Talk:Animal testing/arguments

The arguments in brief

Advocates of animal testing

Testing advocates argue that:

• It would be unethical to test substances or drugs with potentially adverse side-effects on human beings. [1]
• Controlled experiments involve introducing only one variable at a time, which is why animals used for experiments are housed in laboratory settings. In contrast, human environments and genetic backgrounds vary widely, which makes it difficult to control important variables for human subjects. [2]
• There is no substitute for the living systems necessary to study interaction among cells, tissue, and organs. Animals are good surrogates because of their similarities to humans. [3]
• There is no substitute for psychiatric studies (e.g., antidepressant clinical trials) that require behavioral data.
• There is no substitute for studies of the infection of a host. For example, infection with hepatitis, malaria or treatment with monoclonal antibodies all have unique advantages in chimpanzees.
• Some animals (e.g. Drosophila) have shorter life and reproductive spans than humans, meaning that several generations can be studied in a relatively shorter time.
• Animals can be bred especially for animal-testing purposes, meaning they arrive at the laboratory free from disease.
• Drugs and vaccines produced through animal testing are vital to modern medicine. [4]
• Animals receive more sophisticated medical care because of animal tests that have led to advances in veterinary medicine. [5]
• There have been several examples of substances causing death or injury to human beings because of inadequate animal testing. [6]
• Activists manipulate and fabricate facts, therefore their claims are not reliable.
• Alternatives to certain kinds of animal testing are unknown.
• Over 10 times more animals are used by humans for other purposes (agriculture, hunting, pest control) than are used in animal testing. 100 million animals are killed by hunting each year. [7] 150 million large mammals are used in agriculture each year. [8] Hundreds of millions of rats are involved in pest control. [9] [10] Over seven million dogs and cats are euthanized by animal shelters each year, and a million animals are killed each day by automobiles. [11]

Opponents of animal testing

Opponents argue that:

• The suffering of the animals is excessive in relation to whatever benefits may be reaped. Some opponents, particularly supporters of animal rights, argue further that any benefits to human beings cannot outweigh the suffering of the animals, and that human beings have no moral right to use an individual animal in ways that do not benefit that individual.
• In practice, there is widespread abuse of animals.
• Animals do not consent to being tested upon.
• Animal testing is bad science because:
  1. Many animal models of disease are induced and cannot be compared to the human disease. For example, although genetic [12] and toxin-mediated animal models are now widely used to model Parkinson's disease, the British anti-vivisection interest group BUAV argues that these models only superficially resemble the disease symptoms, without the same time course or cellular pathology.
  2. Some drugs have dangerous side-effects that were not predicted by animal models. Thalidomide is often used as an example of this, although the harmful effects of this drug are also seen in animals.
  3. Some drugs appear to have different effects on human and other species. Also certain human foods are poisonous to animals due to their body chemistry. Chocolate, onions, grapes, raisins, and Macadamia nuts are poisonous to dogs, while aspirin is poisonous to cats. If an animal dies from a new food product being tested, it doesn't mean that it is poisonous to humans.
  4. The conditions in which the tests are carried out may undermine the results, because of the stress the environment produces in the animals. BUAV argue that the laboratory environment and the experiments themselves are capable of affecting every organ and biochemical function in the body. "Noise, restraint, isolation, pain, psychological distress, overcrowding, regrouping, separation from mothers, sleeplessness, hypersexuality, surgery and anaesthesia can all increase mortality, contact sensitivity, tumour susceptibility and metastatic spread, as well as decrease viral resistance and immune response." [13]
  5. The most vocal proponents of animal testing have vested interests in maintaining the practice. [14]