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Animal Testing
What are your views on animal testing? In IDP (Historical and Contemporary Issues in Science) Class, we are currently discussing Animal Testing. And how it has benefited mankind in many ways, with leading antibiotics (like pencillin) and medical treatments (like insulin).
But we also use animal testing for cosmetic purposes, like the Draize's eye test, where chemical are dripped into rabbits eyes. This is done primarily because rabbits do not have tear ducts. I believe that I am against animal testing for cosmetic purposes. What are your opinions? |
I am against animal testing for cosmetic purposes. I don't really know why.
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Every time someone tells me they are against animal testing completely, I'm tempted to ask them if they'd kill X family member who has been saved by a drug created by animal testing (because everyone has one) in exchange for a few rabbits. And anyone who says yes has their priorities in the wrong place. :\
I'm against cosmetic animal testing like everyone else in the world, but for medical reasons I simply see it to be for the greater good. |
I think that we have the resources to cut down on the amount of animal testing carried out...like companies sharing result data with one another.
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I'm not really sure where I stand on that. I hate make up anyway, so I don't see why we need to test something utterly useless on animals.
But why can't we test medications on humans? What makes humans more valuable? Is our species as a whole that conceited that we think we're better than any other life form? |
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Cosmetics, if they are to exist, must (until we find another alternative, which I don't believe we have) test on animals first, lest ye go blind. Make up is primarily for the face, around your eyes, around your lips, around your nose. These are pretty sensitive areas to be gobbing on chemicals that haven't been tested. As for why we can't test on humans-- We do. Especially for medications. If you volunteer for testing, you sometimes even get paid for it. It is not a group of heartless drones dripping acid into a rabbit's eye just for fun. They test on humans as often as they can. What makes us more valuable than a rabbit is, I believe, mostly the spiritual significance that people tend to give themselves. Because we are "God's children" or whatever you want to refer to us as, we hold ourselves higher than animals in that regard. But since I'm not a spiritual person, I also believe it has something to do with our society. For example, testing could potentially ruin a person's life if they go blind, or if they lose something important to them that could alter their day-to-day schedule. It would be much more tragic for a person to lose their sight and never be able to work again than for a rabbit to lose it's sight and... well he never had to work anyway, and he never really went anywhere and he... was just kind of a lump of fuzz, and will remain a lump of fuzz. (tl;dr):Basically, a rabbit has much less to lose than a person does. I am for animal testing with respect to the idea that testing on animals is not the same as the intention of harming them. So please don't think I kick puppies or something. :insane: If I saw someone being purposely cruel to a bunny, I'd probably be the first with a torch an pitchfork at their doorstep. When science can create tissue that can replicate human skin and eyes, and is accessible to community of testers, then I will be against animal testing. :yes: Quote:
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I really like the argument Rhoswin made. And it makes me think that while we just test these on animals, and it doesn't always kill them (it might, but not always), I dont' really hear anyone complaining about using pig parts to save loved ones.
Grr. Okay, so the above statement might not make sense to anyone, but it makes sense in my mind. |
That reminds me, Summers- I haven't heard too many people comment (overall, not just in this thread) on the topic of lesioning.
For anyone who doesn't know: lesion /le·sion/ (le´zhun) any pathological or traumatic discontinuity of tissue or loss of function of a part. There was an experiment done on, I think, pigeons a while back where scientists removed certain parts of the animals brain to discover what parts were attributed to what functions. In a case as sever as this- you probably wouldn't, first of all, be able to find any human to volunteer themselves for this. And if you could, it'd still be a huge ethical issue. Now this begs the question- Do you halt scientific discovery to spare a pigeon, or do you continue forward in spite of a "wasted" life? There isn't really a right or wrong answer to that, some people value science more than others. But general census says- Drill, baby, drill. edit: But I think so far most everyone in this thread agreed with the idea of medical animal testing, so this is more for informative purposes than argumentative ones. ^^; |
Well, it's sad that a bird dies and all, but I think if it were to further science, help us find ways to help us, then I think it would be alright.
Another thing. When they have to put animals down, whether because they've been in the shelter for too long, or they are a "potential danger" [angry quotes, my dog has been labelled a potential danger, even though he didn't do anything.] then why not test it on them rather than put them down and get nothing good from them? Or rather, test it on them instead of other animals that have no need to be killed. [Not that I am in any way condoning animal abuse or anything like that. I just find it stupid that they are killing animals that need to be killed and then killing even more.] There is that whole Pet Over Population thing. Okay, so I guess I'm just rambling about nothing, because I have just confused myself with this whole thing. |
I think it's okay if the testing can save a person's life, but not when the animal is killed for a non-emergency test. If the animal is okay with it, then I am.
