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The rights and wrongs of experiments on animals

  
  

Page: 123(4)

 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:22 / 16.03.06
TGN1412 was tested extensively in laboratories and has been tested on rabbits and monkeys for safety.
 
 
Evil Scientist
06:37 / 17.03.06
Although the side-effects it showed in animals were nowhere near as severe as the ones displayed in the test subjects, it has to be pointed out that this kind of thing is precisely why drug trials require human volunteer test subjects before chucking the drugs out on the market.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
16:29 / 17.03.06
evil,

my favorite thing about the case is that they appear to have ignored the results of the earlier tests on the animals and then tested on the human animals anyway... sometimes you just have to wonder at their appalling inability to think what a 'test' is for...

terrible scientists
 
 
Evil Scientist
06:00 / 18.03.06
Their mistake was assuming that the animals would respond in a similar fashion to humans (Don't faint SDV! I'm going somewhere with this).

The drug in question was actually a modified monoclonal antibody. Essentially a protien designed to "dock" with a specific non-self receptor, the antibody is what the immune system uses to identify foreign objects to the lymphocyte clean-up crews.

they appear to have ignored the results of the earlier tests on the animals

Not as I understood it. It was just that the side-effects the animals displayed were relatively minor.


There is quite a bit of criticism over using animals for this form of testing, simply because when you're using something as specific as an antibody you're far less likely to see adverse reactions in non-human subject.

terrible scientists

Agreed. Why they didn't test the drug on skin samples from the patients first I don't know. An immune response of this extreme nature would very likely have shown up on that.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:04 / 18.03.06
terrible scientists

Also agreed. And though I'm personally against animal testing full stop, even if I weren't then surely this means there needs to be some more tightening up of legislation in the area? People have, to my mind, tortured and killed, or at the very least risked the lives of, animals in the name of "good" vivisection (for medical research, rather than cosmetic), and for no good reason. Even if I were in favour of vivisection, I'd be wanting harsher rules to stop fuckwits like this doing it. It's one thing to say animals can be experimented on to save the lives of humans (personally I don't agree, but I can see the logic and understand the argument), quite another to say animals can be experimented on by people who haven't bothered checking whether they're gonna save the lives of humans or not.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:52 / 19.03.06
The contract stated the side effects in mice and rats included "increased urine volume, decreased faeces, redness of the skin". In dogs the drug had caused an "increased heart rate and decreased blood pressure".

It is possible, Dr Solari said, that "instead of switching on the regulators, we have switched on the activators and super-induced the immune system".

In light of the difference in response between the different species the question of why testing on animals is so necessary does come to light. We're talking about a sophisticated and specific drug that clearly effected three different animals distinctly but in very different ways to humans. If the human immune system responds so differently and six humans can be tested on simultaneously then doesn't that indicate a problem in the practicality of the way testing is being conducted right across the board?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:19 / 19.03.06
seems like there's questionable methodology at the heart of this particular facet of the issue - serious consequences resulting.

but I'm wondering if in trying to find an intelligent rationale for vivisection or anti-vivisection betrays that this isn't a decision for the mind - the mind has decided, and vivisection and animal experimentation are ok (in our greater society - it is acceptible, or we'd make it illegal).

but it isn't a matter for resolution by the rational mind, but by our sense of pathos, compassion and wisdom.

in feeling that animals used in testing are "wasted" when the research done on them is sloppy is finding a rationale against animal testing. Our use of animals at all is wasteful, in so much as it denies each and every one of them the right to exist without interference, tampering, tinkering.

it's one thing to eat a mouse to satiate hunger. it's quite another to interfere with the natural, healthy functioning of its genes to give it a predisposition for cancer such that we might gain knowledge from the insight.

I'm with Einstein: "imagination is more important than knowledge."

Don't care if the research in question purports to relieve humans of all kinds of suffering or not - we are denying other living things the very freedoms that we consider so fundamental to our lives.

such hypocrisy wears thin.

The fact that we've allowed ourselves to slip into a dependence on this research is more troubling still.

--not jack
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:15 / 27.03.06
If the human immune system responds so differently and six humans can be tested on simultaneously then doesn't that indicate a problem in the practicality of the way testing is being conducted right across the board?

No, I don't believe that it does. As I mentioned earlier, the reason this synthetic antigen didn't cause the massive immune reactions in the animals was due to the specificity. In the majority of drugs the mode of action is much less specific so side-effects and contraindications noticed at the animal testing stage are much more accurate models of what will happen at the human testing stage.

it's one thing to eat a mouse to satiate hunger. it's quite another to interfere with the natural, healthy functioning of its genes to give it a predisposition for cancer such that we might gain knowledge from the insight.

