(UPDATED) There are alternatives you know! (Animal Testing)

Member Name: delawney

Product:	Animal Testing
Date:	26/01/02 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: There are none

Disadvantages: Cruel to animals, Unreliable anyway

First of all, let me say that I believe that any form of animal testing is wrong. Animals feel pain as much as us, and to use them so cruelly for our supposed benefit is simply not justifiable. Our use of animals for our advantage is akin to the slave trade and the arguments used to justify it are often similar.

We justify our use of animals to our own benefit (be it for testing, eating or providing our entertainment) by claiming that they are not only different from us (obviously) but that we are somehow more important. Sure, it is impossible for us to say whether or not they are capeable of having rational thought, feel emotions or have a sense of self. We cannot say if they have a sense of (and therefore potentially fear of) death. But we cannot say this about all humans either. Newborn babies arguably lack rational thought. The same can be said of the severely mentally disabled, or even someone in a coma. I am positive there would be an uproar if it were suggested that we statrt testing on the severely metally disabled.

Indeed, Hitler justified his treatment of the Jews by somehow distancing them from other people - claiming that they were not human beings. The Nazi's are understood to have performed medical research on the Jews, and I am positive we all find that abhorrent.

Our attitude to animals is simply "speciesism". We see ourselves as superior, more important. We have to question whether this is really the case. Sure, they are different and we may not be able to understand them, but they have as much right to live out their lives as we do.

Of course I have the deepest sympathy for anyone suffering from any kind of illness. My grandmother was diabetic and dependent on insulin - derived through animal experimentation.

However, I do not believe that animal testing is the solution. Indeed, it is often unreliable. Thalydamide is a case in point - it was thoroughly tested (as all drugs
in this country have to be by law) and yet disasterous side effects (severe abnormalities caused in the foetus when taken by pregnant women) followed. Animal experimentation had failed to predict this.

If penicillin had been tested on guinea pigs (it kills them) we may not have the use of this vital antibiotic today. Animals are not the same as us - we cannot rely on the research based on animal testing.

There are charitable organisations which fund vital medical research without the use of animals, often with very successful results. The Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research is one such charity. Medical advances are simply not dependant on the use and abuse of animals. The use of computers, cell cultures and indeed human subjects are increasing and developing at an amazing rate.

I avoid conventional medicine wherever possible. All medicines have to be "safety" tested on animals by law. But yes, I do take them when I have to - the damage has already been done, and there is no point in rejecting what we have already because the methods used to arrive at it are morally objectionable. But I firmly believe we should cease animal testing now and proceed with humane, quite possibly more effective alternatives.

I am not a scientist. I do not have an in-depth understanding of what is involved, and I am sure there will be comments about the huge number of medical advances made through animal experimentation that "couldn't be made any other way". That may be true, but that does not make it right.

I am not a sentimental animal lover (cats excepted!) who sees animals as "more" important than people. They are simply "as" important. I care about people as much as I care about animals, and support various medical research charities (such as the Dr Hadwen Trust) that do not support animal experimentation. If you care about animals and humans, so should you.

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