What are the benefits of animal testing?

Question

I always here people complaining about animal testing... i guess its better then human testing, i just wondered about the benefits.

1. What are the benefits?

2. Are there alternatives?

3. Why do people freak out about animal testing so much?

4. Would u rather use an animal for testing... or just kill and eat it.

5. This is making me hungry... what the most delicious animal?

Answer 1

I don't think of there being any benefits.

Course there are alternatives

Because its wrong to test dangerous things on animals for our own good.

i'd rather it all stopped really: or at least factory farms stopped and all animals were free range/grass fed

If you are simply going to mock everyone in this section then leave. You are going to make people angry and you know that. Just leave if you don't have anything helpful or actually vegetarian/vegan to say. So just leave this section and stop trying to be a smart a**.

Answer 2

1. Since animals like rats have such a short lifespan, they show us side effects of drugs/make-up much quicker then say...testing on humans. Using animals is said to be ideal because of the basic similar internatal structure of all warm-blooded animals.

2. Technological testing.

3. Because there is alot of controversy over whether or not any animal can be compared to humans. People don't think it works + they think it is abusive.

4. I'd rather kill it and eat it...then it wouldn't suffer if it would have gotten injected with cancer or some other horrible disease.

5. I think lamb is the most delicious....although I feel evil eating it :(

Answer 3

i think its a simple answer .try testing a drug on a Turnip??

Answer 4

Dangerous Medicine: Examples of Animal-Based “Safety” Tests Gone Wrong

By John J. Pippin, M.D., and Kristie Stoick, M.P.H.

Biological differences between and within species require scientists to proceed with caution when interpreting the results of any experiment. Animals of different ages, sexes, developmental stages, and of different health status can all respond differently to experimental treatments. It is no surprise, then, that humans respond differently to administered pharmaceuticals than other animals. The surprise comes when scientists, physicians, and regulatory officials are willing to risk the health of patients by relying on animal experiments to predict the effects of drugs in humans—sometimes with grave results.

According to some estimates, adverse drug reactions are responsible for 2.2 million hospitalizations and 106,000 deaths annually.1 Furthermore, as many as 50 percent of FDA-approved drugs are withdrawn or relabeled due to unanticipated side effects in humans.2 A shockingly low 56 percent of known human teratogens are positive in one of six species surveyed.3 Below are a few selected examples to illustrate the dire need for better, more human-specific drug safety tests.

Thalidomide

Perhaps the most famous teratogen, this drug was given to pregnant women in the 1950’s to control nausea, causing more than 10,000 births with limb-reduction defects.4,5 After thalidomide was withdrawn from the market, tests in pregnant mice, rats, and guinea pigs were negative; finally, one strain of rabbit (the New Zealand white rabbit) was found to be susceptible. Cats, hamsters, rats, and mice were later found to be sensitive only to extremely high doses.3

Oraflex, Opren (Benoxaprofen)

Even though year-long tests in rhesus monkeys6 gave no indication of risk, months after this non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) was released onto the market in 1982, patients began experiencing severe liver toxicity and phototoxicity,7,8 eventually resulting in withdrawl of the drug, but only after more than 3,500 serious adverse events and 60 deaths occurred in Britain alone.9

Flenac (Fenclofenac)

This NSAID, despite passing animal toxicity tests in 10 animal species (mice, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets, rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, horses, and monkeys), produced severe liver toxicity in humans.10

Butazolidin (Phenylbutazone)

This NSAID is commonly used in equine medicine to reduce pain and inflammation, but in humans can produce serious phototoxicity,11 as well as serious or fatal liver12 or bone marrow13 disease. Bone marrow toxicity was demonstrated in human cell cultures after the drug was released and produced more than 10,000 fatal cases of aplastic anemia.14-16

Cylert (Pemoline)

Fifteen children suffered acute liver failure after taking this attention deficit hyperactivity disorder treatment, and 12 of those cases resulted in liver transplant or death.17 No animal tests that showed an indication of hepatic toxicity could be found.

Rezulin (Troglitazone)

This drug, intended to treat type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes, was approved by the FDA in 1997. Rezulin lowered the blood sugar in rats without producing adverse effects, but reports of severe and even fatal liver failure appeared immediately after approval. Due largely to an aggressive investigation by the Los Angeles Times and after four label changes, Rezulin was withdrawn in 2000 after 391 deaths were attributed to the drug.18

Propulsid (Cisapride)

Propulsid was approved by the FDA in 1993 and was used primarily to treat gastric reflux in children. Heart rhythm disturbances had appeared in clinical trials, but not in animal studies. By 1995, heart rhythm deaths in children became evident through adverse events reports. The drug remained on the market with five label changes, until being withdrawn in 2000 after causing over 300 deaths.18

Inocor (Amrinone)

This short-term therapy option for patients with severe heart failure produced severe and sometimes fatal thrombocytopenia (decreased blood clotting ability) in humans, despite no evidence of this effect in 2-year-long animal tests. Only after approval, and only in marmosets and a very specific, metabolically compromised strain of rat, were similar effects found.7

