In which scenarios do you think that using portals could improve experiments?
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I used a mouse to prove this. The cake is an item of soft, sweet food made from a mixture of flour, shortening, eggs, sugar, and other ingredients, baked and often decorated.
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if it would be legal, i'd rather send some death row inmates and rapists, child molesters etc. for medical trial. heck, offer them reduced jail time if they agree. that was no animal would be harmed and bad people would give some value back to the general public. but that will never happen.
but I think there is a need for medicao testing, since it's almost the only way to keep research going on. i know it's sad that a living being is mistreated in such a bad way but having a chance for healing cancer and save millions of lives for generations to come could be worth it.
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This sounds like a neat idea, but aside from moral issues, it's impossible to get the same result by entirely using humans instead of animals. A single research would need A LOT of people to produce some decent data and would require dozens of years. Experimenting on, let's say, rats is much more faster and cheaper.
Also, the testing on human subjects are actually used, but only when the drug (or device or whatever) has already passed the animal tests. Animal tests blocks almost 90% of potentially dangerous drugs and that remaining 10% gets human testing.
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My personal opinion is that drug testing on mice is actually hindering the development of modern medicine. For a drug to be declared effective against some disease, it needs to be effective against the bacteria/protist/virus in a petri dish, and then in mice, and finally in humans. This sounds like it's designed for maximum efficiency and safety, but there is very little correlation between passing each of the tests.
Take, for example, pyrazinamide which is a vital component in TB treatment. It didn't pass the petri dish test, and doesn't have a strong effect in mice with TB. However, in humans, it is very effective.
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So why not get rid of what we lock away for a lifetime anyway instead of harming what has done no harm?
Plus, testing on rats does not say much about effects on humans, so why use the ineffective method so we can play the morals game while being below the lowest of savage beasts, who at least hunt for survival and not torture for convenience.
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There's something wrong in your reasoning. Testing in rats does say quite a bunch of things. Also I though that it's always been for the species survival. Aren't we doing so too?
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Those "ineffective" methods are way more effective than you imagine.
Again, it's not really useful to use criminals for testing: there are simply too few subject available to cover a simple drug testing. You'll need at least 1000 subjects to get an acceptable result, multiply this for thousands and thousands of researches every year and you'll know that we would "run out" of subjects in a few years.
Otherwise, if we force them to testing against their will we would only get fake and altered results. Using humans instead of animals is just impratical. (and rats are not so harmless, in fact they are a common source of troubles if left wild, but this is not the point)
And let's not forget that the last ones who were testing on human were the nazis, with questionable results.
Also, how do you test pediatric-specific drugs? On criminal's babies?
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The Japanese had something to do with testing in humans too.
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No. We start from the same organism, same cells and same tissues. As with almost all other mammals, humans are very close to animals when speaking about basic functioning, physical and psychological response, physiology and neurology.
The differences are very specific and that's why scientists are for: to track down and exclude possible differences related to the research. That's also why we don't use only rats for experiments, sometimes a drug may not work on that kind of organism and needs to be tested elsewhere.
Basically, it's not all black or white.
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What.
Did you even read what you wrote?
You know that the US has about 2.5 million prisoners, and if there was room I am sure they could fill up those prisons at a rapid rate. Add to this that most experimentation would not kill or otherwise make a subject unviable for further research. You would give them a month to pass whatever drugs they got in the last trial and start all over again.
And it need not be prisoners, you could use Africans or some other people from some other weak nation.
"Otherwise, if we force them to testing against their will we would only get fake and altered results."
Because the animals consent?
"And let's not forget that the last ones who were testing on human were the nazis, with questionable results." False, the last ones to use humans were everyone 5 minutes ago. We use human trials, they just come after thousands of animal trials.
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Number of animals used in research. Please note that this number does not cover rats and birds, which represents the 90% of the animals used in research every year. So, there are at least 1 million of various animals used every year (and rats are not in this number because it's totally impossible to make a count - when they breed in laboratories they can easily become 10.000+ from a starting 1000).
"Add to this that most experimentation would not kill or otherwise make a subject unviable for further research. You would give them a month to pass whatever drugs they got in the last trial and start all over again". It's not that easy. Without AE we would be forced to test potentially dangerous drug that can lead to unpredictable results, thus killing or incapacitating test subjects. Then there also are some molecules that stay in the organism for way more than a month and can alter subsequent tests.
"And it need not be prisoners, you could use Africans or some other people from some other weak nation." What. The. Fuck.
