Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!rg20+ From: rg20+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rick Francis Golembiewski) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: animal research Message-ID: Date: 31 Jan 89 17:24:22 GMT References: <221@anselm.UUCP>, <5963@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 42 In-Reply-To: <5963@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> In article <221@anselm.UUCP>, sperry@anselm.UUCP (MALF) writes: > Using animals for scientific research is completely unnecessary and > cruel to the animals. With todays technology we do not need to use > animals for the research. The tests done have been done at least 100 > times allready. This is NOT true, especially in the case of medical research. Biology is a NEW science, if you look at Biology text books there are a LOT of holes (in very important subjects), a good reason for testing in animals is that we DON'T know a lot of things about biology itself, and this ignorance could kill: For example, if I develope a drug the counters a disease on the cellular level, the drug may have side effects on some other system. These side efects could be lethal, so I'de better be pretty sure that the drug doesn't before risking it on a person, so it is pretty infeasable to test the drug on ALL aspects of ALL cell types (it would take much more then a lifetime, even for a large lab), and even if you did test every CELL TYPE that does not mean that the drug wouldn't have strange effects on the body as a whole... So the most economical (and in my opinion moral too, after all I can't justify testing on humans without some reasonable evidence that it will not kill them...) way of testing for side effects is to use animals. And in the majority of cases the animals are treated well (there are laws to prevent abuses, plus test results can be invalid if the animals are not kept in good health...). There is also another advantage in using animals is that many times the testing of animals may show side effects (ie drugs which may cause birth defects) in a far shorter time scale then if it were tested on humans. All things considered I'de personally rather do tests on cells then animals and I'de rather use a computer simulation of a cell for experiments then a cell, BUT because of the limits of knowlege, you have to do some tests in cells, and you have to do some in animals, or you can't expect to get accurate information, so unless you are willing to risk death/devistating side effects the next time you have to take some medicine, or buy a new product (how do you know that exposure to some chemical isn't toxic?), then remember that animal research helps to protect you. // Rick Golembiewski rg20+@andrew.cmu.edu \\ \\ #include stddisclaimer.h // \\ "I never respected a man who could spell" // \\ -M. Twain //