Here's an interesting tidbit, while on the subject of animals.. I saw a video of a pet squirrel water skiing. It was so cute! As soon as the squirrel fell off, it immediately swam to it's owner and jumped on her. Maybe it was a test for animals' similarities to people.... |
Animal testing should not be allowed. we are all creations, just because we're very smart does give us the right to harm animals by torturing them by chemicals.
I don't care if they're trying to find a cure for something there is probably another way to do it. I think people should be tested on not animals because the animals body is different from the human body. which makes all the testing wrong. i don't care if a friend died because of something we couldn't cure. i rather have a human die then have an innocent animal die. our population is too big. |
This is a difficult question for me to answer. I'm a vegetarian, but if it came down to eating an animal or dying I'd eat the animal. I just don't eat meat because it's not a life or death situation.
So I guess that same principle applies to my views on animal testing. The only thing is, there's no way to know whether what your testing will save lives or not, so it's not a clear black and white situation. I'd guess I'd have to look at individual cases to determine what's ok with me and what's not. The amount of pain it's causing the animal and the potential to save human lives are what I'd look at first. As far as cosmetics go, yes it is important that your eyeballs don't get fried when using eyeliner, but plenty of cosmetic companies don't do testing on animals and still manufacture safe products. If they can do it, other companies can too. Edit: Another question to look at is if it's ever ok to kill or torture one human for the sake of saving thousands, etc. |
I think that animal testing is valid, in cases of medical research. That said, my counter argumentative point, will always be, your testing for the benefit of humans. For this, I would imagine that a human test subject would be the most useful, to observe.
Cosmetics, now there's a totally different kettle of fish. This should never, ever take place upon an animal. Make up is solely for the use of humans, and i cannot see how the testing of it upon animals is justified. if people think it might be dangerous to use on humans, they should be making it at all in my opinion. |
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And one which I haven't a decent rebuttal for, other than to say it's not always possible to find volunteers for such work. :ninja: I think most of the bigger companies now are leaning towards anti-animal testing now anyway, right? I think thats kind of the "in" thing for cosmetics (and a lot of other goods). Organic, mystery-chemical-free, animal-friendly products. I'm not trying to imply that being "in" is wrong either, I'm just saying the idea has gotten a lot bigger recently. If companies can completely exclude their animals, then all the better! :heart: Quote:
Same thing with medication. |
Well, saying that animals work completely different from humans is wrong. Monkeys have some similarities with humans, but pigs are the most alike to us genetically [I heard that you can have a liver transfusion from a pig donor O_o]. Also, I don't see any difference in importance between biological beings, so, I don't really care if these products are tested on farm animals or on humans.
HOWEVER, humans have more social responsabilities that animals. If you test a medicament on a pig, and it dies, most wouldn't care because there are plenty of pigs. But if you test the same medicament on a human, and it dies... of course there are plenty of us, but that human had a family, parents, wife/husband, and maybe even kids. And there's where it becomes hard to choose to experiment on humans rather than animals. I guess these cosmetic companies are doing well without animal testing is because they had already done enough testing long ago, enough to know which chemicals do harm and which not xP PS: Sorry if I offended any pig ^^' |
For those arguing that we should test on humans instead; would you be willing to donate a family member to those tests? A close friend? If it was between a pig and your mother, which would you really choose?
Like it or not, we will all choose a loved one over an animal. And since a loved one is worth no more than a stranger, apparently we hold ourselves to a higher standard than animals. That's why not all of our testing is done on humans. :\ Ya follow me? Quote:
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I used to work at an animal testing lab and some of the things they do to the animals is horrible. For example, they inject caner into rats, implant chips into the skull of cats, force rats/mice to drink lead in their water, cut open a dog then euthanized it to see how chemicals effect the urinary tract, etc.
