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Asked by anon-186960 to Stewart, Laura on 6 Nov 2018.
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Laura Kent answered on 6 Nov 2018: last edited 6 Nov 2018 11:27 am
That is a tough one to answer. Personally I have never done any work on animals, thankfully. People do carry out research on animals to test if products, treatments and medicines work and are safe for humans. However, there are lots of research groups looking at ways we can test these without the need for animal testing. For example, Animal Free Research UK is a charity campaigning for this and they also fund lots of researchers.
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Stewart Martin-Haugh answered on 8 Nov 2018:
It’s not really my area, luckily. I only work with particles, computers and other people. So what follows is largely my opinion.
We test on animals because they are similar to humans. Throughout history, different cultures have had different opinions on animal rights – nowadays many people in the UK would prefer that nothing is tested on animals, or if it is done then it should not be cruel.
One thing that is definitely changing is how much we can simulate the effects of drugs using computers. This means that you could imagine a future where we never test on animals. It’s not my area so I don’t know how realistic this is.
Comments
Michael commented on :
Hi,
Sorry to barge in but I saw your question and wanted to see if I could answer. I am a medical doctor but I also do research. I am trying to understand how animals hibernate because I would like to see whether we could make humans do something like it when they are really sick on life support in the intensive care.
I do use animals, because there really is no alternative at the moment: it would be impossible to work out how really important biological processes happen without using animals. In the UK, we have some of the strictest laws anywhere about what can be done to an animal in research. Every experiment has to be submitted to the home office for approval, who then give a licence for the work to be done. In every situation we have to justify exactly why animals must be used, and we must always use the smallest number of animals, with the least distress possible. We also always use the simplest animal possible -so if the work could be done in a fly or a worm then it will be. And if it could be done with just a sample of cells that are then grown in a test tube, then it will be done like this. Animals in research are actually cared for more closely with more laws protecting them than animals used in farming. In the UK we only use animals for medical research – they are not ever used to test things like shampoo or make-up.
Everybody I know who uses animals in research would love to be able to use an alternative but at the moment that is often not possible. In the future we may have better ways of growing parts of animals in a test tube from stem cells (these are cells that can grow to become any part of the body), which we could use but at the moment that is only possible in certain situations.
It is a difficult issue and I can see why some people are against it, but for me if I had to kill some mice to save somebody’s child or their mother then I would do that. And that is what we are doing: we are using animals to develop new medicines so that people can survive diseases that would otherwise have killed them.
What are your feelings and thoughts about animal testing? Do you think it is worse, better or the same as eating meat?
Marton commented on :
I used to work with animals a couple of years ago, I was interested in neurobiology and did an internship in a lab that worked with rats.
It’s not easy, but the thing is, there are some things we can only study in living beings. The animals in these studies are really well looked after, but still, in the end their sacrifice is what moves a lot of fields forward.
Scientists who work with animals do everything to avoid causing harm to these animals, and only use them in cases where there are no other options left. This is something everyone takes very seriously.