Animals for medicine?

[Tessalicious]

I've been considering broaching this rather sensitive, controversial and, for me, personal subject for some time - now I have been given an ideal excuse. I want to know what you lot think about animal testing in medical research - it is right, wrong, tolerable, intolerable, necessary, pointless, etc? And remember, I am only asking about medical research here – research for cosmetic purposes has been illegal for years, and is no longer an issue.

A major reason why I am interested in your responses (look away now if you believe that animal researchers should be car-bombed) is that I have to do experiments on animals as part of my PhD. Have to? Surely not, some might say – but yes, I have to, because I believe in the work that has to be done, and can see the benefits that it produces first-hand through the patients that I know are now receiving life-improving treatments that would not be available but for work done in my, and other, laboratories*. A lot has been achieved, but there is so much human suffering left to cure, and I believe that researchers doing animal work are doing the right thing.

The reason why I am posting this today, particularly, is because of the new petition that has just been launched, giving people like those who went on the Pro-Test march in Oxford a chance to speak out, rather than the only voices caring about this subject being the activists that want animal research abolished. I would like to request that anyone who even thought about ticking either of the top two options in my poll should go to it and sign it – it is so important that at the very least a balanced view of the benefits of this kind of work is expressed, so that governments around the world aren’t swayed by anti-science terrorism, simply because that is the group that shouts the loudest.

Any of you that are sat on the fence because you don’t really know what is involved, please ask – the more scientists are given the chance to explain what we do to people who are willing to listen, the more members of the non-scientific community will be able to make informed opinions on tough topics like these.

[JonD]

I signed the petition yesterday.

[Ghost]

Originally Posted by Tessalicious

because I believe in the work that has to be done, and can see the benefits that it produces first-hand through the patients that I know are now receiving life-improving treatments that would not be available but for work done in my, and other, laboratories*. A lot has been achieved, but there is so much human suffering left to cure, and I believe that researchers doing animal work are doing the right thing.

I disagree and can site scientific evidence if you want. Here's a link to a peaceful charity. If anyone wants more info they're frankly better able to answer questions than I am.

But what really scares me are the people who do this without thought, not those like you who have considered what they are doing.

So I would still be honoured to dance with you fair lady

Dance in beauty,
Christopher

[Tessalicious]

Originally Posted by Ghost

I disagree and can site scientific evidence if you want. Here's a link to a peaceful charity.

Interesting - particularly the stuff about the disastrous human trials recently. My two main reactions to that article were:

Most medical research scientists also believe that the testing was a shambles, but for different reasons: not because animal testing couldn't work, but because in this case, and that of many other biological drugs, treatment is species specific, so for tests to be more accurate, the drug would have to have been tailored for the test animals for most efficacy and safety tests - and it is only because this was a company rather than an academic institute that this was overlooked.

and

Do you have any idea how common an occurrence this kind of even would be without preliminary animal testing - that is if we could actually get any willing human volunteers without those preliminary tests? In fact, if we ever wanted any more drugs, we would probably be heading for a system much like that seen in last Saturday's Doctor Who plot (except possibly without the woman-sized cat-nuns).

I'll have a look through the other articles a bit later, but it is good to see that there are at least some groups that don't act on the belief that killing people is less evil than testing on animals.

But what really scares me are the people who do this without thought, not those like you who have considered what they are doing.

This is not something that anyone would do lightly, without considering their actions very carefully - apart from anything else, because the governmental controls and training are too rigorous to allow anyone to do anything without proper justification and care.

So I would still be honoured to dance with you fair lady

Ta!

[ducasi]

I'd vote for "probably necessary". I'm not sure there are absolutes in these things...

[Barry Shnikov]

I would have like to be able to vote 'Absolutely necessary but regrettable'.

As a lawyer, 'Necessary but wrong' means 'impermissible', so that was out. And 'absolutely right and necessary' is not quite how I feel.

[Barry Shnikov]

I don't think it can be disputed that animal testing can reduce human suffering. There may be an argument that it is not always the best route to achieve that end, but I am generally persuaded that no-one has offered universally satisfactory alternatives.

