Animal Testing.

[Forward Union]

Im not talking about it in moral terms. That we have the right to test on animals, you can put down as a given.

However. From what I understand, many medicines, including penecilin, actually harmed all the animals it was tested on, and yet benefits humans.

Furthermore, the head of Huntingdon life sciences stated that animal testing produced only 25% accurate results.

Is animal testing actally, scientifically, a good idea?

[Sentinel]

It was experimenting on mice that led to the development of penicillin as the medicine we know it.

Alexander Fleming himself had tested it on both mice and rabbits, without understanding it's full potential. But during WWII, further animal testing proved what it was capable of.

I've also read that we learned to transplant organs by testing it on dogs.

So what are you talking about?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Animal testing is bad scientific method unless we want to test how things work on animals.

[Sentinel]

Animal testing is bad scientific method unless we want to test how things work on animals.

Please, stop spamming this forum with idiotic one-liners. Like I just said, animal testing is crucial to the development of medicine. Unless we want to start testing on humans, like dr Mengele that is.

Here's just one link (http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/page.asp?i_ToolbarID=3&i_PageID=72)..

[MolotovLuv]

No, it's a horrible science, long past it's time. In the past when there were no other options, it was accepted as a necessity but since then things have changed and the assholes that are making a killing (no pun intended) off of torturing and abusing animals just to do some stupid studies on crap we already know aren't going to come out and stop doing their jobs, just like soldiers aren't going to put their guns down even after they realize they are fighting for a lost cause. We are wasing tons of money on wasteful science, and as for testing on humans, animal rights include humans just incase you couldn't figure out we are animals as well. It is sick twisted docters and pharmecutical companies that did the testing on humans and they were all for continuing animal experiments to, whatever raked in the dough. Also, don't get clinical research and experimentation confused, clinical research is very important for medical advancement. Pro-vivisection folks like yourself have arguments that make swiss cheese look solid.

[Red Menace]

However. From what I understand, many medicines, including penecilin, actually harmed all the animals it was tested on, and yet benefits humans.

Industrialism benefited some humans, but it also hurt many as well. Does it make it right? The collective good of the bourgeoisie is all that matters then I guess :huh: ??

I believe animals have the right to be liberated as much as people do. Because their pains and feelings are often not tangible to us, does not mean that they still don't feel it.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 11:57 pm

However. From what I understand, many medicines, including penecilin, actually harmed all the animals it was tested on, and yet benefits humans.

Industrialism benefited some humans, but it also hurt many as well. Does it make it right? The collective good of the bourgeoisie is all that matters then I guess :huh: ??

I believe animals have the right to be liberated as much as people do. Because their pains and feelings are often not tangible to us, does not mean that they still don't feel it.
Your argument rests on a basis of there being no difference in species between spaient humans and simply sentient creatures and that we as a species somehow owe something to animals, as if there suffering was any concern of ours. Of course if you argue without recourse to emotionalism why we should not view animals which are evidently inferior to us in their reasononing powers and ability to contribute to society as if they were then please do.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 11:55 pm
No, it's a horrible science, long past it's time.
I'd love for you to cite me a source on that.


In the past when there were no other options, it was accepted as a necessity but since then things have changed and the assholes that are making a killing (no pun intended) off of torturing and abusing animals just to do some stupid studies on crap we already know aren't going to come out and stop doing their jobs, just like soldiers aren't going to put their guns down even after they realize they are fighting for a lost cause. Once I got around the idiosyncratic grammatical construction of your sentence and figured out what you were ranting about I spotted the following flaw: Your assumption that a) We have reached an end of vivesection's usefulness (Please, please, please explain how you reached this conclusion - a couple of peer reviewed sources in your reply wouldn't hurt.). b) All current research carried out by vivesctionists is toward no useful end. Please prove this.

