: the two cannot be compared.

(9) Up to 90% of animal test results are discarded as they are inapplicable to man.

(10) The results from animal experiments can be altered by factors such as diet and bedding. Bedding has been identified as giving cancer rates of over 90% and almost nil in the same strain of mice at different locations.

(11) s*x differences among laboratory animals can cause contradictory results. This does not correspond with humans.

(12) 9% of anaesthetised animals, intended to recover, die.

(13) An estimated 83% of substances are metabolised by rats in a different way to humans.

(14) Attempts to sue the manufacturers of the drug Surgam failed due to the testimony of medical experts that: 'data from animals could not be extrapolated safely to patients'.

(15) Lemon juice is a deadly poison, but arsenic, hemlock and botulin are safe according to animal tests.

(16) Genetically modified animals are not models for human illness. The mdx mouse is supposed to represent muscular dystrophy, but the muscles regenerate without treatment.

(17) 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs which are passed as being safe in animal tests, according to a study in Germany.

(18) 61% of birth defects are caused by drugs passed safe in animal tests, according to the same study. Defect rates are 200 times post war levels.

(19) One in six patients in hospital are there because of a treatment they have taken.

(20) In America, 100,000 deaths a year are attributed to medical treatment. In one year 1.5 million people were hospitalised by medical treatment.

(21) A World Health Organisation study showed children were 14 times more likely to develop measles if they had been vaccinated.

(22) 40% of patients suffer side effects as a result of prescription treatment.

(23) Over 200,000 medicines have been released, most of which are now withdrawn. According to the World Health Organisation, only 240 are 'essential'.

(24) A German doctors' congress concluded that 6% of fatal illnesses and 25% of organic illness are caused by medicines. All have been animal tested.

(25) The lifesaving operation for ectopic pregnancies was delayed 40 years due to vivisection.

(26) According to the Royal Commission into vivisection (1912), 'The discovery of anaesthetics owes nothing to experiments on animals'. The great Dr Hadwen noted that 'had animal experiments been relied upon...humanity would have been robbed of this great blessing of anaesthesia'. The vivisector Halsey described the discovery of Fluroxene as 'one of the most dramatic examples of misleading evidence from animal data'.

(27) Aspirin fails animal tests, as does digitalis (a heart drug), cancer treatments, insulin (causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would have been banned if vivisection were heeded.

(28) In the court case when the manufacturers of Thalidomide were being tried, they were acquitted after numerous experts agreed that animal tests could not be relied on for human medicine.

(29) Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies, corneal transplants were delayed 90 years.

(30) Despite many Nobel prizes being awarded to vivisectors, only 45% agree that animal experiments are crucial.

(31) At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments.

(32) At least thirty-three animals die in laboratories each second worldwide; in the UK, one every four seconds.

(33) The Director of Research Defence Society, (which exists to defend vivisection) was asked if medical prgress could have been acheived without animal use. His written reply was 'I am sure it could be'.

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"So don't be too forthright about what you think that I should be, And I'll willingly accept your low opinion of me" Source(s) Science may accept those animals sacrifice themselves for the sake of the world. But, Humans—who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals—have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them— without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. What a ungrateful bas3rd !