But either way the mouse dies. Either way it's life is expended to prolong the life of another living organism. Is being eaten alive any more preferable to dying of cancer to a mouse? Would the mouse choose either if presented with a third choice?

If animals have the same rights as humans then shouldn't we prevent carnivorous animals from killing and eating others? After all alternative sources of protein do exist that they can survive on. Why should the cat be allowed to eat the mouse? They both have the same rights.

Don't care if the research in question purports to relieve humans of all kinds of suffering or not - we are denying other living things the very freedoms that we consider so fundamental to our lives.

Well, the vast majority of people consider humans to be more important than animals. So it's not hypocritical in our eyes to utilise animals to prolong human life.

but I'm wondering if in trying to find an intelligent rationale for vivisection or anti-vivisection betrays that this isn't a decision for the mind - the mind has decided, and vivisection and animal experimentation are ok (in our greater society - it is acceptible, or we'd make it illegal).

but it isn't a matter for resolution by the rational mind, but by our sense of pathos, compassion and wisdom.

Wisdom isn't of the mind?

Hmm.

The "rational mind" as you call it has decided animal experimentation is OK, not for shits and giggles and not (as SDV accused earlier) just to give biomedical scientists jobs, but because it is the most effective way we have of judging whether new medical techniques and treatments work (note use of term "most effective" I make no claims of perfection).

I argue that compassion for humans should outweigh compassion for animals. I argue that my sense of pathos demands that animal testing should be continued, and I argue that wisdom calls for it as well.

Because, you see, these attributes which you suggest should be our guiding lights when it comes to the question of animal tests are not separate from the mind. The mind is not some coldly analytical machine. The supporters of animal testing aren't mirror universe vulcans, beings relient on pure, cruel logic, they're humans just like you.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
07:36 / 29.03.06
Evil,

nicely put.. and such an argument against animal testing is mistakern, if one the right side of the divide.

Just that your 'cruel logic' is wrong. Just as the related logic was wrong to use women's bodies as experimental objects in the 19th C, racial minorities in the 20th C and to define working class people as inferior in the early 20th C. All of these groups became humans, if still disenfranchised in the late 20th C.

Cruel logic... (implying uncomfortable truths) Actually no, in reality it s a contingent relativism, a logic based on a false notion of human superiority founded on strange notions that a recently invented concept of 'human life' has greater value than a non-human one. Recently invented because the value of a human life is still contingent...
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:49 / 29.03.06
Just as the related logic was wrong to use women's bodies as experimental objects in the 19th C, racial minorities in the 20th C and to define working class people as inferior in the early 20th C.

But, once again SDV, you're using loose examples of human cruelty to humans to back up your reasoning as to why we shouldn't test on animals. You need to explain to me why it's the same thing, because you're already aware that I don't consider animal life to be worth the same as human life.

a recently invented concept of 'human life' has greater value than a non-human one.

Recently? Unpack that statement a little would you SDV? Preferably with some examples.

Cruel logic... (implying uncomfortable truths) Actually no, in reality it s a contingent relativism, a logic based on a false notion of human superiority

Again, unpack and expand. Why is a notion of human superiority false?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
14:31 / 29.03.06
all things being equal, Evil Scientist wrote:
Why is a notion of human superiority false?

I think you have to back-up the position that humans are superior. Do you honestly believe that humsans are someone of a magnitude above other species? To what do you attribute this, beyond your subjective rationalisations?

do tell.

--not jack
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
14:43 / 29.03.06
and Evil Scientist wrote this, too:
I argue that compassion for humans should outweigh compassion for animals.

dude, compassion doesn't know discrimination.

wisdom is an attribute gained from life experience (but not necessarily). A child can have a sharp, acute mind, and have no wisdom to temper fiery youthful ideals (but this diverts into something more suitable for Headshop or Temple).

Equating a cat eating a mouse to predisposing the mouse to cancer for research purposes is a huge leap of equivocation. I applaud your efforts.

A cat innately needs to eat small animals to survive. A cat has an immune system to keep it alive against disease and injury.

The cat eats mice to keep its immune system healthy.

We, (humans) have distanced ourselves from healthy living to the point where we consider the medicines (including research) and procedures to combat the symptoms of ill-health as a right.

I don't think the right to eat healthfully can be replaced with the right to do whatever it takes to find relief.