We are wasing tons of money on wasteful science, How is it wasteful? What is your alternative?
and as for testing on humans, animal rights include humans just incase you couldn't figure out we are animals as well. Yes, we're also genetically similar to bannanas (something like 98%), does that mean we should give bannanas rights? We have no obligation to any species but our own.
It is sick twisted docters and pharmecutical companies that did the testing on humans and they were all for continuing animal experiments to, whatever raked in the dough. Research methods actually cost money, it's the conclusions they reach that make it back. Stopping vivesection won't stop pharmecutecal companies researching things. Also you mention human testing as if you're against that too - how, pray tell, do you propose researching medical technologies?
Also, don't get clinical research and experimentation confused, clinical research is very important for medical advancement. Experimentation is an aspect of research, and a fairly large one at that.
Pro-vivisection folks like yourself have arguments that make swiss cheese look solid. After your asnine and samey rant I really don't think you're in any position to make declarations about someone's arguments.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by MolotovLuv
No, it's a horrible science, long past it's time. In the past when there were no other options, it was accepted as a necessity but since then things have changed
While I'd agree that in some cases today animal testing is not necessary- but goes ahead anyway, that doesn't mean that ALL animal testing is no longer required.

Sure, where possible, alternatives to vivisection should be explored, and animal testing definitely should NEVER be used to test say... cosmetic products, but new medicines still need to be tested somehow and quite frankly I'd rather they were tested on animals than on humans.


and the assholes that are making a killing (no pun intended) off of torturing and abusing animals just to do some stupid studies on crap we already know aren't going to come out and stop doing their jobs,
You realise that there's a LOT about the human body we don't know, right? And that when a new medicine is being developed, we need to figure out how it works, and at what levels. Testing that sort of thing on humans would have deadly results.


just like soldiers aren't going to put their guns down even after they realize they are fighting for a lost cause. We are wasing tons of money on wasteful science,
Inadvertently, you've sort of hit on part of the problem- that capitalism dictates that people make money out of this stuff, so that unnecessary testing occurs. It's this excess over what's absolutely necessary that's the problem- not the testing itself.


Also, don't get clinical research and experimentation confused, clinical research is very important for medical advancement. Pro-vivisection folks like yourself have arguments that make swiss cheese look solid.
I'm pretty sure that Sentinel is arguing for clinical research here. Also, the things that are tested in clinical research come from... guess where? From experimentation! Admittedly, not always on animals, but sometimes.

Now I'm not saying that we should go around cutting animals open frivolously in the name of experimentation, as was done in the past, but that testing scientific theories and ideas on animals can be useful if advances are to be made.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 04:22 pm

Animal testing is bad scientific method unless we want to test how things work on animals.

Please, stop spamming this forum with idiotic one-liners. Like I just said, animal testing is crucial to the development of medicine. Unless we want to start testing on humans, like dr Mengele that is.

Here's just one link (http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/page.asp?i_ToolbarID=3&i_PageID=72)..
Oh fuck off. Of course I was aware of developments that have resulted from animal testing. I only post what is neccessary to prove my point. If I want to test how chlorine affects pigs, I do not test it on fish. If I want to test how something affects humans, I do not test it on animals. I realize that, for instance, humans and animals share certain characteristics that allow us to legitimately use animals for testing. However, that does not eliminate the fact that testing on the population directly (humans) is generally better than animal testing. Your Nazi reference is foolish. If you aren't willing to debate reasonably, don't even do it at all. You're acting like just another punk who thinks everything the Nazis did was evil. We should do more medical testing on humans and less on animals. Furthermore, progress through animal testing does not mean animal testing is neccessary so your entire argument is baseless.

[Sentinel]

You're acting like just another punk who thinks everything the Nazis did was evil.

Well, DAB, I had certainly not thought such a response would come from you. I thought you were a rational and knowledgeable member.. I hate to be wrong!

Mengele certainly was wrong to conduct experiments on human beings!

**** you.

[Vanguard1917]

Animal testing has made and continues to make a significant contribution to medical progress. This is beyond doubt. The only 'scientists' disputing this fact are those in the pay of the growing Western middle class misathrope industry.

"Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor" has an immensely degraded view of humanity, which he has demonstrated in past debates. His premise is that we have no right to utilise animals for our own ends. Therefore, everything he says on this issue will inevitably have an anti-human prejudice.

[Sean]

Animal testing has made various medical breakthroughs and I endorse it at the moment.
However, I do believe that animal rights activists are too far ahead of their time. Eventually (human existence permitting) there will come a time when these things need to be addressed. This is not the time, there are far more pressing matters at hand and this is simply another hole left minded people fall into. I'd like to see a graph from animal rights people showing their value on human life as compared to other life, starting with plankton and working up to dolphins and monkeys.

I'll trade 2 donkeys and 50 cats for a blind person to see. What's the scope? Where's the the line?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 06:45 pm
Animal testing has made and continues to make a significant contribution to medical progress. This is beyond doubt. The only 'scientists' disputing this fact are those in the pay of the growing Western middle class misathrope industry.

"Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor" has an immensely degraded view of humanity, which he has demonstrated in past debates. His premise is that we have no right to utilise animals for our own ends. Therefore, everything he says on this issue will inevitably have an anti-human prejudice.
Where did I say that is my premise? And how is it not true? My view of humanity is that it exists. Why are you attributing some degraded view of humanity to me? Do we have some sort of intrinsic value that I am not respecting? Are we descendents from God and every sin against us offends the Almighty?

And Sentinel, you just demonstrated my point. You can't discuss issues surrounding Nazism without jumping to conclusions and becoming emotional, it seems. I said we should do more experiments on humans because you seemed to be ruling it out as a possibility. Did I say Mengele was right in doing what he did? No. I didn't say that at all. I would be interested in debating whether Mengele had any cause, but I don't think you are interested in doing that, and it is more of a philosophical discussion.

And I don't support Mengele's actions if you are freaked out about that. I am against his actions and would support action taken against such people. However, I would support this action as a default position - not because I am particularly convinced that ethics cannot be reconciled with such behavior (nor am I convinced they can be).

I am a philosopher, to an extent, and I philosophize. You take me far to seriously when I often postulate ideas for the sake of it.

[Sentinel]

And Sentinel, you just demonstrated my point. You can't discuss issues surrounding Nazism without jumping to conclusions and becoming emotional, it seems. I said we should do more experiments on humans because you seemed to be ruling it out as a possibility. Did I say Mengele was right in doing what he did? No. I didn't say that at all. I would be interested in debating whether Mengele had any cause, but I don't think you are interested in doing that, and it is more of a philosophical discussion.

Dr Mengele experimented medically on innocent people which is a horrible crime (and got away with it on the top of it). As I see it there is nothing to be debated in regards to him, except in which way he should have been executed.

Testing on voluntary human beings is a different question. Without question, it does give us the best results. In communism, an equal society, I'd support it wholeheartedly. In capitalism however one has to remain suspicious.

See in capitalism, people tend to be in desperate need for money to survive.

That is why a situation where people would 'volunteer' to anything to survive is never far -- even to be infected with a disease and then experimented on, donate organs leaving them crippled, anything.

This must be taken in consideration when supporting volunteering.

[Forward Union]

In ths case, would someone please provide examples of medical breakthroughs aided by animal research?

[Sentinel]

In ths case, would someone please provide examples of medical breakthroughs aided by animal research?

Here's the link (http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/page.asp?i_ToolbarID=3&i_PageID=72) to some facts about how mice were used to discover the full potential of penicillin again.


The story of Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin is well known. In 1929 he discovered a mould growing on a glass dish in his laboratory which appeared to kill the bacteria he was cultivating. In his follow-up studies, the crude penicillin broth that he had extracted from the mould was non-toxic to rabbits and mice.1 But it rapidly disappeared from their blood, and it seemed to work very slowly in the test tube.

These results led Fleming to believe that penicillin would only be useful as an antiseptic for surface infections rather than as a powerful antibiotic for general infections. After this, he rather lost interest in his discovery, although a few patients with eye infections were successfully treated by the application of impure extracts of penicillin broth in the 1930s.

