Animal Testing - Let it carry on? [Closes 06/03/07]

[GommeInc]

luke - of course nobody would want their relative to die, but the fact is that animal testing isn't necessary - it's just cheaper
surely if we could test drugs without doing it on animals then it would be better?
you'd still get your life-saving drugs, but without the pain caused to animals

It is necessary, to see if there is a reaction "/ So you would want someone to die for your relative or friend to live? Do you believe in Human Testing first, public use second? Or do you just want them to hit the market immediately when being made, so hundreds-thousands-millions die on a product that hasn't been tested?

How can you test drugs on something that you cannot test on? The major flaw in your argument, or are you going to say vegetables are a suitable test subject :rolleyes: Humans aren't suitable, they cost more than a rodent or other lower chain animal.

So, my question, what are you suggesting a drug should be tested on? Because an animal is the only cheap way to do it....

oh, and gomme - one last thing - just reminding you that you said this:

"4) we do know animals arent clever, and we know there not capable of communication."



still laughing here

Mentor and me are not the same person, thank you very much I would also like to point out, that you must be very thick if you cannot understand what he is saying e.g. "typed with a spade." You probably do understand him, but you're trying to wriggle out of his perfectly formed arguments by making daft comments about how he is saying them "/

[-:Undertaker:-]

luke - of course nobody would want their relative to die, but the fact is that animal testing isn't necessary - it's just cheaper
surely if we could test drugs without doing it on animals then it would be better?
you'd still get your life-saving drugs, but without the pain caused to animals

Of course it's necessary, I knew that from the age of 9

So you'd like thousands of Humans to be in pain because the poisen cancer drugs that weren't tested on animals were tested on innocent humans?

Animals are the only way to do it, unless you can suggest something else?

I didn't read through all of your posts as they seemed to be very repetitive.

[Wig44.]

Here is what I think is right. It is necessary for the advancement of medical sciences, if we didn't test on animals there wouldn't be certain life saving drugs we have today. Of course, there is the option of testing it on humans, but remember what happened recently? Alot of people died testing a drug and a few who survived were in a critical condition and on the verge of death.

So in that sense, yes - animal testing is good for the development of drugs that save lives and help the quality of peoples lives.

Animal testing is not right when it comes to beauty products and cosmetics, such as make up, shampoo and conditioner, bath/shower gels and foams and the normal superficial products. Animals are treated much worse when they have superficial/beauty products tested on them than when they have break through drugs tested on them.

So, yes to the advancement of medical sciences and no to the tesing of beauty products and cosmetics.

[LikeOmgItsLaila]

God made us stronger than animals for a reason.

I personally, do not care what animals are being killed for as long as my KFC still comes and is on my table, my make up is still there.

I know, How selfish am I? But hell, I don't care - Im alive to enjoy life, and enjoy it I shall.

[dog-egg]

ok - big apology to you Gomme - i'm sorry i made the mistake of saying you typed it when you didn't!!

however, i'd like to know how you see "4) we do know animals arent clever, and we know there not capable of communication." as a 'perfectly formed argument' ?

i realise that there have been some long and convoluted posts on here, which are difficult to follow, or just plain boring to do so, but there are some valid points in them

there ARE alternatives to testing on animals, such as tissue samples and voluntary human testing... as Mentor has said, a lot of testing IS done on tissue samples so the product is already pretty safe by the time that stage of testing is complete

i am happy to volunteer for testing as i think that if i want the future benefits then i should ante up and help... human testing has been going on for years and yes there's been one recent case of things going badly wrong, but that's a drop in the ocean of testing

i have no desire to see people dying in tests, just as i have no desire to see non-human animals dying - and cancer patients are crying out to get gene therapy at the moment but american laws on compulsory years of testing mean that thousands are dying needlessly while they wait - now they're going over to china where great results are being seen

the argument for testing is much stronger for life saving drugs, but what about all the 'new and improved' products like headache tablets? they worked fine in the first place, but each new alteration means more and more testing

i guess you'd have quite a low opinion of me if you hadn't read through all the earlier posts and seen how the main argument between Mentor and i got started - i set out to try to keep things impersonal but he began to infer that i was less intelligent than him, whereas i just disagreed with him

i still believe that testing on animals is morally wrong and we should all be doing everything we can to find more alternatives, and in the meantime volunteer for human testing

[dog-egg]

and here are some alternatives for you... (direct quotes)

'So, just what type of alternatives are in use today? The most common type of alternative methods are: in-vitro tests, computer software, databases of tests already done (to avoid duplication), and even human "clinical trial" tests. Use of animal cells, organs, or tissue cultures is also deemed an alternative although, obviously, animal lives are sacrificed for the use of their parts. The specific tests are:

Eytex
Produced by the National Testing Corp. in Palm Springs, California, Eytex is an in-vitro (test-tube) procedure that measures eye irritancy via a protein alteration system. A vegetable protein from the jack bean mimics the reaction of the cornea to an alien substance. This alternative is used by Avon instead of the cruel Draize eye irritancy test.

