Thats right Tohme, i agree with what you've just said.
I don't like it, but i still use drugs which have been tested, and there's no getting away from it, because at some point ALL drugs have been tested on animals.
But how can they justify doing the same tests over and over again? Why do they need to drip things into rabbits eyes? They haven't got tear ducts, we have, so therefore they are VERY different to us.
These are the statistics for 2002, the amount of animals used in certain experiments-

Testing for toxicity, safety or efficacy (18% of all procedures)
485,767
UP 7%

Fundamental research (31% of all procedures)
864,277
UP 11%

Number of procedures without anaesthetic (60% of total)
1,634,771
UP 5%

Research, development and safety testing of pharmaceuticals
660,390
DOWN 4%


Procedures in education & training
5,364
DOWN 7%


Alcohol research
2,330
DOWN 24%

Toxicity tests of food additives and other foodstuffs
5,414
UP 56%

Toxicity tests of household products
1,032
UP 75%

Toxicity tests of industrial substances
42,280
DOWN 20%

Toxicity tests of agricultural chemicals (incl. 440 beagles)
57,804
UP 41%

Toxicity tests for environmental pollution
38,214
SAME

Lethal short-term toxicity tests
135,626
UP 11%

Toxicity procedures required by legislation, British & overseas
421,603
UP 8%

Cancer research
258,145
DOWN 4%

Tests for cancer-causing chemicals
19,109
DOWN 109%

** Interference with organs of sight, hearing, smell or taste
16,628
UP 1%

** Injection into brain
26,415
UP 5%

** Interference with the brain
29,039
DOWN 6%

** Procedures deliberately causing psychological stress
9,804
DOWN 5%

** Procedures involving aversive training
7,648
DOWN 30%

** Exposure to radiation
9,199
UP 27%

** Thermal injury
28
DOWN 92%

** Physical injury to mimic human injury
11,769
UP 81%

** Inhalation
47,485
UP 8%

Eye irritancy tests
1,271
DOWN 13%

Tests for fever-causing potential (pyrogenicity)
10,872
DOWN 7%

Psychology research
39,642
UP 5%

Production of monoclonal antibodies (none produce by ancites in living animals)
4,320
DOWN 28%

Can you HONESTLY say that all of these are neccessary?

 
 

No, and I agree that where possible animal testing should be replaced by other methods and the only testing that should be done is that where medical advances may be made and no product that has already been tested should continue to be so.

I am not PRO animal testing per se just realistic enough to know where my priorities lie :)

the animals are at the mercy of the tecnichians its very sad i would think that this lab showed you the animals yet to be tested on as i can tell you if the tests had started they would not be so human friendly i think you were conned these people are trying to convince us that the animals do not suffer of course they do once testing starts, they are trying to keep the animal activists off their back by trying to give the impression that the animals are in no distress its rubbish i am not against it completely sadly we have diseases that are still not curable and a cure needs to be found but thousands of experiments are done every day which are totally unecessary thats what i am against! giving the very highly paid tecnichians something to do.

j

Am I comfortable with animal testing - no, but am I eternally grateful for it?  Most definately yes, because I am alive today to see my children growing up because of it :)

Will I ever support some of the groups that are trying to get it banned?  Absolutely not.  My husband's company, that he works for, supplies one of the labs and because of this one of the groups decided to target his company!  What they actually, nearly, achieved was putting 100's of human lives at risk, and not least 100's of livelyhoods.  Fortunately, at the cost of 1000's of pounds to his company and tax payers money, things were put in place to ensure no human was at risk from their stupid behaviour.

Reefer, how do you know that it needed tests on animals to help you and that a cure/treatment would not have been found otherwise? We are always being told testing on animals is 'vital' research but it seems to be untrue though and there have been many adverse effect worldwide from prescription drugs.  Pharmaceutical companies have been sued, it is reported on but it is suppressed. (Merckk have just paid out over a death and side effects from the arthritis drug Vioxx for example)    Apparently ,animal studies have led 'researchers' (I don't regard testing on animals as true research) down the wrong path for cures and treatments, one example is diabetes.  Animal studies can be very misleading.  They function completely different to us.  Look at the recent trials of TGN1412 and the catastrophic effect on the volunteers. That was tested on monkeys and they were given 50 times the dosage given to the volunteers and even with that massive dosage it still didn't predict the effects the human volunteers suffered.  Long term effects are not yet known for them.  Poor things.  Please see curedisease.net and vivisection is absurd, for important information that everyone should be told.  More and more experts are speaking out against animal testing being unable to help human illnesses all the time.

Animal testing is stupid behaviour Reefer and animal rights people are trying to protect the public as well as the animals.  Look into animal testing more.

I'm starting to find this discussion distressing. We all love our dogs and our family - my mother died of cancer and we had to decide between quality or length of life.

Again, i am probably different with my beliefs because to me we are all souls - albeit in different bodies.

I wish you all well with this discussion, but i am leaving it.

Lindsay
X

So sorry for you Lindsay.
Reefer i think you'll find that most people disagree with the 'far out' animal rights groups who do things like that, but still there are alternatives being developed, and thats what we need to push for.
I personally would not work in a lab, i'd rather clean toilets all day long.

Sorry Lindsay I didn't start this to distress so please everybody, we have had our say so lets leave this now.

This is something i feel strongly about....

Bear in mind, my mother worked in a lab where they tested on animals, (something to do with tetse flys and malaria i believe, in South Africa)..

One of my best friends died from Congenital Muscular Dystrophy... if they could find something that would cure that, brilliant.

But. Whilst i agree in principal with testing on animals to find cures, create new drugs etc, i do NOT agree with repeating experiments, as done by students, because thats got nothing to do with finding new cures or anything!

Cosmetic testing is unecessary.

Em

i wont tell you my opinion on drug testing on animals - but heres one paradox that always seems to stump the antis i have speaken to. what about the drugs that are tested on animals to treat your animals?

I am very surprised to hear that Lucy. I think you are either very naive or perhaps another researcher trying to fool the public?  Didn't think Labs were accessable to the general public as it is a very secretive industry for a reason.  You didn't say anthing about the tests they were doing though??  Why not??  Do you think it is acceptable to imprison animals for their entire lives (until they are killed of course) in small and barren cages?  Don't you think that the animals will be frightend/terrified?  What do you think the testing consists of?  Tickling the animals?  Hardly, apparently highly concentrated substances are forced into poor young dogs stomachs (they can go to labs at a few weeks old) via a tube that can be rammed down their throats on a daily basis daily, their shaved flesh is burned with toxic substances, corrosive substances put in thier eyes,all on a daily basis etc etc etc   Imagine that.  Have a look on BUAV and other sites where you can see long strings of the fluid spilling over from the poor dogs mouths and more will be put in the next day.  These animals are made violently ill and I think it is disgraceful that you have given a very false impresson of animal testing. If anyone wants to know please please take a look for yourselves.

Lindy, I'm surprised you've decided to argue about something that was being discussed nicely 3 1/2 years ago :(