Baycol (Cerivastatin)

Baycol was a popular drug approved in 1997 for the treatment of dyslipidemia (abnormal cholesterol levels), but it was withdrawn after substantial risk for severe or fatal rhabdomyolysis (muscle wasting) was revealed in patients. Muscle wasting was not seen in pre-clinical animal tests, including rats, mice, minipigs, dogs, or monkeys; only at very high doses were indications of effects on muscle tissue seen.19 The authors concluded that cerivastatin was well tolerated in all species. Post-withdrawal tests using rat and human muscle cells in vitro revealed that rat cells are 200 times more resistant to the drug’s effects.20 Eventually more than 100 deaths were linked to cerivastatin.

Such a high error rate begs the question: How many possibly life-saving therapies have clinicians never investigated because of toxicities in other animal species? Penicillin, which was originally discovered in 1929, wasn’t used until 1939 because of its ineffectiveness in curing infected rabbits. If it had been “safety” tested in cats, guinea pigs, or hamsters, it would have been abandoned as toxic.21

Furosemide (Lasix) is one of our most important diuretics, used to reduce fluid retention during heart failure and other diseases. Though experiments in mice show extensive liver damage, decades of clinical use have proven its safety for humans.22,23

One of our most relied-upon pain relievers, Aspirin (Acetylsalicylic acid), causes teratogenic malformations in mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, and monkeys.3

November 4, 2004

  

Audio Version



The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that Vioxx may have contributed to 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths between 1999 and 2003. The estimate is based on the number of prescriptions issued for Vioxx between 1999 and 2003.

Not that you are really interested but visit http://www.curedisease.net - for alternatives.

Using animals for testing and then giving the drug to humans is like playing russian roulette.   Another one you might like to look at is TGN 14 12

I have had three close relatives die from cancer in the last 18 months, yet there has been animal research for this for over 100 years.

Questions 4 & 5 do not apply to me.

Maybe people should watch some undercover videos on animal experiments and watch them scream! I'm sure there are plenty on Youtube.  I don't think any being should suffer for the sake of another, and I don't care if you don't agree! :)

Answer 5

1. What are the benefits?

There are some experimental procedures that have been paved and developed to the point of being deemed safe for human beings, this prevented unnecessary loss of patients - for instance, invasive brain surgery to remove tumors and growths that was performed on monkeys before human beings; changes in behavior, mood, loss of motor and other functions could be observed in monkeys and a reasonable procedure could be drawn up from the experiments to make the procedure on human beings as safe and side effect free as possible.

2. Are there alternatives?

Yes, testing on volunteer human beings. Making safer drugs, period, and perhaps making make-up, house hold products, etc. from organic, natural ingredients so that we don't need to make sure that the toxic chemical concoction in a tampon is or isn't going to destroy the person wearing it... I mean, seriously, this all stems from attempts to capitalize or cut corners and save money. Most of the unsafe compounds in regular products are serving no real purpose but to save the parent company money (like lab-created synthetic food additives to keep food fresher and tastier, regardless of links to cancer, obesity and diabetes - like the lab made artificial sweeteners or corn syrup in our products).

3. Why do people freak out about animal testing so much?

Some testing is unnecessary - like forcibly testing prostate drugs on pregnant female monkeys (and pushing the levels of medication until the monkey miscarried her baby, and then operating on the fetus). This is hideous to me because prostate drugs are aimed at men, there will never be a medically excusable reason for a pregnant human to take a prostate drug. Also, most animal testing is just not sufficient - drugs are constantly being recalled because most drugs are tested for only a short period of time and typically only on male animals. Some drugs have very varied results on animals that are genetically very similar - like two species of hamster might react completely uniquely to a drug - so how can we ever assume that because a drug didn't hurt a male lab rat, it won't hurt a human being? Most universities across the United States have in fact disbanded animal testing - out of dozens of universities, less than 8 remain that still test on animals, and it continues to be more unpopular. It is just a loss of lives, it is cruel and it is generally unnecessary. Other than for sparse ground-breaking procedures and discoveries that animal testing made possible, the great majority of animal testing is just a total wash.

4. Would u rather use an animal for testing... or just kill and eat it.

I would prefer neither, but I would personally prefer to perform a radical surgery on an animal before I attempted it on a human being as opposed to eating a factory farmed animal corpse; and either way I would not want to kill and eat an animal OR test on animals personally. Neither is necessary in a wide majority of cases.

5. This is making me hungry... what the most delicious animal?

None of them, really.

Answer 6

Think of the person you love the most.  

Imagine that person suffering from the pains of cancer and chemo.

I would rather have a thousand rats tested or a thousand monkeys disected before I let cancer ruin a loved one's life.

Animals should be sacrificed for only thst reason even as selfish as that may sound to some.  Not for food.