Question: Why do people do testing on animals when they could doit on something else because the animals might be scared and act different after words could the people use some outer thing like invent something that will stop the animal testing
Keywords: animalwelfare
I can assure you, we wouldn’t use animals if we had any better options.
We start out doing our tests on cells grown in the lab, but at some point you have to progress upwards into a more complex system before you can test on humans. That’s why we have animal models. All animal testing is approved by an ethics committee full of both scients and non scientists, to make sure that the experiments we do havent been done before, wont cause too much distress for the animals, and that the outcome of the experiment could have benefits for humans. They also stipulate how the mouse is to be treated. you can’t just let a mouse suffer with a disease you have given it.
I hope one day there is an alternative, i really do, but for now we don’t have one.
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Miranda is right, we wouldn’t do it if there are better options. A lot of scientists use cells they grow in the lab or work with yeast, but at some point you need to take the next step to animals.
I have done a project with mice before. We were looking at hormones and cancer. The mice had a gene knocked out which caused them to develop cancer. There are a lot of ethics involved and approvals to be allowed to do this and we have particular rules about what to do when the cancer develops. For example when the tumour gets to a certain size or the tumour develops in the lymph nodes we have to put the mouse down. In these cases the mouse will get really sick and it would be cruel to leave it alive.
It doesn’t feel nice to have to do this, but there is no system with cells capable or showing us what we needed to know.
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It is very nice of you to think in favour of animals. Believe me, no scientist would ever want to do any tests on animals if they have another option. Unfortunately there is no equivalent. However the rules and regulations for the use of animals in research are extremely tight and strict. In order to perform the simplest experiment which doesn’t involve any pain at all, we have to undergo a very long process involving education and paperwork.
Especially in Australia, the rules clearly indicates that animal testing should cause as little suffering as possible.
The Three Rs are the guiding principles for the use of animals in research in many countries:
1)R1- Replacement: refers to the preferred use of non-animal methods over animal methods whenever it is possible to achieve the same scientific aim.
2)R2- Reduction: refers to methods that enable researchers to obtain comparable levels of information from fewer animals, or to obtain more information from the same number of animals.
3)R3- Refinement: refers to methods that alleviate or minimize potential pain, suffering or distress, and enhance animal welfare for the animals used.
On top of that there are non-profit organisations which support researchers that find an alternative to using animals. One example is MAWA (Medical Advances Without Animals). However public really needs to learn and understand “why and how are animals being used for research” they I’m sure people would understand that scientists are not actually doing any evil stuff. Because when public doesn’t bother to listen and understand this part, they imagine some weird stuff after seeing a crazy professor doing illegal experiements on animals on TV…
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