BAN ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS IN EU - VOTE NOW !

[mickey disco]

You dont see them giving each other rights in the wild.

You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage.

Best. Reply. Ever.

[Android Bishop]

@Android Bishop:

Why is it legal and ethical to do invasive experiments on monkeys but not on humans with severe mental impairments who have less cognitive and reasoning power than monkeys? Would you be happy to conduct such experiments (on humans) if it led to a cure for (e.g.) cancer?

No, because humans are crap test subjects. They dont reproduce quickly enough and they live too long

[Android Bishop]

I'm not taking sides on this one, but is there a list of advancements made directly from experimenting on animals?

I know there was a point in history when animal experiments were quintessential in the Making Women Attractive industry. I think we can all agree that is important.

Again, its sad that most people dont understand that soooo much of our advances in our understanding of biology, genetics, biochemistry, etc are derived from animal experiments. To understand what any gene does in animals does we have to genetically alter it in animals and see what happens. Every vaccine developed came from animals, except for some that have to come from humans (which is going to change soon now that we have the ability to create transgene animals that create human antibodies). Every medicine developed came from a progression of animal studies. Most of what we know about cancer and other diseases comes from animal studies. The majority of our advances in biological research (as far as animals go) comes from animal research. If we want to learn anything about animal biology/biochemistry, 90% of the time its going to involve animal testing in one way or another.

[mickey disco]

@Android Bishop:

Why is it legal and ethical to do invasive experiments on monkeys but not on humans with severe mental impairments who have less cognitive and reasoning power than monkeys? Would you be happy to conduct such experiments (on humans) if it led to a cure for (e.g.) cancer?

No, because humans are crap test subjects. They dont reproduce quickly enough and they live too long

But you already have a sizable population to start off with. And you'll euthanize them after you collect the data, right? Like the lab monkeys? So what does it matter what their 'natural' lifespan is?

[Android Bishop]

@Android Bishop:

Why is it legal and ethical to do invasive experiments on monkeys but not on humans with severe mental impairments who have less cognitive and reasoning power than monkeys? Would you be happy to conduct such experiments (on humans) if it led to a cure for (e.g.) cancer?

No, because humans are crap test subjects. They dont reproduce quickly enough and they live too long

But you already have a sizable population to start off with. And you'll euthanize them after you collect the data, right? Like the lab monkeys? So what does it matter what their 'natural' lifespan is?

This is a dumb argument but I'll still bite

Part of the problem of living too long is that it takes them a long time to mature, so I'd still be waiting 18 years before I have a single adult. There's a lot of other problems too, like they wont stay in a cage, eat exactly what we want them to, do what we want, etc. Humans are crap test subjects. That's part of the reason its such a pain in the ass to have good pharmaceutical research done in the clinical stages, and why we get medicines that we later find out can have damaging side effects over the long term. We cant get a large enough population to do these studies, there are a bunch of mixed factors in their diets, habits, and activities, and we dont have 20+ years to keep them in trials to see what the long term effects could be.

[Android Bishop]

BTW for all the bullshit "why do we need to test on animals?" crap floating around, I'm not seeing a single viable alternative being offered from the other side.

[b0unce]

I got just what this debate needs.....Two words:

Cloning technology.



GO!

[Aequitas123]

this argument stems from the stupidity and ignorance found in people like Sara Palin, who mocked the use of Fruit Flys for medical/scientific use.

[Tone Deft]

I know there was a point in history when animal experiments were quintessential in the Making Women Attractive industry. I think we can all agree that is important.

no animals were ever harmed during the creation of alcohol.

[Emissary]

BTW for all the bullshit "why do we need to test on animals?" crap floating around, I'm not seeing a single viable alternative being offered from the other side.

?? the viable alternative is that we dont.

Your just a pure example of why the world is in the state its in. The belief that your life is more important than that of an animal or indeed the planet. Are you a christian perhaps, or a member of one of the other sects perchance?

[mickey disco]

This is a dumb argument but I'll still bite

Part of the problem of living too long is that it takes them a long time to mature, so I'd still be waiting 18 years before I have a single adult. There's a lot of other problems too, like they wont stay in a cage, eat exactly what we want them to, do what we want, etc. Humans are crap test subjects. That's part of the reason its such a pain in the ass to have good pharmaceutical research done in the clinical stages, and why we get medicines that we later find out can have damaging side effects over the long term. We cant get a large enough population to do these studies, there are a bunch of mixed factors in their diets, habits, and activities, and we dont have 20+ years to keep them in trials to see what the long term effects could be.

Lame on at least three counts:

-18 years until maturity?!? Well, maybe your balls didn't drop until then, but I think that most people can reproduce significantly earlier than age 18. 12 would seem about right, and you could probably knock a few years off that with some heavy doses of hormones to bring about puberty early. A macaque matures at about age 4, the great apes later than that.