Oh, i get it, 'MURICA.
"Because the animals consent?" No, but it's different. Most of them are born in laboratories and have never seen outside, so they live in a friendly and known environment with food, cover and protection. It's not that rats are going to have fun, but try to tell a prisoner that he has to try this unknown pill and see what happens.
" False, the last ones to use humans were everyone 5 minutes ago. We use human trials, they just come after thousands of animal trials." And i said that. But drugs that can get to human testing are roughly the 5% of all tested molecules and the other 95% gets blocked by AE. AE looks quite important to me.
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OK, so the number of animals in AE per year is within the same order of magnitude as the prison population. This is a good thing, it means it is theoretically possible without huge changes.
"thus killing or incapacitating test subjects" Yes, but most of them would not die. Even most failed tests would not kill the test subject, because either the effect is not terminal or they notice that the subject is dieing and get them off of the drug in time. And obviously the rest time would be based on test and knowledge of doctors for how long the last test in significantly effecting his system. And yes maybe it never goes away 100%, but that is everything, and scientists are completely able to deal with variations and outliers in their data.
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No, read again. That number doesn't cover up rats used for research, which is estimated at about 25 millions every year.
Also, time is another limit. An animal grows and develop diseases much faster that a human and is really important for quick results. You don't simply do a research by injecting a drug and observing immediate effects, you also have to watch out for long-term effects that might occur, predictable or unpredictable. On a human this might lead to years of waiting and especially in a field like medical research time equals money, a field where if you don't produce decent results FAST you will lose your funding and maybe even your job.
Plus the sooner we can find a cure for terminal diseases, the better.
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I'm not sure how exactly death row convict would benefit from reduced jail time
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Well, he could be killed in less time. I guess. D:
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Why are that people bad? Just because they broke a human set of rules? What if they were innocent? Do you value animal's lives more than human's? Or the other way round? Also why those people don't have the right to live?
Moreover sometimes animals are used because their breeding periods or metabolism, for example are faster. What would you do in those cases?
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On this specific topic - a murderer, rapist, child molester, etc. that was caught red-handed either by video evidence or by being caught in the act, should get the death sentence - to be carried out immediately once a judge & jury has verified the evidence. Such a person has irrevocably altered and/or ended another person's life, in many cases someone that had no way of fighting back, and in such an instance the perpetrator has forfeited his right to coexist with other humans - let alone have them pay for their food, shelter, etc. by means of the prison system and taxes here in the U.S. Just ONE example - the guy that sodomized his own 6 month old baby and taped it - he should be dead now, not sitting in prison.
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Sad to see you leave. I can arrange you a nice private corner to discuss if you wish :p
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It would be immoral, even with willing convicts, as the possibility of them being able to save lives would affect sentencing. Say you were part of the jury, and needed to decide between life in prison or the death penalty, and you know if you sentence the defendant to death you can save the lives of other people as he could volunteer for drug testing. Of course you would sentence him to death! The trend would follow, with a disproportionate number of cases sentenced to death. Since the jury is taking other factors into the decision, this is a perversion of justice.
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It is immoral as well doing that on animals, but there we are, hypocrisy again.
If it's about who's stronger, well, I could walk down the street and kill at least a hundred people just because I could and no one could do me harm because it's not immoral to prey on the weak is it?
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Honestly, I've never thought about animal experimentation when I purchase my products. Am I a hardcore animal rights activist that will kill you if you use said products? No. I see it as a food chain, sort of thing. Now, I might get flamed and shit by PETA people, but that's what I believe.
I have a pet dog named Lucky, if that makes you feel better. ^_^
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Well, if we don't take into account that it's a dreadful name :p
Anyways, I sort of agree that there's nothing wrong with responsible eating and experimenting with animals should the need arise.
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I think they're all family. What happened to MrC?
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It won't make any effect on your decision whether to buy something or not? What are the qualities you appreciate the most when buying a product?
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Value for the price, generally is my only concern.I'm also aware that some companies test on animals, but I don't care. If they are honestly being cruel to them, someone who's job it is to stop that will investigate them and stop the cruelty.
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How's that? Do people lose their rights when they are declared guilty of a crime? What if they were falsely tried? Why are their lives less valuable that somebody's?
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I don't like the idea of experimenting on animals, but talking about usefull and essential things like medicine I guess is something that needs to be done. I hope one day we'll have enough knowledge to somehow virtually test how this chemicals would affect organisms.
About cosmetics and stupid things, hell no.