Mouse protection test proves that penicillin fights bacterial infections
There was great interest in developing antibiotics at the start of the 1940s because of the enormous death toll from septic infections. One of the substances tested by researchers was Fleming's crude penicillin broth. Had Fleming himself carried out a simple and well- established animal test2, the mouse protection test, then the potential of his discovery might have been realised ten years earlier.

Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, searching for potential antibiotics at Oxford University in 1940, used the mouse protection test. This animal test was first described in 1911, was in routine use from 1927 and ultimately led to the introduction of sulphonamide drugs in the 1930s. In the test, Florey and Chain injected eight mice with a lethal suspension of bacteria, and four of these were also given penicillin. The fact that the four mice which received penicillin lived and all the rest died was definite proof that penicillin worked against serious bacterial infections. It was this test which set Florey, Chain, Heatley and others on the long road to purifying and mass producing penicillin.

In 1945, Alexander Fleming, Ernst Chain and Howard Florey received the Nobel Prize for the discovery and development of penicillin.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Dooga Aetrus [email protected] 28, 2006 03:27 am
Where did I say that is my premise? And how is it not true? My view of humanity is that it exists. Why are you attributing some degraded view of humanity to me? Do we have some sort of intrinsic value that I am not respecting? Are we descendents from God and every sin against us offends the Almighty?
It's not a case of attaching any sort of 'intrinisic value' handed down from God - don't be thick. We are simply all of the same species and therefore it is in our interests to continue our own survival, we owe nothing to other species unless they are paticular symbiotes that help us survive.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The fact is I know little, as usual about the subject at hand. That said, on this one, I'm comfortable with trusting the received wisdom that animal testing, on the whole, is reliable. Obviously we need to be very careful, because animals are just different from us, and obviously we need to keep cruelty to an absolute minimum, and keep the whole thing heavily regulated to stop bastard sadists that you see on the anti-vivisection video.

Morally... Whole new kettle of fish.

-Alex

[LSD]

Is animal testing actally, scientifically, a good idea?

No question.


Animal testing is bad scientific method unless we want to test how things work on animals.

This has got to be one of the stupidest anti-vivisection arguments around, but it never seems to die.

Do you honestly think that researchers are that stupid? That if you know about these physiological differences, they don't?

The only reason that you can point to these speicifc biological facts is because some animal researcher collected the data. Believe me, they're smart enough to know how to interpret it as well.

Different animals are used for different purposes, specifically because of the biological differences like the ones you mentioned.

And really, what's the alternative? Human testing!? 'cause, really, why can't that doctor developing an aids vaccine just inject himself with aids... :rolleyes:


No, it's a horrible science, long past it's time.

97% of Nobel Prize winning medical researchers (http://www.simr.org.uk/pages/nobel/nobel_survey.html) would disagree with you and, personally, I trust actual doctors far more than moralistic crusaders with a messianic agenda to "free the animals".


I believe animals have the right to be liberated as much as people do.

Animals cannot be "liberated" within human society, nor is their use in medical science "exploitation" or "oppression".

The only "liberation" relevent to this situation is the liberation from disease that vivisective research offers humanity. Refusing this offer would be utter madness, not to mention deadly for millions.

There are simply too many human lives at stake in this equation to make the idealistic "moral stand" that TAL organizations want us to.

We should not be unnescessarily cruel, but the needs and wants of humanity must always come first. And, for the moment, medical research is certainly an essential need!


Because their pains and feelings are often not tangible to us, does not mean that they still don't feel it.

No it just means that it's irrelevent to human social policy.

We're not talking about philosophy here, we're talking about reality. This is a question about the basic formation of human society and what its obligations are to external creatures.

You are contending that a collection of rational moral agents owes basic protections to implicit non-members out of solely emotionalist charity. Sorry, but that's not an argument.

