Do you think animal testing is justifiable b/c of the way it benefits humans, or is it unjustifiable b/c of the torture animals go through for results?
127472
I'm against it. If it's benefitting humans, it's doing the opposite on the animals.
497467
I agree. I believe that animals are equal to people and they should be treated as such. I'm not a vegitarian or anything, but I still think other creatures deserve their rights. After all, humans are animals too. In fact, I don't consider the animals in my family as pets, I think of them as my brothers/sisters. It is unfair to animals and pets, but humans tend to think they're the dominant species.
576742
It is often alledged that all forms of animal testing could be replaced by other means. However other means are often left vague.\n\nThere are computer simulation techniques to try to select appropriate molecules but all they do is whittle dosn the list of probable compounds which might work. Some of them are int he public domain (look at http://www.grid.org/download/gold/download.htm) soem are complex private modelling tools.\n\nBut they are not comprhensive. I have friends who work for the Pharmaceutical Industry * medics, all without exception say there is no way they would trust a new compund that hadn't been tested before use. They are open about how it can be tested, but make the point that the human body is a complex mechanism, it cannot be simulated by computer, nor by cellular level trials. sometimes the side effecxts (and most compounds do have side effects) are seen in other parts of the body than expected, or can\nbe more severe than predicted.\n\nI don't think there is anyone who would condone testing of cosmetics and beauty products on animals (which are relativel easy to test on human volunteers, after all skin cells can be effectively tested, but pharamceutical compounds?\n\nThere may be a day when such compounds can be tested entirely in a computer, but I don't think its any where near there (yet). Simply we do not have enough information to create a realistic simulation model. Even so I'd still be very reluctant to be the first user of such a compound.
404904
I believe that testing on animals for medical reasons is an unfortunate necessity. We all want advances in science to cure terrible diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Cancer, HIV etc, and without the use of animals for this purpose we will never be able to achieve this.\nAnimal testing will continue until a new model could be found. The use of Cell and Tissue culture is used for drug testing, but medicinal drugs are not allowed on the market until animal testing has been completed. This is then backed up with human testing once the drug is deemed safe. This does fail, and people can get hurt (eg thalidomide) but without the animal testing these cases would occur more frequently. \nAlso laboratories for testing on animals have to work to highly stringent guidelines, and are frequently checked by officials that the animals are not being mistreated. In the UK at least.
634948
For animals, heaven is right here and now.  they are not human beings and its a little insulting to treat them that way.
41433
I often thought the same thing like why not allow death row inmates to offer their services to the public by being used in medical experiments. The degree of severoity of the medical condition would have a direct bearing on the type of crime commited.
284407
Pros of Animal Testing\n- makes sure product is safe before selling it to people\n- avoids having to test on people\n- allows scientists to research new medicines, vaccines against \n   disease etc.\n- by looking at animals, can understand people better\n\nCons of Animal Testing\n- animals are mistreated in the labs\n- conditions they live in before being used for testing are also bad\n- many of the experiments are cruel and can be painful\n- curiosity doesn't give people the right to abuse other living \n   creatures\n- doesn't even advance science all that much
485444
I am a huge supporter of animal rights. I do almost all my high school projects on animal rights. The answer why is too long to state.. and it's obvious that the people who support it care for animals. The people who don't are the opposite.
236840
I can't watch any more of that - it's making me sick. I don't agree with treating animals that way. However, I don't think that means we should not eat meat. It means that we should be treating the animals differently while they are alive and killing them in humane ways. The people that don't abide by that should be prosecuted. It's no different than someone who abuses their dog.
590525
I would stop all animal suffering from humans.  They are so innocent and we are greedy.  Because of our Greed others suffer.\n\nThere is no BALANCE by torturing animals for our own aesthetics.
