• Question: Do you think that experimenting on animals is fair because if we don't do it on humans why are we doing it on other living creatures?

    Asked by anon-181153 on 11 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Joey Shepherd

      Joey Shepherd answered on 11 Jun 2018:

      Well, that’s a very good question. In my experience lab animals are treated as well as possible and there are very strict guidelines about animal welfare and how many animals can be used in experiments, and what can be done with them to minimise any distress. But that isn’t your question – logically no, it isn’t fair to inflict experiments on other creatures capable of feeling pain or distress. But if you were to experiment on humans, how would you choose which humans to experiment on? Who would consent to being experimented on? Would it feel much worse to experiment on a human than on say, a fish or a mouse? A common ethical question is whose life is more valuable, a humans or a rats or a zebrafish – that is something a lot of people think about a lot. Bear in mind that all medicines that we use to treat people at the moment have at some point been tested on animals, so there is the question of whether people are happy to say, find a cure for cancer if that means using mice in the lab.
      Happily, we are developing new ways to test things without using animals, or only using animals as a very last step before say, trying a new medicine on humans in clinical trials (which is in a way experimenting on humans!). For example, we use a lot of cell culture where we do experiments using just cells in a dish, or we now have 3D models of ‘bits’ of humans grown in the lab using human cells. In our lab we grow human skin, oral mucosa, and corneas to experiment on for example. So there are movements towards reducing animal experimentation – have a look at the NC3Rs website if you are interested, the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/)

    • Photo: Damian Mole

      Damian Mole answered on 11 Jun 2018:

      That’s a great question – using animals for science experiments is always avoided if there are better, less harmful alternatives e.g. using cells, or computer models, or people and patients. Sometimes, its not possible to do that, and then all scientists (together with vets, and other specialists employed by the government) debate each experiment very carefully to weigh up whether the potential benefit from the experiment to society, and the scientific quality and benefit, outweighs the harm to the animals.

    • Photo: Lauren Burns

      Lauren Burns answered on 11 Jun 2018:

      This is a great question, as I really do not like animal testing, but this is where the ‘sad but true’ aspects come in. There ethical bodies that you have to write to in order to gain approval for any study, and experimenting on people is a) difficult to get approval for, b) expensive, and c) risky. And, as my colleagues have said, you have to justify everything you do to make sure it is in the name of science and absolutely necessary. At the end of the day, some aspects of science may require animal testing, but others do not. It is possible to go through your career without having to harm an animal – and you can live your life in a way that reflects that. Eventually, I hope we will be in a place to completely cut out animal testing, but at the moment, we are not at that point. If it is something you are passionate about, there are things you can do now (like cut out cosmetics – they are often really bad to animals, and just for vanity rather than to help people, or only buy cosmetics that are free from animal testing), and if you were to go into science, you can fight against animal testing by practising research that is free from it. Maybe, if lots of people did this, and continued developing research methods so we are able TO research without this, perhaps we would be able to phase out animal testing – at least I like to think so 🙂

    • Photo: Hannah Farley

      Hannah Farley answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      As someone who does research on animals, I think that it isn’t fair, but it is necessary. This is because we only do work that has been deemed necessary and is tightly regulated to reduce or avoid suffering. At the end of the day, I do personally prioritise research that would help sick children over the life of a mouse or a zebrafish or a fruitfly – that’s my personal opinion, but I think that a lot of people become more open to animal experimentation as soon as it’s to do with a potential cure that could save a sick relative of theirs. Obviously I think that animal research should be minimised, and alternatives used where possible, and again, personal preference, I would struggle to work with animals larger/more intelligent than a mouse. But science isn’t perfect, we don’t have model systems for everything that don’t require use of animals, so sometimes they are very helpful. I don’t use cosmetics that have been tested on animals and avoid eating meat/try to shop ethically for other animal products such as dairy. If anything, working at an animal research facility has made me more conscious of the contribution that animals make to society, and more aware of their general wellbeing.

    • Photo: Claire Donald

      Claire Donald answered on 14 Jun 2018:

      I agree this is a great question! Its something that many scientists are concerned with and is an important part of many different projects. I work with mosquitoes and we believe that they do not feel pain. For this reason I think it is ok to experiment on them as they do not suffer. For animals like mice or monkeys I would not like to experiment on them myself but I appreciate how important those experiments are for scientific advancement. There are very strict levels of control in place to minimise their suffering and the people that do the experiments are well trained.

      You can help reduce the animals that are used for testing by buying cruelty products which I try to do where I can.

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