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Many parts of the testing are done either with computers and/or by using models replicating those of the animals. The thing is that our bodys (and those of other species) are far too complex to be reproduced exactly. So there's always more testing to be done.
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Animal experimentation is absolutely necessary for discovering new ways to treat diseases and to help us build a complete view on biology, anatomy and a lot of other medical subjects. Currently, there are no methods that can entirely substitute the role of AE with identical test results, speed and affidability and anyone who disagree about this simple concept are just misinformed.
Read some pubblication on Pubmed to get the right info on this subject, getting "info" on facebook or "animal rights sites" is dangerous and almost wrong in every part possible. Animalists love spreading ignorance and playing with photos of cute dogs, but they don't show you that animal experimentation can lead to a cure to every terminal patient.
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I completely agree. And the worst thing, sometimes the organizations that protest animal experimentation, are even worse than the companies. The companies have legitimate reason. PETA has no reason to be euthanizing 89.4% of their animals. Some animals, yes, have to be, there is no hope, but when you read about some, like a dog that was euthanized solely because it lost one leg, PETA is the cruelest organization I've heard of. Even Hitler had more legitimate, moral reasons to kill than PETA does.
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Yeah, I never liked PETA. They seem rather shady tbh.
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I personally think that AE is a poor method to test new medicines. Animals are poor approximations to humans. Your average lab mouse has access to food 24/7 so many, if not all, of them are overweight. In addition, the physical manifestation of disease is different in each organism. When humans get TB they develop granulomas in the lungs, essentially congregations of white blood cells attacking the bacteria, but in mice this never happens. However, a new medicine has to act on the granulomas in order to be effective, yet mice are still used to test new TB medicine.
I'd like more development in human cell culturing methods using stem cells. It would give a better approximation of what actually happens in illness.
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Yeah because in vitro models behave just as the body does. Also they are useful for some things, not for others. Many of them have their access to food limited and I haven't seen any of them overweight unless they were explicitally made so.
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The standard care for mice is unlimited access to food, which leads to mice being overweight. It's well documented that ad lib feeding is the normal practice, and that "many standard control rats and mice used in biomedical research are sedentary, obese, glucose intolerant, and on a trajectory to premature death." here Obviously this is what we should be testing our drugs on.
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Well, do you at least agree that mouse models can only take research so far?
I would want more research done on human cell culturing methods. Another method, it in itself fraught with controversy, would be to make human-animal chimeras to improve the predictive value of the tests that are being performed.
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I do agree that they are limited and results found of them have to be handled with care. I'd be a fool if I didn't do so.
The problem with cell culturing is that it does not recreate a body enviroment, if you know what I mean. Also rats are not that far away from human. For a first approach they are rather good. Moreover they are tiny and cheap.
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Rats are good approximations for some things, but not for others. Derek Lowe -a chemist who works in the pharmaceutical industry- wrote a short blog post about the which therapeutic areas have the best predictive assays.
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Thanks for that. Will look at it tomorrow. And thanks for your contributions too. May I ask what's your field of expertise?
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Cells cultures are actually used, like many other "alternative" methods - the problem with vitro model is that it can tell you how the molecule interacts with cells, but not with the entire tissue and other possible side-interactions. It gives an incomplete analysis of the basic physiologic effect that can be used as a pre-test before a live test.
About how scientists keep animals in their lab, everything is under control by external organs of law and there is a strict regulamentation made just to avoid animal abuse. Plus it's useless to run a test under abnormal physical condition like overweight or physical pain because different condition can cause different results, thus wasting time and money. It's in scientists interest to keep their testing subjects as healthy as possible.
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I agree with this guy here. Also you have to take into account factors as first-step metabolism or excretion and stuff like that. For example Prontosil rubrum extract is only antibacterial in vivo and not in vitro as it needs to be metabolized into the sulfonamide.
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Pre-clinical studies often use in vitro and in vivo experiments. I'm arguing for smarter in vitro experiments as well as human-animal chimeras.
Thresher, it's well known that lab rats and mice are obese and prone to cancer, even C57BL/6, the most commonly used mouse strain in research. It's a fundamental limitation to using mice.
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Well using a chimera would raise more controversy than the one we have now, wouldn't it?
I do accept that animal models are limited and should be handled with care though.
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"there are no methods that can entirely substitute the role of AE with identical test results, speed and affidability and anyone who disagree about this simple concept are just misinformed."
I disagree, in fact I believe that human trials would be even better gauges for how a substance/drug would react with people.
