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Well, one reason would be that depending on what the drugs were for, I imagine advanced Alzheimer's patients would show very screwy results, but of course that goes for animal experimentation, too. I'd need to know more about the scientific rationale for testing drugs on creatures other than those for whom they're intended, and the practical problems it raises, before I could get at that dimension of the question.
But more importantly, I think, what's at stake in your question is a decision on the limits of the human. You're not comparing animal testing to testing on all humans, only those whose brain function is impaired in a very specific way and to a specified degree. Which draws an implicit parallel between animals and humans with advanced Alzheimer's, and suggests that the reason animal testing is acceptable is because animals have a lower level of cognitive function than (most) humans, and that humans with advanced Alzheimer's have a similar level of cognitive function to 'animals'.
Our society has, on the whole, decided that experiments on animals are acceptable and experiments on humans are not. So experimenting on a human with advanced Alzheimer's would be tantamount to declaring that person less than human, and thus to bringing into being a state of affairs where 'the human' is equated with 'members of the species homo sapiens* whose cognitive function is above a certain level' - and, potentially, where the humanity of any individual is capable of being judged and decided-on by some body (in this case, presumably a doctor who would be able to say that the patient's Alzheimer's was sufficiently 'advanced'). Agamben talks about medical experimentation on humans (willing volunteers, criminals, and concentration camp inmates) and its biopolitical and ethical implications a lot (in both Homo Sacer and Remnants of Auschwitz,I think) but I'd have to look it up unless someone else can remind me what he says.
I myself don't think that there are any grounds on which you can securely distinguish ethically between testing on animals and testing on humans. I mean that, as this example shows, you can't justify it in terms of level of cognition, or whatever: the only basis you can have is some sort of innate superiority of humans over animals, and I don't think that's ethically tenable. Which is why I say, given your parameters, "you can't" test drugs on animals but not on advanced Alzheimer's patients: there is no logical/ethical basis for that distinction.
*or pan bimanus, of course. |
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