Question: What do you think of animal testing?

Ashley Hughes answered on 9 Nov 2015:

100% against anything that is not essential, inclusive of all cosmetics etc.

However, in order to develop drugs to fight diseases the animal models of those disease are unfortunately necessary and I agree with the concept entirely until such a time where we can reliably model the effects of a drug on a large mammal. This is under the proviso that all ethical considerations have been accounted for-for a start look at the three R’s http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/how/three-rs/.

Whilst I have never handled an animal in these conditions I have been part of a study involving the death of mice (http://repository.liv.ac.uk/2015965/3/Duckworth-Oncotarget_1433840464.pdf This is a publish manuscript, although this version is the pre-press edit, so isn’t as pretty looking). In this the lead author showed that a compound could drastically reduce the number of secondary cancers in the mouse and therefore this compound might be a really good candidate for further development as a possible treatment.

On a side note, not all animal testing is mean like those I refer to a biochemist, my fiance looks at animal behavior and they have very nice lives indeed where all they have to do is smell somthing so she can work out what they prefer. This is all to do with conversation, quite interesting.