I'm not against animal testing though as bad as some of the experiments are. I do believe that animals should not be forced to suffer, which is why there's so many laws in place to make sure animals are not in extended periods of pain and to make sure they are treated as humanely as possible. (See the animal welfare act) If any animal seems to be too uncomfortable to live a “normal” life it has to be humanly euthanized under law. I also don't believe that animals should be used when there's other non-animal ways to test products. Without animal testing, cancer research and researching cures for diseases like AIDS, diabetes, and other diseases that take thousands of lives yearly would not be as accurate. Yes, it's true that a cat, dog, pig, rat/mouse or hamster doesn't have the same body structure as a human, but there are structures in the animals that act the same way a human would to certain drugs. The chances of finding cures to diseases would be slimmer if animal testing wasn't done. Not only does animal testing benefit humans, but a lot of medications used on our pets were tested on animals first before it came available to the general public. How else are they supposed to know that that vaccine Fluffy was just given won’t kill her? They do develop new drugs and better treatments for animals just as they do for people so it's not all about humans as far as animal testing goes. I just think that a lot of people don't understand what really goes on in labs and just make assumptions based on what propaganda says. |
Mystic, rats, mice, and birds aren't covered under the Animal Welfare Act. At all. So yeah, it does make some sort of difference for some animals, but not all of them.
There are -tons- of non-animal resources that can be used for testing all sorts of medications and products. For example, human skin and eye tissue cultures are more effective than animal test subjects when it comes to performing certain experiments, the results for which are applied to human beings. Really, for a lot of these experiments, it boils down to being a money matter. Testing on rats is cheap, better human models aren't. And since there are no legal protections for rats, you can do pretty virtually any torturous thing to them without worry of any legal ramifications. All this upsets me terribly, having kept rats myself. They're actually fairly intelligent little creatures. |
I have a doubt though, if you use human skin tissue only, it could not be as precise. Let's say an eyeliner, and you test it on human skin and nothing happens. But when it's put on your eyelids, they're so sensible it gets affected, or maybe like some people that like to put it under the eyelashes on the pink part. Being so near of the eye then the eyelid wouldn't be affected but maybe the eye itself would. And then we wouldn't have a blind rat, but a blind human, which [ohnoes!] could sue the experimenters for leving him/her blind, while an animal can't even protest.
I heard that when you use antitranspirant deodorants a lot, it could develop a cancer because of the toxins that were not transpired. I don't think testers could have noted that by using just the skin, since the part afected would be the transpiratory glands. PS: Just my opinion, I'm no expert. Hell, I didn't even know a thing like the "Animal Welfare Act" existed x_x |
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My personal opinion is that animal testing is fine for science, the ends justify the means so to speak.
Yes i realize this makes me sound heartless but we are at the top of the evolutionary chain on our planet and i feel we have earned the dues which we are given. Too many scientific break through have been made thanks to these tests. With that said on the other side of the spectrum i feel that being the highest evolutionary creature it is our responsibility to show empathy towards the lesser creatures, if science is a necessary evil to promote the growth of humanity then i will not complain, but testing on animals for the sake of vanity is a whole other issue. I feel that anyone that uses these tests for the sake of vanity or to promote their own benefit such as with cosmetic companies, then this should be a grave crime and should be looked upon like someone torturing an innocent animal for their own sick perversions. Fines should be levied, jail time should be served, and business license should be revoked. |
Only necessary animal testing. This would cut most of it out.
No testing for things like consumer products, just medical testing. Also, I feel the lab animals should be better taken of and their pain minimized as much as possible. Whenever possible alternative testing methods should be used. No legal protection for rats and other animals used to testing is wrong. |
The thing about just testing tissue and stuff is that cells in a petri dish are never going to be able to give results with the same accuracy as a living creature. I'm not sure how different it is, but I know that a piece of flesh definitely doesn't work the same way as a human being. :\
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Tissue samples are just ONE example of alternative testing supplies. They work wonderfully in any kind of topical test. There are also simulation models that can run different compounds against a human model and make predictions regarding the effect. Right now, the process of product testing goes sort of like this (in a very simplified sense): 1. Create product. 2. Several rounds of animal testing. 3. Human testing. I would like to see a process more like this: 1. Create product. 2. Several rounds of topical and simulated testing. 3. Animal testing. 4. Human testing. The product would already have had some preliminary testing before it was used on animals, which would lessen the likelihood of something going wrong and causing the animal any suffering. And, since most alternative testing methods are geared toward a human model, it would be less likely that there would be any side effects for the human testers, too. |
Sounds like a good plan. There is also the bad chance that animal testing will yield something still not safe for people. Because while we are related, there are still differences. Anyone remember Thamahide sp?...It was tested on animals and found to be safe. BIG OPPS!...
So animal testing is not the end all for safety either. |
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