• Question: do you have any pets and if you do, think about whether you would like them to have drugs tested on them to take human methods further? After this, do you agree with animal testing?

    Asked by nicandoskax to Pete, Rebecca, SallyB, Sally, Sian on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sally Fenton

      Sally Fenton answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      ooo thats a difficult one.

      I have a cat called Dave (yes a bit of an odd name…my younger sister named him)…I would definitely not like him to have human drugs tested on him..however…if it was going to save another human life then I would have to consider it. He would be a hero of a cat for doing it!

      I do not agree with animal testing when it comes to cosmetic purposes…but in terms of advancing human treatment and saving lives I think sometimes it is neccessary…although I doubt they would test on cats…they would probably use rats or monkeys! so I think Dave is safe…:)

    • Photo: Sian Lawson

      Sian Lawson answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I have three horses and a cat, but then I also have kids and we test drugs on humans too. I guess though, you’re asking about a case when a potentially harmful test is performed on an animal when it in no way benefits the animal, unlike the humans who get a potential benefit out of clinical trials. It’s a pretty awful thought, but then if someone I loved needed a life-saving treatment that had been tested on animals I’d struggle to turn it down.

    • Photo: Sally Barber

      Sally Barber answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I don’t have any pets but we do have loads of slugs in the garden which keep eating the vegetables that we are trying to grow. We don’t want to kill them so we’ve made them their own patch of the garden with rocks and old rocket plants to eat… they still munching through the plants pretty quickly though!

    • Photo: Rebecca Randell

      Rebecca Randell answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I don’t have any pets. I think if i did I wouldn’t like them to be tested on as apart of animal research. Animals which are used for research are normally bred only for research purposes and are not pets.

    • Photo: Peter Styring

      Peter Styring answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I have a cat and two sharks! Pets are pets. Test animals are bred for a specific purpose, not as pets. I would not test on animals but believe they play a vital role in medical testing. Childhood mortality has fallen dramatically because of drugs that had to be tested on animals. You have to ask the question of yourself: would you be prepared for a member of your family to die because the necessary drugs were not available?

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