That being the case I have to say anyone who would prefer human suffering to animal suffering is an idiot, and hasn't thought it through properly.

Yes, we have an obligation to look after the flora and fauna of this planet, and that would include not deliberately and unnecessarily harming 'higher' animals (i.e. we're not worried about protozoa here, nor insects probably).

But to suggest our obligation to care for animals should be put ahead of our obligation to care for other humans is just insane.

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov

Yes, we have an obligation to look after the flora and fauna of this planet,

Er... we do? And where, exactly, does this obligation spring from? Given your very strong anti-religious feelings, I'd be interested to hear.

[stewart38]

Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo

Er... we do? And where, exactly, does this obligation spring from? Given your very strong anti-religious feelings, I'd be interested to hear.

If all the flora and fauna died we as a race would die hence the 'obligation'

[TiggsTours]

Where's the option for "Not right, but sadly necessary"?

I'd love it if it was possible for all drugs to be created without using animals, I'd also love it if there was a cure for every disease, world peace, an end to poverty and global warming. I'd love it if people didn't have to destroy important parts of this beautiful planet, like the rainforests, in order to make enough money to feed their families that night, but unfortunately this isn't an ideal world.

Its very easy to sit in our "perfect" little western world, and dictate to the rest of the world the way things should be, but reality often dictates louder.

Personally, if someone I loved had a life-threatening illness, and someone gave me the needle to inject 100 mice to find out what the cure was, I'd inject away, but if there was an alternative way of finding the answer, then I wouldn't, and I'd fight anyone who wanted to.

I do not agree with testing on animals for cosmetic reasons at all, or for medicine for minor ailments, but to find a cure for cancer? I'm fully supportive.

[Ghost]

Ok a serious question for Tessalicious. I don't know for certain what the answer is so I'm open to persuasion.

"One of my concerns as a scientist about animal testing is that animals can react differently to humans. So theoretically some medicines which would be viable cures in human beings are rejected at the animal testing stage because they react differently with animals eg fatally."

Somewhat worryingly I have heard several people (non-activists) mention recently that medicines should be tested on prisoners as in the past in Greece. This was sort of echoed in the recent Dr Who programme as you mentioned. As a human rights acitivist, this does not sit well with me either.

Interested in your thoughts,
Christopher

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by TiggsTours

Where's the option for "Not right, but sadly necessary"?

Third from the top.

Originally Posted by TiggsTours

I'd love it if it was possible for all drugs to be created without using animals

I'm sure that *everyone* involved in producing medicines agrees, since animals are expensive, inconvenient and difficult to work with.

What astonishes me is how otherwise intelligent people just assume that everyone involved with the stringent regulatory regime, costs and uncertainties involved in animal testing does so for 'trivial' purposes.

[Msfab]

How do people stand with regards to testing on animals when investigating animal disease? Or those animals which we choose to consume that harbour ‘Dangerous/Nasty’ pathogens to human health?

[Ghost]

Originally Posted by Msfab

How do people stand with regards to testing on animals when investigating animal disease?

Personally I'm still against it. For me it comes down to choice. A human being can chose to be a subject of medical testing. An animal can't - perhaps more importantly an animal can't chose not to be a subject of animal testing.

Originally Posted by Msfab

Or those animals which we choose to consume that harbour ‘Dangerous/Nasty’ pathogens to human health?

Do you mean like blowfish?

Take care,
Christopher

[Msfab]

Originally Posted by Ghost

Do you mean like blowfish?

I suppose you could include blowfish. I was thinking of things like BSE/Prion diseases (Mad Cow disease), Salmonella/Campylobacter/Ecoli (food related organisms), the various parasites/worms and the topic of the moment, Avian influenzea - Bird flu.

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by Ghost

more importantly an animal can't chose not to be a subject of animal testing.

I'm surprised that you consider that an animal's 'choice' is in any way significant (or even a valid concept in the abstract). I've no doubt that a laboratory mouse wouldn't 'choose' to have its brains sliced and put under a microscope - but that wouldn't sway me in the least from doing it if I thought I could learn something useful and important.

