Is animal research really necessary?

[AmyStrange]

Is animal research really necessary?
BY BRYN NELSON
STAFF WRITER
September 27, 2004

FROM: http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsdivid0927,0,5638319.story?coll=ny-health-big-pix
On Feb. 4, 1966, Life magazine published a photo essay, "Concentration Camps for Dogs," that detailed animal cruelty by a Maryland dealer suspected of stealing dogs from their owners and selling them to researchers. Six months later, the exposé and public outcry had spurred the passage of the federal Laboratory Animal Welfare Act.

In the nearly 40 years since then, the federal law and three major amendments have been widely credited with improving the lives of dogs and many other warm-blooded laboratory animals in the United States.

But other questions have been brewing: Questions not only of how animal research should be conducted, but also of whether some research should be conducted at all. Questions of whether animals deserve rights that would preclude their use as guinea pigs.

And despite the accords of the past, ethicists and welfare advocates say the scientific community is ill-prepared to deal with a rapidly evolving debate that is generating new questions and becoming increasingly inflammatory.

<SNIP>

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Yes, it is....at least medical research.

Nearly all medical research needs to have animal trials before being tried on humans.

[GoBlue]

2. I agree but...

As a former practicing biologic scientist, it is a good thing that animal activists have vastly improved the conditions under which research animals are forced to live and have forced scientists to be more thoughtful in their experimental use of animals. Ironically, the living conditions of research animals are more highly protected by the govt. than those of children.

[Piperay]

12. Self Deleted

I answered the wrong post.

[meow2u3]

3. Only if it's used to cure animals of disease

Otherwise, it makes no sense to experiment on animals to look for medicine to cure human disease; animals and humans have different body chemistry.

If researchers are looking for cures for animal disease, as in veterinary research, then it's OK.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. What a ridiculous statement.

Are you telling me that testing a new surgical procedure (such as transplants) should only be done on humans?

Vaccines against typhus, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, and tetanus were all the products of animal testing.

The current search for a vaccine for HIV is based on animal research as well as treatment.

Advances in the treatment of diabetes, certain cancers, surgical procedures (such as open heart surgery) and many other conditions have all had their roots in animal research.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. That's not necessarily true........

Perhaps the good Doctor above can elaborate, but it is my understanding that there are many cases where animal testing reveals problems as well as benefits to certain chemical compounds that can not be determined any other way with current medical science.

The higher apes (Gorillas, Chimps, Orangutans, etc.) are VERY close biologically to humans and the results from experiments using such subjects shortens the time to market many pharmaceuticals dramatically.

Please, i do not condone spreading mascara in the eyes of bunnies in order to serve vanity but i do see the value in using certain animals in the search for verification of safety on life saving drugs.

[mistertrickster]

7. You are correct, sir--one of the most recent near-cures was the

development of the hepatitis B vaccine, only made possible by testing on chimpanzees etc.

[mistertrickster]

6. PETA types have spread a lot of misinformation about animal research.

It is absolutely essential. It has lead to practically every breakthrough drug that humans (and animals) benefit from.

Protect animals from pain and suffering as far as possible, yes, but outlaw testing, no.

I know Bush is pResident, but let's cling to our belief in RATIONALITY as long as we can, shall we?

Otherwise we'll be back to the days of blood letting and nose-gays.

[enki23]

8. only if you want to learn things about mammalian biology

otherwise, no. we could stop animal research, so long as we feel we don't feel we need to make many more advancements in medicine, public health, and the rest.

[LWolf]

9. No, I don't think so.

Just my 2 cents.

I think causing pain, suffering, or undeserved incarceration to any living thing is wrong.

[mistertrickster]

10. Well, technically that's impossible--you can forgo all meat and dairy

products (dairy cows have to be 'imprisoned' to be milked). All eggs and fish. You can wear no leather or fur, sit not upon leather uphostlery or refuse to play baseball (leather, again).

But even if you're the most vegan of vegetarians, you're still indirectly killing mice and other small critters when the grains are harvested for your beans and rice.

Some things have to die so that others can live. It's the world we've been given, and there's not much we can really do about it.

[LWolf]

11. No kidding.

I'm not a vegetarian. Some die so that others live, and living things take life.

I prefer not to take life unnecessarily; and when I do, I prefer to respect the life I'm taking by doing it as quickly and painlessly as possible, with the least amount of stress to the life involved.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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