Declaring that cows deserve special treatment but, say, bacterial meningitis does not is arbitrarity of the worst degree. I understand that cows are "cuter" than E. Coli and that they're so damn "sad" with those "big brown eyes", but your "achy breaky heart" is simply not a rational argument.

Society is a collection of codependent individuals that is required to serve its members. It has zero obligations beyond this.

Humans are benefited by a healthy ecosystem, they are also benefited by minimizing animal suffering as it tends to distress us. But the elimination of all meat or all vivsective research would be unquestionably detrimental to human society and so cannot be undertaken.


It is sick twisted docters and pharmecutical companies that did the testing on humans and they were all for continuing animal experiments to, whatever raked in the dough.

Oh great, the "capitalists do it" argument... :rolleyes:

Let me explain something to you, everytime you use currency, a capitalist somewhere is bennefiting. So unless you're accessing this site from your hermitage on an isolated tropical island, you're in it just as deep as the rest of us.

Remember, if capitalism wasn't ubiquitous, it wouldn't a problem. It is the capitalist control of society that motivates us to fight it.

It's not "hypocritical" to oppose oppression while being oppressed, it's natural.

Under capitalism, everything is about profit. That means that while, yes, pharmacology and pharmacologial research is motivated by profit, that doesn't make it "evil".

Remember, the food that you eat and the clothes that you wear were also created out of a desire for profit, but you still use them all the same.

Personally, I can tell you that I would not be alive today if it were not for drugs developed thanks to animal research. That goes for tens of millions of others, many of which you probably know personally.

Have you ever met anyone with diabetes? Know anyone who ever suffered from cancer? Anyone you care about ever needed an antibiotic?

I just thought you should know that you are calling for them all to die. :angry:

Again, I don't know if you know anyone with a serious illness, but if you do, chances are quite high that one of the procedures they will undergo will have been developed thanks to animal research?

Anethesia? Check.
Chemotherapy? Check.
Organ transplantation? Check.

There is simply no area of medicine today that has not been imeasurably improved thanks to experiments done on animals. It may seem "cruel" to you, but the facts of the situation cannot be denied. No matter how "cute" these animals may appear to you, their deaths have saved billions of human lives.

And in the grand scheme, that's far more important than a few dead rats.


In ths case, would someone please provide examples of medical breakthroughs aided by animal research?

The Anthrax vaccine, Chicken Pox vaccine, Cholera vaccine, Diphtheria vaccine, Flu vaccine, Influenza B vaccine, Hepatitis A vaccine, Hepatitis B vaccine, Measles vaccine, Mumps vaccine, Polio vaccine, Rabies vaccine, Rubella vaccine, Smallpox vaccine, Tetanus vaccine, Whooping Cough vaccine, Yellow Fever vaccine, Insulin, Pennicillin, Stretpmycin, Chemotherapy, Cycosporine, etc., etc., etc....

[Forward Union]

Overall I agree with what LSD has said.

However, are there not circumstances in which certain assumptions about the validity of results from practices like vivisection, are questionable?

Is it not sometimes a bad idea, scientifically to test on animals?.

There have been drugs released, that were succesfully tested on animals, and yet had horrific effects on humans. Such as Thalidomide which resulted in pregnant women's children being born with literally no arms.

Is this a result of companies cutting corners to save costs on expensive research, or do we put too much faith in the results of animal experiments?

[LSD]

There have been drugs released, that were succesfully tested on animals, and yet had horrific effects on humans. Such as Thalidomide which resulted in pregnant women's children being born with literally no arms.

Is this a result of companies cutting corners to save costs on expensive research, or do we put too much faith in the results of animal experiments?

The thing about science, especially capitalistic science, is that it often makes mistakes.

I don't really think you can blame the thalidomide mess on animal testing itself, however, especially considering that no tests were every actually conducted on pregnant animals!

More disturbingly, while the animal tests conducted did not show harm, they also didn't show any bennefits. So in a non-for-profit environment, the drug never would have been produced (there would be no reason too), but because the company wanted to "recoup their losses", they promoted it as a catch-all wonder drug.