Skintex
An in-vitro method to assess skin irritancy that uses pumpkin rind to mimic the reaction of a foreign substance on human skin (both Eytex and Skintex can measure 5,000 different materials).

EpiPack
Produced by Clonetics in San Diego, California, the EpiPack uses cloned human tissue to test potentially harmful substances.

Neutral Red Bioassay
Developed at Rockefeller University and promoted by Clonetics, the Neutral Red Bioassay is cultured human cells that are used to compute the absorption of a water-soluble dye to measure relative toxicity.

Testskin
Produced by Organogenesis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Testskin uses human skin grown in a sterile plastic bag and can be used for measuring irritancy, etc. (this method is used by Avon, Amway, and Estee Lauder).

TOPKAT
Produced by Health Design, Inc. in Rochester, New York, TOPKAT is a computer software program that measures toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and teratonogenicity (this method is used by the U.S. Army, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration).

Ames Test
Tests for carcinogenicity by mixing a test culture with Salmonella typhimurium and adding activating enzymes. It was able to detect 156 out of 174 (90&#37 animal carcinogens and 90 out of 100 (88%) non-carcinogenes.

Agarose Diffusion Method
Tests for toxicity of plastic and synthetic devices used in medical devices such as heart valves, artificial joints, and intravenous lines. Human cells and the test material are placed in a flask and are separated by a thin-layer of agarose (a derivative of seaweed agar). If the material tested is an irritant, an area of killed cells appears around the substance.

Today, in-vitro (meaning, literally, "in glass") as opposed to in-vivo (meaning "whole animal") has flourished because of advances in tissue culture techniques and other analytical methods.

The main disadvantages to animal tests, according to John Frazier and Alan Goldberg, of CAAT, are: "Animal discomfort and death, species-extrapolation problems, and excessive time and expense." Animal protection advocates stress that the main disadvantage is the inhumane treatment of animals in tests due, in part, to the fact that anesthesia for the alleviation of pain is often not administered. Scientists allege that using anesthesia will interfere with test results.

Progress toward the widespread use of alternatives to animal testing will continue to gain strength as awareness of, and support for, alternatives is made known. As consumers, we can make a difference in the lives of innocent animals by purchasing only products deemed "cruelty-free" and writing to the companies that still doanimal testing and letting them know why you will not purchase their products.

Mohandas K. Gandhi said it best in his autobiography "The Story of My Experiments": "To my mind the life of the lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of the lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."'

[-:Undertaker:-]

and here are some alternatives for you... (direct quotes)

'So, just what type of alternatives are in use today? The most common type of alternative methods are: in-vitro tests, computer software, databases of tests already done (to avoid duplication), and even human "clinical trial" tests. Use of animal cells, organs, or tissue cultures is also deemed an alternative although, obviously, animal lives are sacrificed for the use of their parts. The specific tests are:

Eytex
Produced by the National Testing Corp. in Palm Springs, California, Eytex is an in-vitro (test-tube) procedure that measures eye irritancy via a protein alteration system. A vegetable protein from the jack bean mimics the reaction of the cornea to an alien substance. This alternative is used by Avon instead of the cruel Draize eye irritancy test.

Skintex
An in-vitro method to assess skin irritancy that uses pumpkin rind to mimic the reaction of a foreign substance on human skin (both Eytex and Skintex can measure 5,000 different materials).

EpiPack
Produced by Clonetics in San Diego, California, the EpiPack uses cloned human tissue to test potentially harmful substances.

Neutral Red Bioassay
Developed at Rockefeller University and promoted by Clonetics, the Neutral Red Bioassay is cultured human cells that are used to compute the absorption of a water-soluble dye to measure relative toxicity.

Testskin
Produced by Organogenesis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Testskin uses human skin grown in a sterile plastic bag and can be used for measuring irritancy, etc. (this method is used by Avon, Amway, and Estee Lauder).

TOPKAT
Produced by Health Design, Inc. in Rochester, New York, TOPKAT is a computer software program that measures toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and teratonogenicity (this method is used by the U.S. Army, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration).

Ames Test
Tests for carcinogenicity by mixing a test culture with Salmonella typhimurium and adding activating enzymes. It was able to detect 156 out of 174 (90%) animal carcinogens and 90 out of 100 (88%) non-carcinogenes.