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In another posts in this topic i already explained why testing on human is impratical.
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Why would we be able to use him? What if he's innocent? And if he's not, why is he prevented from having rights? Also what would we become if we use him? Aren't we no better than him, then?
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So would you sacrifice countless human lives? What makes you think that a human is a better candidate for a test than an animal?
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What makes humans better candidates is that, once tested and potentially proven safe and effective, the product is actually going to be used on other humans, not on any other species.
Edit: Oh, and testing on humans =/= testing stupidly. We wouldn't need to sacrifice "countless human lives" any more than we need to sacrifice countless lives of other animals right now.
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Hmmm. Yeah but what about the early stages? I mean that time when you don't know how effective the drug is or its lethality. Would you still conduct them on humans?
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This year was the lemon battery. Soda volcanos are soooo last year's
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Well, if it isn't steroids and cosmetics then it should be fine. Personally anyway.
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Why steroids? I mean, what makes them different from other drugs?
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any kind of drug in that sense (Performance enhancing or sense dimming and what not)
I´m totally fine with medication though. It just serves for the greater good, even if that means harming or even sacrificing small animals.
Also, Vercinger has made a good point down there, that the animals should be treated well when they are not being tested on
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I think that we are using different concepts of what a drug is.
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It's acceptable when done for medicine, it should be a severely punishable crime when done for cosmetics or anything similarly useless to humanity or the world.
And for it to be acceptable, the animals must not be treated poorly. As in, enough room to walk around in their enclosures, access to other specimens if it's a social species, proper temperature, any other basic requirements for the specific species. And, of course, enough water and suitable food.
Edit: Oh, and regular veterinary care. But that's probably a requirement for testing anyway, since, you know, if the animal's already sick, how do you know if it's the disease or the drug you're testing that caused symptoms/death?
I'm also not against testing directly on humans.
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The animals are in the best conditions they can in which the experiment can be carried out. Also what you say is not always possible, sometimes they have to be alone and they are limited the amount of food and or water they can have.
As for veterinary care. I'd say that most of them are healthier than the average animal out there, excluding, that is, the medical conditions that have to be endured by them.
Could you please explain a little bit more on human texting?
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Lab animals are severely inbred and are unhealthier than the average animal. They need to be inbred to maintain genetic homogeneity to ensure that every mouse you get is a near-perfect replica of the mouse you got a few months ago. Some mice are even bred to be predisposed to cancer. Mice do not get veterinary care. Why would they? Mice are a few bucks each, but a vet visit would cost more than a few bucks, not to mention the cost of any medicine/treatment. It is easier to just kill them and throw them out.
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I don't know what kind of experience you've had with research animals. But first they have to be sacrificed once the experiment is completed and they are as healthy as they need to be. If you want to study cancer, well you do need a rat with it.
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Those are made already AFAIK. There's really a big set of rules to get your experiment approved and all that.
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It's not like the animals they are experimenting on are endangered species. If they didn't test on animals similar to the human body (rats, pigs) there would probably be more sick people on the planet. As GlaDOS would say, there's still a lot of testing to do, for science.
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With rather little jumping I've concluded that there are simply too many animals and too many flavors for me to determine which combination is my favorite before I die - however, I will continue to experiment nonetheless, as part of the process is joy of discovery. Now, where did I put that avocado-mango-habanero sauce I was working on for that damn rabbit...?
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If it's for developing medical treatments and medicine, I all for it. If they have to torture a thousand rabbits to save a single child's life, that's a good deal to me.
If it's for testing cosmetics and shit, fuck that.
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Well considering that the main species used are rats and mice and that they are almost specifically breeded for that well. I'd say they are not endangered.
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I do, why? But I was asking for yours. I prefer to ask and listen rather than explain myself. I've always worked that way.
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Well if you're not willing to share you views, I don't think I'll be bothered sharing mine either.
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Well as you wish. If you have actually taken the time to peek at the topic you'l see what I think. Also I don't want to adoctrinate anyone about anything. I want to know YOUR opinion.
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Well, as someone who is a bit into all that science thingies I was wondering how were experiments using animals regarded by the SG community. As you know, this site is full of a rather interesting bunch of people from everywhere around the globe and it's always nice to know the opinions of those who have been raised with different cultures and that.
So yeah, I wanted to know. What are your views on experiments using animals? Do you refuse to buy products that do so? Any kind of product? If you don't agree with said practice what alternatives might you suggest?
Also I would like to know some of your background, I mean what makes you think that way.
Go on, share your views.
:3
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