POLL: Are you for, or against animal testing?

Question

I am incredibly AGAINST animal testing. What about you, whoever you are?

Answer 1

I'm against . but i find it exceptable for some things .

just like Bruce . like if we want a cure for cancer, we're going to have to use an animal . for using one animal's life we can save thousands of human lives .

but if i want to find out if the new heat hair protectant will work so we put it all over a rat and burn its hair off, not okay !

Answer 2

For.  I usually fine people that are against it are truly and grossly uninformed.  There is not a human alive today, as well as many animals, that have not benefited from using animals in medical research.

That makes me wonder why anyone would want to do something that would cause human suffering.  Like stop using animals in medical research.  It simply cant be done without detrimental problems to people and animals.  

You also need to be concerned about anyone that places a higher value on an animals life than a humans.

Answer 3

I'm for it, but I'd like to be clear about why.

First, an example of the 'greater good' of animal testing: Many cancer treatments include working with radioactive isotopes.  Without animal testing, we would have had to experiment with radioactive isotopes on humans.  Obviously, we can't do this.

Now, and example of 'bad' animal testing:  A cosmetics producer wants to find out how much eyeliner it takes to cause permanent damage to the retina.  So, they take a rabbit and slop on a bunch of eyeliner until the rabbit's eye is bleeding.  Not cool.

I think it's important to draw a moral distinction between these two types of tests:  The first is done in order for lives to be saved.  The second is done so that a super-model can make a million bucks by selling a new kind of make-up to insecure teen girls.

Without animal testing, the health care innovations that we depend on would come to a stop.  Although I despise the cruel treatment of animals in some labs...if we outlaw animal testing, we sacrifice our own lives instead.

Answer 4

Well, I'm for testing of some sort because I don't want to be using untested products and then find out they're terribly unsafe...  But animals don't deserve that kind of torture, so maybe they could test stuff on convicted child molesters or rapists or something.  That would be better...

Answer 5

I'm incredibly FOR animal testing.  I live in the UK, here testing cosmetic products on animals has been illegal for about 10 years (although it's not widely known), and great apes are no longer used in animal tests.

Animal tests are needed for new medicines.  Pretty much every drug you take has been tested on animals, so without animal tests, a lot of people reading this wouldn't be alive now.

Now, I have been in an animal laboratory (not as a researcher!) and I can tell you that the animals were being treated very humanely.  The stuff the anti-vivisection websites publish is generally a load of rubbish (although there have been isolated cases of animal abuse - thankfully these individuals were rightfully prosecuted).  The anti-vivs also throw around words like "torture" to conjure up images of great suffering.  The truth is that in 56% of experiments animals are not given anaesthesia as it is not needed.  37% may feel pain, but anaesthesia is given to prevent this.  Only 7% of experiments actually cause the animal pain and no anaesthesia is given (e.g. when testing a new anaesthetic).

Look at the numbers - in the USA more ducks are eaten annually than all animals used in research.  The vast majority of animals used are rodents, mostly mice.  Less than 1% are primates.

Anti-vivs also state things like "animal testing isn't relevant to humans" and "less than 2% of diseases seen in animals are seen in humans" - I suspect this statistic was made up, but whilst animals may not get certain human diseases, they get an equivalent disease, e.g. cats get a feline version of HIV.  Furthermore, mice are genetically engineered so they are susceptible to disease for studying.  The raw fact is that testing on animals is incredibly expensive, if the same results could be obtained by other methods, such as in vitro testing or computer modelling, the researchers would!  Animal testing is a last resort.  In the UK, to conduct an animal experiment you need a licence from the Home Office.  To obtain the licence you have to demonstrate that no other alternative is available, state how much pain or distress the animal will experience, how many animals will be used (and why that number), and that you are competent to conduce these experiments.  Causing unneccessary pain to an animal or breaking any conditions of the licence can result in it being revoked and a criminal prosecution.  I believe there is a similar procedure in the USA.

Then there's the issue of animal rights.  Now this is a lot more ambiguous, and more down to the individuals view.  Some people believe that animals are entitled to the same "rights" as humans.  Personally I know that if I was on the Serengeti and a Lion spotted me, he wouldn't consider my right to life and not eat me.  Whilst I don't believe animals have rights, I strongly believe people, with human morals are obliged to consider their welfare.  Therefore, unneccessary pain inflicted on an animal is morally unjustifiable, but the use of a hundred mice to potentially save the lives, or at least improve the quality of life, of countless humans.  If you don't agree with this, then I suggest that you refuse to use all animal tested products - so most medicines and medical equipment, and I suspect your life expectancy will decrease by about 20 years!

Answer 6

I was once involved in developing a drug intended for humans.  We tried it on rats, and they showed a severe side effect which we had not foreseen, but which was the result of the chemical structure and would probably have occurred in humans. So I sure am glad that we tried it on animals first.

If you had to do without any medicine that had been tested on animals, you would have very few available to you.

Animal testing is (and should be) an elaborate and therefore quite expensive business, never undertaken lightly.

Answer 7

I am 100% against it. Animal testing is not only barbaric, it is unscientific - animals react differently to humans to many substances, rendering many tests pointless. For example, a contraceptive was once developed which was tested on rats. It worked as intended, and was given to humans. However, it had the opposite effect on women, actually increasing their fertility! There are many other examples, some of which had much more harmful consequences. I don't know if you remember it, but a couple of years ago a drug was tested on some human volunteers which very nearly killed them, and left them all with permanent health problems - it was all over the news at the time (unfortunately I can't remember the name of the drug off the top of my head). Prior to being given to these people, this drug had already been tested on monkeys at a dose 500 times stronger than that which was given to the humans - the monkeys suffered no ill effects.