546818
Well, firstly I think you need to define what you mean by "experimentation". Most of the people who have posted answers seem to have assumed that it refers specifically to experiments involving drugs, other chemicals or invasive techniques.  Maybe that's what you're assuming too, but there are many other fields of science that use animals for experiments to find out about their behaviour or ecology.  Some of these studies might involve wild animals, captive bred lab animals or wild animals caught for the experiment.  So now someone might think "well, ok but it's just the cruel medical experiments that make animals suffer that we are wanting to consider".  But it isn't that simple.  Some behavioural experiments might involve, food and water deprivation, handling stress, allowing animals to fight and injure / kill each other.  And similarly, a lot of medical and neuroscience research is carried out in such a way that the animals involved have a reasonable quality of life and a relatively humane and painless death.  So banning ALL experimentation on animals (except small rodents and insects) would clearly damage our ability to learn about our world, the ecosystems in it, the diseases that kill us and a whole range of other important things that science is currently investigating.  However, the other side of the coin is that allowing an open slather on all animal research would clearly expose many animals to cruel, painful procedures that yield only superficial gains for humans and for animals (tests of allergies to cosmetic products springs to mind as an example of cruel research yielding little gain).  What I'm trying to illustrate here is that, like most moral and political issues, animal experimentation is complicated and contains a lot of grey areas.  There is no one answer that is correct and appropriate for all situations.  You must way up the cost to animal (in terms of pain, distress and quality of life) with the potential benefits of the research (progress in disease treatments, better understanding of ecology and environment, for example).  And of course not everybody will agree on how costs and benefits would way up.  Imagine some experiments that work in such a way that for every monkey who dies (humanely) an extra person will be saved by the treatment.  Would you consider that reasonable?  What if the monkey died a painful death instead of a humane one?  What if it were ten monkeys to every person saved, or a hundred monkeys?  What if it were a thousand people each monkey could save? What if the monkey couldn't save anyone's life but could just prolong the lives of sick people for a while? What if it wasn't a monkey, but a cat or a rat?  What if there were other research options available, but they might take 6mths longer, or six years longer before the treatments are available?  Even if everybody was considering all the same aspects, people would differ in where they draw the line between reasonable and unreasonable.  So for this complicated issue, maybe the best "bill" is one that provides guidelines and instructions on how research should be evaluated, but leaves the decision of whether or not each particular experiment goes ahead up to a group of relevant people who understand the costs and benefits and can make an informed decision.  I hope this helps you have an interesting discussion in class.
100612
Monkeys, dogs, rabbits, and mice are just a few of the animals used in research.  Wikipedia.org has a very comprehensive article detailing the types of animal and tests performed on them.  An example: rabbits were used to test mascara and eye since their eyes didn't tear, IAMS uses dogs to test new foods.  Peta.org is also a good resource since they are trying to stop animal testing.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing
515426
I'm just going to make this up hypothetically, since I couldn't find any news articles about it...\n\nFirst, RNAi research may be performed on animals in order to find the effect of knocking down a gene on the health of the animal.  Animal rights advocates would likely find this a problem, especially when knocking down the gene results in suffering for the animal.\n\nRNAi as medical treatment will have the problems of any medical treatments, namely the presence of side effects.  RNAi is a great unknown, and walking into it as medical treatment too soon could theoretically result in disaster.  That's just my opinion, though.  There's been little scientific research done to back that up.\n\nHope this all helps...
655609
A lot of animals have to suffer for really stupid things like testing make-up or shampoo. In those cases animal testing is just completely unnecessary, there are a lot of good make-up products on the market which have never used animals to test on. \n\nThe tests many animals go through are heartbreaking and they suffer a real lot because of those tests. \n\nCheck out sites about animaltesting and see if you can stand the cruelty that is been done to them. \n\nhttp://www.stopanimaltests.com/index.aspx\nhttp://www.animaland.org/asp/realissues/testing.asp
380663
I don't think it's weird.  I've always read gross books about serial killers and looked at pictures of dead bodies but if I hear about animal testing or abuse I freak out.  I can't deal with stories about animals getting hurt unless I know there is a happy ending.  I've been this way my whole life.  It's just the way I am and most of my friends feel the same way.
732
As long as the person is guilty, and the crime is severe, I think it is a good thing.\n\nFor one thing, why should a cold blooded murder get the chance he never gave to his victim?  Victims (usually  innocent people) do not get a chance to start a new life, do they? Plus why should he get a lifetime of freebies (free meals, free clothes, free cable) and even some freebies that the law-abiding cannot afford (like free gym, free college courses) after taking a life?\n\nA good alternative would be to use the worst of the worst (rapists, pedohiles, murderers) for testing instead of the innocent animals.  At least then they could serve a purpose in society, and maybe even give a little back.
640158
Should be banned. This is not sport, this is modern day barbarism. The animals go through so much pain, do you see how tight they are strapped to make them buck. When will we stop the exploitation of animals for our enjoyment?