- they won't stay in a cage, eat exactly what we want them to, etc? Are you saying monkeys do this willingly? Of course not, they're locked in a cage and they eat what they're given. You could choose to treat humans in the same way if you wanted. After all, there's no such thing as human rights, eh?

- you say that you can't get enough animal data over the long-term to properly assess the long-term effects, because animals don't live long enough, and then say that humans live too long to make good subjects? Very little logic there.

[Aequitas123]

Lame on at least three counts:

-18 years until maturity?!? Well, maybe your balls didn't drop until then, but I think that most people can reproduce significantly earlier than age 18. 12 would seem about right, and you could probably knock a few years off that with some heavy doses of hormones to bring about puberty early. A macaque matures at about age 4, the great apes later than that.

- they won't stay in a cage, eat exactly what we want them to, etc? Are you saying monkeys do this willingly? Of course not, they're locked in a cage and they eat what they're given. You could choose to treat humans in the same way if you wanted. After all, there's no such thing as human rights, eh?

- you say that you can't get enough animal data over the long-term to properly assess the long-term effects, because animals don't live long enough, and then say that humans live too long to make good subjects? Very little logic there.

1. the whole cycle is generally sought after

2. animals don't perceive being in a cage the same way humans do

3. animals life cycle is shorter than humans so its actually beneficial to science that they live shorter lives as the results are quicker. this is the whole point of studies on Fruit Flies.

[Babalazarou]

Costs me nearly a fiver for a packet of tabs and them beagle bastards get to sit around all day chain smoking for nish. It just ain't fair.

Make them work for a living and see how quickly they'll all be moaning about "the good old days back in the lab".

Spoilt they are.

[Android Bishop]

BTW for all the bullshit "why do we need to test on animals?" crap floating around, I'm not seeing a single viable alternative being offered from the other side.

?? the viable alternative is that we dont.

Your just a pure example of why the world is in the state its in. The belief that your life is more important than that of an animal or indeed the planet. Are you a christian perhaps, or a member of one of the other sects perchance?

that's about as dumb as saying the most viable solution to the spread of STDs is to have everyone in the world stop having sex forever. Right, like we are just gonna stop caring about biological discovery and scientific development because people are upset about us using animals to test animal science. Try again, except come up with a real alternative not based on fantasy.

I do think my life is more important than anything else's. That's my evolutionary prerogative. This is something that every animal understands too. That doesnt mean I'm going to trash the earth, because I need the earth to be healthy for ME to be healthy. Furthermore, in order for humanity to come up with sustainable alternatives to the things that are causing environmental damage (fuel, plastics, electronic junk, etc), we're going to have to develop a lot of biological technologies that come from and can be consumed by biological organisms. You know what that's going to entail? A lot more research into biological organisms, animals too eventually.

I think your idea of "equality" is based upon fantasy too. One of the many things I give animals credit for is that they dont bother their lives with stupid ideas of "equality" or "rights" or whatever. They do what they have to do unless they cant do it, end of story. How are you defining equal beings? We clearly have different genetic codes, because we are clearly different organisms. Equality doesnt exist unless you are talking about a math equation or chemistry or concepts in physics, and even then those are questionable. If we are equal then why aren't they doing experiments on us? They aren't, because they cant. If they were equal then they would be humans, or we would be rats.

[mickey disco]

Lame on at least three counts:

-18 years until maturity?!? Well, maybe your balls didn't drop until then, but I think that most people can reproduce significantly earlier than age 18. 12 would seem about right, and you could probably knock a few years off that with some heavy doses of hormones to bring about puberty early. A macaque matures at about age 4, the great apes later than that.

- they won't stay in a cage, eat exactly what we want them to, etc? Are you saying monkeys do this willingly? Of course not, they're locked in a cage and they eat what they're given. You could choose to treat humans in the same way if you wanted. After all, there's no such thing as human rights, eh?

- you say that you can't get enough animal data over the long-term to properly assess the long-term effects, because animals don't live long enough, and then say that humans live too long to make good subjects? Very little logic there.

1. the whole cycle is generally sought after

2. animals don't perceive being in a cage the same way humans do

3. animals life cycle is shorter than humans so its actually beneficial to science that they live shorter lives as the results are quicker. this is the whole point of studies on Fruit Flies.

1- sorry, I don't know what you mean here. Is it a typo?

2- the original context was discussing whether it is ethical to experiment on humans with severe brain damage or profound learning difficulties, i.e. the sort of population that has lower powers of cognition than (e.g.) a typical macaque or other monkey. Hence, they're unlikely to 'perceive' anything much, cage or no cage.

3- if the problem is a lack of long-term data in humans, as the OP suggested, how does doing the experiment on monkeys over a short time period allow us to infer the effects on a human population over 20 years or more? e.g., thalidomide (and yes, I know it's become useful again in treating another ailment over the last few years...)