[TiggsTours]

Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo

Third from the top.

Woops!

Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo

I'm sure that *everyone* involved in producing medicines agrees, since animals are expensive, inconvenient and difficult to work with.

What astonishes me is how otherwise intelligent people just assume that everyone involved with the stringent regulatory regime, costs and uncertainties involved in animal testing does so for 'trivial' purposes.

I know what you mean. I remember years ago I found details of a charity who's sole purpose was to try to find alternatives to animal testing, not to stop vivisection, but to try to find a way round it, I always thought it was a shame they weren't more vocal, instead of the crazy animal activists who descrate graves and try to blow people up, who give the people acting peacefully to try to find alternatives a bad name. I can't remember the name of the charity, and I've tried to find out a few times in recent years, can't find them at all now, maybe they don't exist anymore.

Originally Posted by MsFab

How do people stand with regards to testing on animals when investigating animal disease? Or those animals which we choose to consume that harbour ‘Dangerous/Nasty’ pathogens to human health?

Same thing really, if a small number of animals die, and its for a greater good to find something to save a whole species, then I think that is all for the good. I think its easy to think of cats and dogs when people speak about animal disease, and vetinary procedures, but what if an alternative food to the bamboo that pandas can be found, and it could save a whole species?

How about avian flu, if testing a drug on a few birds can find a way of vacinating the birds, then it may never even become a problem in the human race.

[Tessalicious]

Originally Posted by Ghost

"One of my concerns as a scientist about animal testing is that animals can react differently to humans. So theoretically some medicines which would be viable cures in human beings are rejected at the animal testing stage because they react differently with animals eg fatally."

You put this in quotes - would you mind telling me where the quote comes from, just out of interest?

I have to say, yes it is possibly true that there are drugs which are harmful in animals and wouldn't be in humans, or that are ineffectual in animals but would have a strong reaction in humans. However, the level of testing that animals are used for allows us to greatly reduce the risk that a drug we will later lest on patients or healthy human controls might be either non-beneficent or maleficent. Ethically, it wouldn't be right to offer a drug to humans that had caused morbidity in animals - after all, would you as a volunteer for clinical trials, take part if you were told the drug had killed three quarters of the mice it had been tested on?

It is also important to remember that the development of medical treatments using animals is not wholly restricted to testing of drugs that have been developed - there is still necessary research carried out to fill in the holes in our biological knowledge, so that we can more easily and accurately assess what biological molecules or pathways would be useful targets for therapy. Much of that kind of research is done in vitro, meaning using cells rather than live animals, but there are still some levels of this that have to be done in vivo. This is, as with all animal research, kept to an absolute minimum, but is still important because it makes the initial development of the drugs, well before they are actually tested, possible.

Somewhat worryingly I have heard several people (non-activists) mention recently that medicines should be tested on prisoners as in the past in Greece. This was sort of echoed in the recent Dr Who programme as you mentioned. As a human rights acitivist, this does not sit well with me either.

Of course not, and I don't think any serious scientist without extreme right-wing political views would even consider this as a possibility* - assuming that what you're implying is that the testing would be carried out without permission.

I know, your instant reaction to that was 'but the animals don't give their permission'. IMHO, and in the opinion of most ethics committees, the fundamental differences between animals and humans, which are mainly emotional and sociological, make this a difficult argument to maintain - the animals are less aware of what they are being used for than any human suffering from a horrible disease would be; they are (apart from primates, which are a higher order of problem) completely unaware of anything happening to the other animals, even their littermates, because they have very little social conscience. In other words, the suffering they may experience is on a minute scale compared to that of a family watching in distress as a beloved spouse/parent/sibling/child dies of cancer, and in between is subjected to unpleasant 'treatments' such as radiotherapy because the development of better ones has been hampered by protests against the research required.

*Also, from what I can tell, prisoners would be dreadful test subjects, because they are kept in much poorer conditions than animals that are kept for research - in fact I don't know many pet owners of anything other than dogs that take as much care over their pet as any scientist does over their animals. Lab mice get about the same level of care and attention as the dogs at Battersea do, just to give you an idea, but with more room.