Isnt it about time experiments on animals were immediately halted?

Question

why should an animal suffer just so some men and women can smear their faces with this or that cream in a futile effort to defeat time, why should an animal be forced to undergo nicotine tests just so some men and women can look sophisticated with the latest brand of cigarettes....

Answer 1

Yes experiments just like people can be obtuse. However if we stop experiments all together we are at best 2 decades from self destruction so if you want you future children to die of some horrific disease or raging virus in the next 20 years stopping animal testing is a good way to start.  Unfortunately most people can't handle the truth of one world one people with all of these isolated peoples coming together so do virus' mix and develop some really nasty strains like AIDS which dissolves DNA its is a triple spirochete disease and we haven't even solved a single spirochete disease yet.  I am not saying that animals should be destroyed for vanity purposes, but look at what we have imported without testing recently like animal food killing animals and lead based paint(it's cheaper you know) on infant toys giving our kids cancer and worse immediate illnesses.  So where does one draw a moral line how many people must be destroyed to give you balance on value of a rodents life?  Sorry for being harsh, but the truth isn't always received all to well, and very few people give considerable thought to both sides of any issue before making decisions now a days.  I know it seems silly sometimes but Manufacturers have very little value for human life already let's not give them an excuse to care less.

Answer 2

You're forgetting that cancer treatments, treatments that have to do with solving birth defects, limb regeneration, healing quadriplegics, spinal cord repair, cures for diabetes, and brain cell regeneration all have to be tested on animals before they be tested on humans.

Would you rather your sister who has leukemia be the tester for some new and unknown treatment, or a lab rat? If we skip the lab rat and go right to your sister, then how are we to be sure that the treatment isn't fatal?

Granted, there are some kinds of animal testing that can be cruel, but for the most part, it is necessary in order for new drugs to come onto the market to help people with all sorts of diseases, disorders and life-long lasting injuries.

Answer 3

OK - but what about new drugs to treat diseases?

Nobody does animal testing "just because" - they do it because it is the *only* way to get certain answers.

For example, if you need to figure out what parts of the brain are responsible for memory (maybe you're trying to cure dementia) - you can only do that on an intact brain.

Or let's say you have developed a drug which you think kills lung cancer. How do you test it?

You add it to some lung cancer cells in cell culture, and it kills them. Good, but what about normal lung cells?

You add it to them, and it doesn't kill them. Great! What about other cell types?

We cannot yet culture all cell types found in the body - so while we can test it on lots of cell types, we cannot test it on all of them. So we need to do animal testing.

Or maybe it doesn't *kill* the cells, but instead stops them doing something important (stops immune cells making antibodies, or stops nerve cells firing) . We cannot test for all cell functions (especially since we don't even know them all yet) - so again, we need animal testing.

And for administering the drug: some don't survive digestion, some won't cross the blood-brain barrier, etc. So to figure out how to administer the drug, we need animal testing.

And finally, sometimes the liver tries to "detoxify" a harmless drug and turns it into a toxin by mistake. We canot find this out without an intact liver - so again we need animal testing.

There are regulatory bodies whose approval you require before you can do *any* animal testing of any sort - and they carefully weigh up the benefits against the cost. Only studies that are important enough will get permission.

And animals for testing are housed comfortably, and treated well - better than many pets.

Yes - animal testing can be ugly, but it is neccessary, and it is controlled to minimise suffering wherever possible.

Answer 4

There's more to it than testing cosmetics and nicotine and a decision to ban it is a lot more ethically complex when you consider medical research and the possible human lives that can be saved. I'm against animal research, but your question ignores the real issues.

Answer 5

I agree with you completely. Animal testing is not only cruel, but it is also not as effective as testing human tissue. There are plenty of makeup/beauty product companies which do not test on animals. I don't see why the others can't follow suit.

Answer 6

Would you rather there was no testing and people became blind and disfigured by using harmful products?  I know its horrible that we experiment on animals but you have offered no suitable alternative that will guarantee safety to humans.  There is no way around people's "futile effort to defeat time".  As long as these things sell they must be safe.