That's not to say by any means that animal testing would be perfect without capitalism. Human trials should always be conducted, but the benefit of animal research is that it allows us to weed out the drugs that should be tried on humans and the drugs that shouldn't.

It's not 100%, obviously, but it's easily the best we've got.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2006 04:39 pm
97% of Nobel Prize winning medical researchers (http://www.simr.org.uk/pages/nobel/nobel_survey.html) would disagree with you and, personally, I trust actual doctors far more than moralistic crusaders with a messianic agenda to "free the animals".
What criteria do you have for accepting this argument from authority? Expertise, I presume. If the majority of economists were against communism, would you be against it? I am just wondering if you would apply similiar arguments to authority when it comes to communism.

[LSD]

You're missing the point. Communism is bad econmics; it flies in the face of everything that modern economic theory stands for. But since that economic theory is baiscally useless, it really doesn't matter.

Economics isn't a science, it's barely even a thing. At this point it's pretty much just guesswork wrapped up in fancy justifications. And not even the most ardent economist would assert that his work qualifies as serious science.

Medicine, on the other hand, is a serious science. What's more it's a serious science that's demonstrated itself to be incredibly useful. So it therefore actually matters what medecine says on a subject. And since neither of us are doctors or have any training in medicine or biology, to a certain degree at least, we have to rely upon those who do.

That doesn't mean that we trust anyone in white coat with a stethascope around their neck, but it does mean that we should respect the considered opinion of the more vetted and preeminent members of the field.

And when the overwhelming majority of that field come together on an issue, we should listen. We shouldn't relly solely on that consensus, but it should definitely play a part in our analysis.

After 300 years of practical success after practical success, the medical community has earned that much at least.

The economic one, however, has not.

It's not unlike how I'll respect the publications of the Journal of Applied Physics but laugh at those of the L'Osservatore Romano.

Both are authorities within their communities, it's just that one community has a legitimate claim to relevence and the other doesn't.

[MolotovLuv]

There are also plenty of scientists and ex-researchers who have seen how wasteful animal testing is, but since they disagree with the "nobel prize winning" researchers they don't know shit, is that your logic? What we need to do is continue to advance our technology so we can get rid of such primitive research methods, oh but what's the fun when there aren't a ton of animals to dispose of :rolleyes:

[LSD]

There are also plenty of scientists and ex-researchers who have seen how wasteful animal testing is

Yeah and there are still psychologists who claim that homosexuality is a "disease". But because they constitute an irrelevent minority, nobody cares.


but since they disagree with the "nobel prize winning" researchers they don't know shit, is that your logic?

There are always outliers in any field who claim that everyone else is "in on it" and they're the only "real" experts; but again, I've got to go with what the consensus is.

And, yeah, researchers who've won major prizes in their field are more credible than some random nobody who happened to graduate from medical school.

Does that seriously surprise you?


What we need to do is continue to advance our technology

Absolutely, progress is essential. But right now, animal testing is the best we've got.

So what would be "primative" here is to refuse to use the best technology available out of some moralistic emotionalism about the "poor animals".

And, by the way, Cloaking that antihumanistic ludditism in "progressive" language doesn't make it any more convincing. Because, come on, we all know that it's not "progress" that's motivating you here.

Look, I have no doubt that someday we will develop more effective means of medical testing than those we have now. But the future isn't the issue, the present is.

And stopping vivisection in the present would grind medical research to a halt. So unless you're a fan of global suffering, you really have no choice but to suck in your "morality" and recognize that "progress" doesn't come without a cost.

[RedAnarchist]

As for vivisection, I oppose it when it is for cosmetics or when there is no research ongoing to find a suitable replacement. So long as the animals are treated with respect for what they are doing for us, I have no problem with them helping the fight against cancer, HIV etc. Full and total opposition to all vivisection cannot ever be a progressive view - I would call even call it vaguely primitivist.