Why do you want to propogate the atrocity? Does the ability to be cruel and heartless feed into your definition of human superiority?

--Not Jack
 
 
sdv (non-human)
15:02 / 29.03.06
Evil,
The examples were chosen because until comparatively recently there was no standard definition of a human being. ‘Human cruelty’ does not adequately describe the reality of the justifications used, and more usefully to ‘think’ of how the sub-sets of the human were considered and treated as sub or non-humans. The point being that these arbitrary definitions were used to justify the terrible treatment of the those who did not belong to the standard definition of the 'human' (aggressively masculine) . It is normal to regard this through modern secular-political views - for example you may of heard of the millions of missing women in the '3rd world' basically they are either killed or die. Whilst this is normally understood as an abuse of 'human rights' it could and really should be understood in the light of our own histories, as a substantial group of people being defined as less than a full ‘human’.

The justification for the definition of human is very arbitrary and is heavily influenced by the social and historical circumstances (women were not fully human until the universal franchise in the mid 20th C, afro-americans until the late 1960s, the mentally ill until 1980s in Sweden and so on ). To state that humans are superior to animals and that this justifies torture, abuse and the genetic rebuilding of animals, must be understood against human history and frankly seems to be as unacceptably arbitrary. The spectre of human history suggests that justifications based on 'supremacy' are never justifiable. This is the key disagreement - race, gender, class have all been used as justifications for abuse and experimentation and where you have an understanding that an arbitrary concept of the 'human species' justifies action. I am deeply suspicious of suggestions that such a concept is more defensible than race etc.

Human <> non-human

I’m not sure that I need to go further back into the history of understandings of the ‘Recently?’ human – how far back Ancient Greece ?, China, the 16th/17th C…. I deliberately did not go back beyond the comparatively recent past because we can probably agree that the concept of the ‘human’ as object of study is what 200-150 years old ?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
16:38 / 05.04.06
what's 6 more months of life worth?

slightly off-topic article about the cost of cancer medication, however, the question begs to be asked here.

is 6 months (or 3 months, or 12 years) worth the cost (as opposed to the price)?

personally, don't think so. I live happily in the knowledge that anything I don't complete in this life, I'll complet in the next... or the next... or the next...

the cost, measured in the dead, incinerated bodies of countless millions of animals, and the tortured existence they had, is not worth any amount of extended life.

't ain't worth it.

--not jack
 
 
Evil Scientist
08:34 / 06.04.06
I think you have to back-up the position that humans are superior. Do you honestly believe that humsans are someone of a magnitude above other species? To what do you attribute this, beyond your subjective rationalisations?

Fair enough. But I think you also need to back-up why we're not.

Anyway, we've pretty much established by this point that I do believe that humans are, in many ways, an order above other organisms on the planet. But if you really need me to say it again, then; Yes I do.

What do I attribute it to?

In part our adaptability. There are few other multi-cellular organisms with the ability to survive and prosper in the wide range of environments that we can, and none that show anything approaching the technological sophistication.

Aside: By technological sophistication I include everything from the tools created and used even today by stoneage societies onwards. Our technological skills as a species are part of what separates us from animals. (IMO of course).

Our linguistic sophistication is another reason for our superiority. There is no other animal on the planet that has the communicative abilities that we do. Some are quite advanced, I accept, but even our primate cousins show little ability to advance their language skills beyond rudimentary levels.

You need to understand Not Jack that I don't pretend that humans are some kind of perfect uber-species. We have done terrible damage to the planet, I agree. But we are also the only species on the planet that concerns itself with compassion to other species. We are the only species with the ability to save other species from extinction. We are certainly the only species that even considers minimising the pain it inflicts on the animals it uses as food.

A cat innately needs to eat small animals to survive. A cat has an immune system to keep it alive against disease and injury.

The cat eats mice to keep its immune system healthy.

However, cats and indeed all animals still die from disease. Yes?

We, (humans) have distanced ourselves from healthy living to the point where we consider the medicines (including research) and procedures to combat the symptoms of ill-health as a right.

Not a right, a tool for survival. Killing another animal to survive.

The difference between an animal killing another for food, and an animal killing another in order to create a medicine is no difference at all.

Quite the generalisation to say that all humans have distanced ourselves from healthy living. Evoking an image of a species where each and every individual cannot live without popping pills every five seconds. Not the actual case as I'm sure you're aware.

Why do you want to propogate the atrocity?

