Is animal testing on medicine Just as wrong as cosmetics?

[Neptupid]

Testing on animals has always been a big NO for me.

But I was thinking we test on both medicines and cosmetics on animals, do you think one is worse then the other?
If you are against it would you personally become a tester? It seems awfully risky and dangerous but if not animals then wouldn't it be humans next?

Lots of questions. But the main debate.

Is testing medicine worse or better then testing cosmetics on animals

[Empired]

I think testing medicines on animals is completely unavoidable and although it's not great morally there's not really any way around it. On the other hand testing cosmetics is almost purely for human vanity as we'd definitely be able to survive without it :P

[-:Undertaker:-]

A monkey being sick and being put down while being tested on or a family member in terrible pain in hospital dying of a disease/condition that could be cured?

For me that's an easy choice to make as it should be for any human being.

[Minion?!]

I strongly disagree with testing on animals full stop.

I personally believe that everybody is equal and that no life should be 'more important' than any other. I don't see why an animal should have to spend it's life testing chemicals when there are alternative ways around being able to test cosmetics and medications.

[Bionic...]

If we don't test things on animals then we'd be testing chemicals on ourselves and i know for a fact that the people whom protest about the use of animals in testing would not willingly allow someone to inject a chemical which would be very harmful but at the same time very beneficial. So without the use of animal testing we would struggle to prove anything for the effectiveness of drugs etc.
Although i do agree that the animals we use ought to be better looked after as the conditions are sometimes very bad.

[Empired]

If we don't test things on animals then we'd be testing chemicals on ourselves and i know for a fact that the people whom protest about the use of animals in testing would not willingly allow someone to inject a chemical which would be very harmful but at the same time very beneficial. So without the use of animal testing we would struggle to prove anything for the effectiveness of drugs etc.
Although i do agree that the animals we use ought to be better looked after as the conditions are sometimes very bad.

When I was part of my sixth form's debating club we had a debate about this topic once and the people who were so against animal testing used the argument that every life is equal and we can't consider ourselves better or more important than animals just because we think we have 'better' brain capacity or whatever, and that we should instead testing things out on ourselves as a race.

When they were challenged with the natural response of "who in their right mind is going to want to test out some of the trial medicines out there when they've only ever been tested on clumps of cells before?!" they argued that criminals should be forced to trial new drugs, cosmetics, etc.

So obviously the animal rights activists at my sixth form can't represent the opinions of animal rights activists in general but I did think it was surprising that they so fiercely argued that every right was equal but then equally fiercely condemned those who have committed a crime at some point in their life to the point where they were arguing they should be forced to trial possibly dangerous medications instead of animals because they're "cute".

[FlyingJesus]

I feel like most people don't really understand what animal testing involves with regards to the cosmetics market. Although it's now not allowed in Europe it's still a big part of the process with US and Chinese products, so obviously hundreds of millions of people are still using products that are tested on animals. While most testing I don't have a problem with as it's allergen testing (which will cause a bit of irritation if anything) there's also something called LD50 where they purposely inject enough of a compound into a bunch of animals to kill half of them, which is done pretty much just so they can tell how much is too much to go into a body. That seems pretty pointless to me since anyone eating makeup kinda deserves what they get, so I wouldn't defend that particular type of testing.

When it comes to medical testing, I would far prefer to have medical advancements happen at the expense of non-sentient creatures, because quite frankly yeah we are better than them and I care more for the advancement of my species than I do for a bunch of animals that wouldn't have even been born without us needing them anyway

[Empired]

That seems pretty pointless to me since anyone eating makeup kinda deserves what they get, so I wouldn't defend that particular type of testing.
I drank a bottle of car de-icer as a child so I'm sure there are thousands upon thousands of young children who eat make up their parents leave lying around. I do see your point though.

[Zak]

We slaughter millions of animals worldwide and therefore I do not see a problem with animal testing. However making it as humane as possible is a must.

[Bionic...]

When I was part of my sixth form's debating club we had a debate about this topic once and the people who were so against animal testing used the argument that every life is equal and we can't consider ourselves better or more important than animals just because we think we have 'better' brain capacity or whatever, and that we should instead testing things out on ourselves as a race.

When they were challenged with the natural response of "who in their right mind is going to want to test out some of the trial medicines out there when they've only ever been tested on clumps of cells before?!" they argued that criminals should be forced to trial new drugs, cosmetics, etc.

So obviously the animal rights activists at my sixth form can't represent the opinions of animal rights activists in general but I did think it was surprising that they so fiercely argued that every right was equal but then equally fiercely condemned those who have committed a crime at some point in their life to the point where they were arguing they should be forced to trial possibly dangerous medications instead of animals because they're "cute".

I've heard this argument before aswell but then if you say "what about if that person you're testing the drugs on in prison, was wrongly sentenced what ought we to do?" they often withdraw their comments lol.