• Question: what do you think about animal testing and why?

    Asked by 09walshcou to Sarah, Diana, Alan, Caspar, Murray on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by boyer7.
    • Photo: Diana Drennan

      Diana Drennan answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      That’s a tough question that raises lots of strong emotions for a lot of people. I think it’s a necessary evil. It’s necessary because if people want drugs or even personal care products that really work, and that are continually getting better than what we already have, AND if people are unwilling to use something unless they are reasonably sure it’s safe, then we have to have a way to test them. Many of those safety tests can be done in a lab, and after some of those, we can do some simple, very closely controlled safety tests on people. But in order for something to actually go onto the market it needs to be tested on animals. My company is very conservative and uses as few animals as we can. We also invest lots of money in finding ways to replace animal testing with lab tests.

      But I do think it’s a bad thing, and I hope we find a way not to do it very quickly.

    • Photo: Alan Winfield

      Alan Winfield answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I think this is a very difficult question to answer without being hypocritical (in other words saying one thing but doing another). Animal testing makes me feel very uncomfortable and I would rather there was much less of it – ideally none in fact. The reason I think this is that I feel very sure that animals – especially mammals – feel pain just like we do. So if we believe that we should not be cruel to animals (and we have an old and well respected society dedicated to that principle called the RSPCA) then we should not use animals for testing. However, I’m not a vegetarian. I eat meat (although not very much and ideally only from local organic farmers), so by saying that I think we should not do animal testing and yet eating meat I am – in a way – contradicting myself.

      Actually a few years ago I heard about what sounded to me like a really neat way of doing testing without using animals. The method instead uses a very very small clump of cells called a spheroid. I can’t even pretend to understand the science but my understanding is that the spheroids can be used to test drugs and prove that they wouldn’t be harmful to humans.

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hey!

      Contraversial question!

      I do NOT agree with any unecessary animal testing or experiments on animals. This includes the animal testing of cosmetics such as make-up etc. I would never buy a make up product from a company that tests on animals just for people that care more about their appearance than anything else.

      Ok now here is a pretty big but… BUT I do agree with animal testing that is used in pharmacology, drug testing etc. If testing the drug on animals will help save human lives, then I agree with it. When scientists are developing new drugs, the drug has to be tested to make sure it is safe and effective. First the scientist do tests on cells. These cells are simply grown in the lab and you add the drug and then make sure the cells stay healthy. If they die, the drug is rejected. The next test is usually on a ball of cells, the scientist adds the drug and then they watch to see how the cells grow and develop. If they show healthy development, the drug passes the test. If they grow in a deformed way, the drug is rejected. In the next stage, the drug is tested on a small animal such as a zebrafish or a mouse. If the animal remains healthy then the drug passes onto the next stage with is human trials. In this country, there are extremely strict rules for aminal testers. The animal must not be in pain, must have good living conditions and great lengths must be taken to avoid death. If possible, the animal is used in many tests, it is not just killed after one trial. Animal testing in drug discovery saves human lives because it helps scientists identify harmful side effects.

      When I worked for Almac Sciences before my PhD, I made drugs for an outside company. This company was doing research into the immune system. The drugs I made were tested on rabbits by this company. I went to visit this company and they showed me their animal testing facility. The rabbits were clean and looked healthy and happy and they had lots of living space. The scientists there would give the drug to the rabbit and then take a sample of the rabbits blood to test for any antibodies caused by the drug. And thats all they did. The drugs did not harm the rabbits and the rabbits were never killed. Each rabbit only had to do the test once every 3 months, so it wasn’t like the rabbits were constantly being fed drugs and getting injections every day. I was really shocked by how well the scientists looked after their rabbits, they loved them and cared for them very much.

      I had another experience of animal tetsing at Uni. In my second year at Uni, in my pharmacology class, we had to do a test on animals. We had to do it as part of our course, to help us learn and to show us that it is an essential part of drug testing. We were given a small piece of the small intestine of a guinea pig. (This means that a guinea pig must have died so that we could be taught this lesson, so I took the experiment very seriously, but it was upsetting to think about). We had to test some drugs on the piece of small intestine, but the drugs didn’t harm it and we were told that the guinea pigs small intestine was going to be used by each class, so it wasn’t going to be wasted, they were going to re-use it and I thought this was a really good thing because it meant they were making sure to minimise animal death. It still wasn’t a nice experience and I wouldn’t want to do it again.

      I recently heard about some research that is happening in Edinburgh. The research is to do with zebrafish and heart disease. Some scientists found that the zebrafish can heal its heart when it is damaged so they are studying this further to see if there are some clues that could help people that have heart disease. If you are interested, here is a webpage about it: http://www.bhf.org.uk/research/mending-broken-hearts-appeal/how-the-zebrafish-can-help.aspx

      Sorry for the super long response – please send me a comment and tell me what you think about animal testing? I’d really like to know.

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