Agarose Diffusion Method
Tests for toxicity of plastic and synthetic devices used in medical devices such as heart valves, artificial joints, and intravenous lines. Human cells and the test material are placed in a flask and are separated by a thin-layer of agarose (a derivative of seaweed agar). If the material tested is an irritant, an area of killed cells appears around the substance.

Today, in-vitro (meaning, literally, "in glass") as opposed to in-vivo (meaning "whole animal") has flourished because of advances in tissue culture techniques and other analytical methods.

The main disadvantages to animal tests, according to John Frazier and Alan Goldberg, of CAAT, are: "Animal discomfort and death, species-extrapolation problems, and excessive time and expense." Animal protection advocates stress that the main disadvantage is the inhumane treatment of animals in tests due, in part, to the fact that anesthesia for the alleviation of pain is often not administered. Scientists allege that using anesthesia will interfere with test results.

Progress toward the widespread use of alternatives to animal testing will continue to gain strength as awareness of, and support for, alternatives is made known. As consumers, we can make a difference in the lives of innocent animals by purchasing only products deemed "cruelty-free" and writing to the companies that still doanimal testing and letting them know why you will not purchase their products.

Mohandas K. Gandhi said it best in his autobiography "The Story of My Experiments": "To my mind the life of the lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of the lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."'

No matter what you use, you can never be sure what will happen to a alive animal until you try it on it.

Using pumpkins won't give you answears.

[dog-egg]

well use epipack then - human skin has gotta be more accurate than a non-human animal's
and using pumpkin skin obviously does give answers else it wouldn't be in use at all - 5000 answers perhaps
and if you want to find out what happens to a subject, then volunteer for testing...

so human tissue is available - you'd rather use non-human animals?

[GommeInc]

I think Mentor made a mistake with his communication argument. Octopus are capable of communication by waving tenticles at each other, ducks quack to each other, in fact, most animals do. Maybe there was something he needed to add...

I think Animal Testing is, perhaps, one of the most accurate forms of testing drugs and life saving cures. It's not a matter of how you feel towards the animal, it how the animal feels. I seem to notice alot lately that people are against animal testing, because they relate the suffering to themselves. If animals were capable of caring about pain, suffering like we do, would they be so inferior to humans? They could fight back or know what is happening when a gun is pointed at them, they seem to not fight back to the extreme of killing a human. They just lay down or die, rather than run away "/

There have been alternatives. Cancer is tested on by extracting cancer cells from deceased bodies or grown seperately, then they inject them with cures or other chemicals to play around with as they please. It's more full body deseases which animal testing falls under. Where the whole body can be affected when a desease enters a blood stream e.g. AIDs. Cutting random cells and organs isn't going to be too useful, mainly because you need a dead animal already, so you might aswell test it on a living animal.

[dog-egg]

you're right Gomme (got your name right this time)!! they do communicate - octopi are quite interesting in how complex their communication is, yet their brain structure is radically different to that of humans

you're also right that animal testing is one of the most accurate forms of testing - my argument is this...

whether you want to call non-human animals inferior or not, we are still learning about them, and do we really know enough yet to justify using them like that?

and the most accurate method of testing would always be on a human, or some kind of incredibly accurate simulation (which is yet to be developed because we don't know enough about humans yet either)

so we have a gulf between what would be the most accurate, and what we can use now, and that is largely filled by non-animal testing

i am not advocating an immediate cessation of non-human animal testing, as the scientific community isn't geared up to do that - it would halt progress...

what i want to see, and indeed it's already happening, is a phasing in of the alternative methods

i'm not the type to go around planting bombs at labs and attacking scientists who test on non-human animals- they're doing a job - the job is wrong not the individual

it's basically exploitation, and not entirely accurate at that

there are plenty of products out there that haven't been tested on non-human animals and the people who use them aren't suffering undiscovered side-effects as a result (or at least as far as i'm aware)

as i said before, life saving drugs are a different matter, but lets face it - if you've got cancer, and there's already a drug that's been shown to help and it's been tested positively using tissue cultures, what have you got to lose? why wait that much longer and get more ill and maybe die while they test it on non-human animals? AIDs is a difficult one, and obviously a huge global concern - is it contractable by non-human animals? (i believe cats have a form of it) - how relevant and indeed dangerous might it be to test it on non-human animals? isn't it a bit like testing the effectiveness of mad cow disease treatments on crocodiles?

your gun argument is a bit odd i thought - the rest was good, but if you point a gun at a human who's never seen one, they wouldn't know what was happening either as was often the case during the colonial period

the pro-testing arguments have a strange ring to them as on the one hand they say "animals aren't like us so it's acceptable to test" and then they say "they are like us" to justify the accuracy

phase out non-human animal testing is what i say - because it really does go against the values that we hold closest - our own humanity

btw - a big thanks for arguing in a non-personal way! we might disagree on things but that's all it is