Animal tests get renewed backing

[monkeytrousers]

here

I think this is a tricky one. I'm a vegetarian, mostly for moral and ethical reasons and I'd like to hope that one day science and medicine could move away from this area. But at the same time I couldn't campaign against such testing while it remains vital to medical research, as I would support stem cell testing also.

I was briefly a member of the BUAV but their language was increasingly sensational and overly emotive and that made me doubt their findings. I wanted a more middle ground stance.

What does anyone else think?

[littlemissbossy]

and your point is??

[monkeytrousers]

I dunno, I'm trying to work it out!

[juice]

i used to be against animal testing. but since having my dd, is she needed medicine that had been tested on amimals, i wouldnt think twice about her having it.

i think testing should be done on murders and rapists and other horrible people who are wasting our taxes in jail.

[Mojomummy]

Do you think it's vital ? what about investigating the causes of diseases etc ?

[expatinscotland]

As long as it's done humanely for medical purposes, I don't have a problem with it. Many of our childhood vaccines wouldn't be here w/o it.

[highlander]

I think all GP's surgeries should display a prominently placed poster stating that all prescribed medicines will have been tested on animals.

I can't believe all these hideous little protestors have never taken paracetamol etc etc.

[Mojomummy]

why are the protestors hideous ?

[fickle]

I saw a news report last night about protestors that actually targetted relatives of people in the animal testing trade. Smashing windows and intimidation.....its mad.

[Ameriscot2005]

Hideous because they are terrorists...

[edam]

It's a legal requirement that all medicines are tested on animals.

I'd like to believe that the industry was moving away from animal experiments where possible, and that the experimental animals were properly looked after, with minimal pain and suffering. Sadly neither is true. The number of experiments on animals is going up and evidence given to a House of Lords select committee last year detailed appalling, widespread abuse of lab animals. This wasn't BUAV/animal extremist propaganda, this was hard evidence submitted to the House of Lords. Will see if I can find a link but it was shocking.

Many of the experiments on animals are for drugs which are basically copies of existing medicines - so-called 'me too' drugs (created largely to make money for pharma industry by generating a new licence for a different company). There's a debate to be had about whether these experiments are actually necessary.

Currently, there seem to be no incentives for industry to limit animal experimentation to those situations where it is actually necessary, or effective regulation to mimise pain and suffering. I'm glad people are protesting about that.

[expatinscotland]

Protesting is one thing. Grave-robbing, harrassing, stalking and threatening to kill peoples' families is another . . .

[edam]

The industry and other interested parties on one side of the argument are having a lot of PR success at the moment painting everyone who is concerned about cruelty as an 'animal rights extremist'. While conveniently escaping censure for appalling, shocking acts of abuse. Not the experiments themselves (although they are bad enough I can see the argument of necessity) but the callous disregard for animal welfare - ignoring the guidelines and common human decency that demands animals in pain are given pain relief, for instance.

I don't happen to approve of graverobbing but neither do I approve of industry getting away with extreme acts of cruelty.

[ruty]

why aren't there more checks on these people ? The RSPCA should send someone in regularly to ensure animals are well treated and receive pain relief etc. I am not against animal testing for medical research but i do think the scientists should have to adhere to much more rigorous rules and conditions. A carte blance allows too much room for needless cruelty.

[Ameriscot2005]

Where's the evidence of the callous disregard for animal welfare?

IMV, toxicologists are extremely caring people...

Why the assumption that anyone involved in providing the safest products for humans to use must somehow have an evil streak?

[monkeytrousers]

That's it Edam. I would support pressure to speed the process up but I can't be a hypocrite and say I would refuse my child drugs if he needed them if they were tested on animals. And as you say, they all are at the moment.

Although my GP wouldn't even tell me if there had been any trials for anti-depressants in pregnancy with (gulp) chimps. I?d be very surprised if there hadn?t been.

[paolosgirl]

OK - perhaps we could have the option. A drug that has not been through the pre-requisite testing on animals, and a drug that has...I'd go for the ones that had been tested every time.