Atrocity? Atrocity relates to crimes committed against a population. Currently animal testing (properly regulated) is not a crime, so atrocity is an inappropriate word. I'd suggest you pick a more accurate term.

Does the ability to be cruel and heartless feed into your definition of human superiority?

Again, to answer a question I have already answered. No. Animals are capable of being heartless and cruel are they not? Or are you once again holding humans to a higher moral standard than you apply to every other animal on the planet?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
02:45 / 07.04.06
evil scientist wrote the stuff in bold:
You need to understand Not Jack that I don't pretend that humans are some kind of perfect uber-species.

correct. you're not pretending. you're stating it outright.

uber-species (if you'll check your German) means over-species, which of course is synonymous with superior.

but why argue semantics?


We have done terrible damage to the planet, I agree. But we are also the only species on the planet that concerns itself with compassion to other species.

pause while I give my brain a shake from the mental whiplash.

compassion? as a species? you can't be serious.

the oncomouse. Can't think of any other species, devoid as they are of compassion I guess, capable of manipulating another form of life, to deliberately undermine its immune system. can you?

don't be absurd.


We are the only species with the ability to save other species from extinction.

the only extinction we're failing to save anything from is the one we're responsible for.

We are certainly the only species that even considers minimising the pain it inflicts on the animals it uses as food.

yes, those factory farms sure are cosy, like a chicken-sized holiday inn. veritable paradise.

I don't mind disagreeing with you on this topic Evil Scientist. I think that all living things have evolved on this ball of rock together over however many millions of years. I think that we can live in harmonious relationships, call them symbiotic if you like, and this includes eating what we need to feed ourselves, to heal ourselves, clothe and house ourselves.

I don't believe that we should ever settle on a cruel way of doing anything, and it is quite obvious that the pain inflicted on individual creatures, and the complete undermining of one of the most fundamental system any species has for protecting itself doesn't enter into the hearts of the people involved in the decisions that cause this perpetuation. Maybe not the minds either.

something else does, and unfortunately, it isn't always as altruistic as public relations firms will have us believe.

Evoking an image of a species where each and every individual cannot live without popping pills every five seconds.

I heard the term "lifestyle drug" for the first time today. is that just my imagination?

and I shudder at everything that term represents.

Atrocity relates to crimes committed against a population. Currently animal testing (properly regulated) is not a crime, so atrocity is an inappropriate word.

atrocious:
extremely or shockingly cruel, wicked, or brutal.
shockingly bad or lacking in taste.
awful, dreadful, abominable, miserable, execrable.
felonious, diabolical, devilish, tateless, destestable.

you're right. it's not felonious.

--nj
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:11 / 07.04.06
correct. you're not pretending. you're stating it outright.

Read it again NJ. I said we're not a perfect uber-species.
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:06 / 07.04.06
I heard the term "lifestyle drug" for the first time today. is that just my imagination?

and I shudder at everything that term represents.

It may suprise you to hear that concept gives me a shiver too.

Over-reliance on medicine is a problem in a lot of modern societies, and it definitely needs to be addressed, quickly. Not going apeshit with antibiotics in the last three decades could have extended their useful lifespan far beyond what they are now. Basic understanding of the "how" and the "why" of them by doctors could have helped massively.

I cringe every time I see one of those ads for painkillers that suggest them as a chemical crutch that allows you to get rid of your stress headache and ignore the root cause of it.

To move the thread beyond the "ES say YES! NJ/SDV say NO!" line we're cultivating here. Can I ask how your alternative to the current (I hate to use the word) paradigm would be implemented? How would it be initially presented to society? Considering the tendency of people to accept scientific evidence above other forms, how would you encourage people to move to your alternative?
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
22:15 / 07.04.06
it's up to any individual to make up their own mind.

it would be much easier for all of us to do so if public relations, be it marketing or what-have-you, didn't mislead us about everything from pharmaceuticals to political decisions.

"modern" medicine has been around for a couple of centuries at most. you give it a lot of weight in face of the hundreds of already existing means of treating the body.

consider the Tibetan doctor who can diagnose a heart ailment by feeling the pulse and listening to breathing for forty minutes.

no scalpel. no lab tests. just two people and a host of knowledge, understanding, and sympathy.

that exists right now, on this earth. people are free to dismiss it if they wish. they're free to choose pharmaceuticals tested on animals as well.

if either of those options were presented to us as such, then perhaps we would have something to choose from.

solution? make the public relations industry accountable.

and plant a garden.

--not jack
 
  

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