I think there are no real arguements for cosmetics etc to be tested, and I'm fully behind the anti lobby on that front. However, the tactics that the extremists have been using are nothing more than terrorism, and I have absolutely no support for them.

BTW - my dad used to test on animals many years ago (medical research). Even then, the industry was incredibly tightly controlled.

[happymerryberries]

My husband has a form of leukemia for which there is, at preasent no cure. I want a cure and know that if one comes it will have to be tested on animals.

Hands up everyone who would let their child/dh die rather than use drugs that have been tested on animals? Linda mcartney campained agained drug testing on animals but chose treatment when she sadly had cancer. when the chips are down people make hard choices.

Would I rather that animals were not used? of course, and so would all the scientists, much easier to use a test tube, cheaper too if you can.

But the reality is that people die if diseases that we cannot treat and I for one want my dh to live.

[happymerryberries]

mojomummy and I'm all for find the causes of diseases but that is bugger all use to my dh who has it already

[monkeytrousers]

I agree, of course the extreamists are wrong. How can you fight on one hand for the rights of animals while on the other completely disregarding the rights of the human animals you're terrorising? That's the danger of viewing the world though one particular prism.

The RSPCA do keep evidence of cruelty and I think it's the nature of the beast that some animals will suffer or at least be 'uncomfortable' (and if there's any corolation between the hospital description of the term then thats probably not nice either.).

[monkeytrousers]

That's it HMB's. Nail on the head.

Sorry to hear about your hubby by the way.

[spidermama]

I think the extremists have been infiltrated by agent provocateurs from groups with a vested interest in the contiunation of animal experiments.
There. I said it.

[happymerryberries]

I used to work in the vet school in Edinburgh. Extreemists set fire to part of it, the part that carried out research (yes on animals) to help fight diseases that affect ANIMALS in developing countries ffs. Oh and they trained vets in tropical medicine so that they could treat ANIMALS.

So that realy helped animal welfare didn't it???

[monkeytrousers]

I think much of the explicit cruelty come from the handlers rather than the scientists too.

[edam]

Damn. I wrote a long-ish post with links and everything to reputable sources and my computer crashed - do you think Macintosh is involved in some huge conspiracy to promote animal testing? (I am NOT serious but winks and grins don't seem v. appropriate, somehow).

The RSPCA is very concerned about animal experimentation, and calling for a ban on the use of non-human primates. I don't think anyone would call them terrorists, would they?

I'd imagine most people are against causing pain and suffering to living beings. Yet many people accept that animal experiments, often causing extreme suffering, are necessary for the greater good of humankind - an ends justifying the means argument. If we do want to cause pain and suffering because it benefits us, we have a duty to minimise that cruelty as far as possible. We are under a moral obligation to uphold the highest standards of animal welfare in research institutions and everywhere that experimental animals are bred and kept.

Yet the current situation, with polarisation between 'good' scientists interested only in human welfare and 'bad' terrorists, prevents us looking carefully at the way we - or people acting on our behalf treat these animals. There's plenty of evidence out there from reputable sources (House of Lords select committee, for instance) that actually we often fall far short of those standards. We should be doing something about that, urgently. The media and political focus on 'animal rights extremists' means those in power can turn a blind eye to cruelty.

I would love to have a choice between medicines that have been tested on animals and medicines that haven't. I don't have that choice because the law says all medicines must be tested on animals. The only choice I have is 'take this medicine that has been tested on animals or die'. I have to go with medicines that have been tested on animals or deprive ds of his mother. For me, that makes it even more important that animals are only used in experiments when it is really necessary, and that those animals are treated as humanely as possible. I can't turn a blind eye to suffering because it happens to benefit me personally. So I give money to organisations like the RSPCA and others that are working to at least reduce that suffering.

[monkeytrousers]

You humble me with your articulacy Edam. I didn?t know you were ill, so forgive me for my ignorance too.

There has been alot of progress in recent years with regards to animals used in the testing of cosmetics but pressure has been sustained over many years.

I really want to support an organisation that doesn't encompass the whole extremist rhetoric, but takes a more pragmatic approach.