Some people have suggested that using animals in experimentation is unethical since animals cannot "volunteer" to participate. They suggest humans have a moral obligation to be caretakers of our world and not subject animals to suffering. However, others contend that our superior status in the world confers upon us the right to utilize animals to advance our condition.
Please react to the two articles on the use of animals in medical research. Do you support or oppose the use of animals in experimentation? Use evidence and please be specific in referencing the articles to support your position!
MAKE SURE YOU COME BACK AND READ COMMENTS BY YOUR CLASSMATES! ADDITIONAL RESPONSES TO OTHERS WILL GET YOU EXTRA CREDIT!
Please post a response BEFORE the Socratic seminar (September 22). However, final postings will be due by Sunday, September 25.
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an interesting point was made in class. unless you are a vegitarian or a veagan then you eat animals and various dairy products, condoning their deaths.
ReplyDeleteif we can kill animals to keep us from starving from day to day then we should be able to observe the effects of various "ethical" experiments and procedures that are proposed medicinal treatments.
p.s. first post :D
In response to the two articles on experimentation, my final position on the argument is yes for animal experimentation. Although I understand the circumstances on both sides of the argument, I still see animal experimentation as more of a positive thing. I do believe it’s cruel to torture innocent animal however, knowing that potentially thousands of human lives could be saved simply based off testing on one animal, it is certainly something to think about. I think animal testing should only be utilized to a certain degree. For example, only if scientists are very sure that what they created will work. I understand that there is never a way to be 100% sure, but still. I don’t not expect my opinion on the subject to change, but I am certainly willing to listen to other views.
ReplyDeleteMitchell Stevens
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing both articles, I believe in
animal testing. I do know that animals get harmed in animal testing but I feel it’s for the best. Like Lara said, there should be a limit to animal harm. Make sure whatever your testing is 100% beneficial for humans. If it is something so small, it won’t make a difference, than there is no need to harm the animal. Without animal testing, we would not have as many medical advances as we do today. When somebody has to test something, to see if it creates harm, it would be unethical to do it on a human. I’d rather have animal get tested instead of humans. The people that don’t like animal testing, then why don’t you get up and have new medicines tested on you. I just feel that if we want to have more medical advances, then we need to keep animal testing out there.
That was a wicked good point by Luke. Its not like animals can consent to being killed for us to eat them so its kind of the same thing using them for experimentation. Experimenting on animals provides scientists a chance to potentially save tens of thousands of lives from a deadly disease or virus. So i leave you with this question. Would you rather have a nasty lab rat or ten thousand people be saved from disease or infection
ReplyDeleteI feel that animal expiremntation is a difficult topic because many people look at it and think of it as abuse. I am 100% against animal abuse but even after reseaching information, mostly all labs will confurmed under 6% of animals suffer from being expiremented on. It is crutial that with all the new diseases that have formed over the years, a cure for them is found and would you rather have yourself or someone you know sick from an uncurable disease, or rats and rodents. I also believe Luke is right when he brought up the point of us eating animals as a diet. Also, for everyone who would say that they were against it, Most would probably tell you that the shampoo, makeup etc. that they use is tested on animals. If there were a way to avoid testing on animals, labs and doctors would try to avoid it but until then, I think it is crutial.
ReplyDelete-Chanelle
After reading both articles, I believe animals should be used for testing. Animal testing can be vital to the cure of many diseases. If it weren't for animal testing there wouldn't be vaccines or antibiotics to treat many deadly diseases. Like Lara said, there should be a limit to animal harm but as long as the harm is for a purpose that could potentially save others then it is justified. People who stand against animal testing would have a very different view if it wasn't being done. They wouldn't have vaccines for many deadly diseases. That is why the use of animals in research is vital for the progression of medical science. Animal trials are more beneficial because they help humans and don't harm them with dangerous human trials. These people who think testing is a waste wouldn't want to be tested on with harmful diseases. That is why animal testing is a vital part to medical research.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these documents prove a valid point, however animals simply need to be used to understand the effects of diseases, drugs and other studies. While analyzing the article i tried to be as un-bias as i could. I read them with an open mind to get a fair judgment on the situation. I came to a conclusion that animal testing is necessary in order to further our knowledge about medical sciences. Just the fact that 440,000 lives are saved a year in the U.S alone, due to open heart surgery practiced on animals,is enough reasoning to keep animal testing. I am shocked at the sheer number of positive sides to animal testing. The information and knowledge we get by animal testing, is far greater than the occasional misleading information. Most of the wrong information is due to abnormalities in the animals, not the animals it self. The animals are treated well. Such as kidney transplants, heparin must be extracted from the animal. The animal is under anesthesia and is not killed. Animals play a large role in the development of modern medical discoveries
ReplyDelete-Zack Shepherd
Evan D,
ReplyDeleteI too agree with Luke that if we can kill animals for food we should to be able to animal test. I also believe that animal testing should be allowed because due to animal testing we have discovered many, many medical treatments and discoveries. Therefore, I beleive if we did not allow animal tetsing there would be many undiscovered treatments.
Mitchell Stevens
ReplyDeleteDuring the seminar, there were many points that were made, that I totally agree on. Like cam said, animal testing is for human survival as a whole species. Also, another point cam said is the fur comment. People have fur on everything, but yet we have a problem killing the animal for unknown medical research? At the end of the discussion, Mr. Yip came up with a different testing subject, low IQ people. That is VERY unethical and the government will shoot that idea right out of the box. Just because these people were born with low IQ, does not give the right to test on them. Their people too. Marissa, I understand your problem with animal testing, but, it’s our only option. It we tested it on humans, the government would shoot that down due to ethics. What would that leave? Nothing. We would have no medical advances. If we want to have medical advances, then we need to keep going in animal testing. I also agree with Zack, when he said we need it more than the animal. We need to keep finding out cures for diseases or we don’t evolve into a stronger society. All in all, animal testing has to be done to have medical advances.
I have still not changed my mind even after the debate, and I still stand to my point that animal testing is wasteful. I am a vegetarian, so the "killing animals when we eat" point does not apply to me what so ever. Also, like we said today in class, again I think it has a lot to do with personal experiences. For someone else, animal experimenting could have an entirely different value or have had an entirely different effect on someone else's life that has had someone saved by products that were tested on animals. For me, however, it has been just the opposite. So therefore i don't see animal testing as being any more beneficial to me, which could be put as just another way of being "selfish". I think animal testing is more of a 50/50 chance, it's almost like a "guess and check" method, fingers crossed that the outcome will work. Although I do not agree on testing on animals, I am also not saying that we should test on people of a "lower class" or "lower IQ level" either. Although I might not have all the answers as to what exactly it is that we should do, I'm sure someone out there in this world does and would be able to come up with a far more sensible tactic to solve the epidemic at hand.
ReplyDelete@ chanelle
ReplyDeleteI also use organic makeup that is not tested on animals prior to being sold to the public
Another point is that all the people who think it's "vital" kept saying that there are animals who are genetically mutated for experimental purposes, which i also think is wrong or "stupid", if you will. If you're going to genetically mutate an animal, well, that's JUST THE POINT, it has been genetically enhanced, therefore i feel would have a different reaction to said product when compared to a human. I understand that they would create the animal based on human-like qualities, but I still don't see how that would have the same effect, and still choose to stand my ground on my point.
ReplyDeletetoday in class we talked about how when we see a mouse or ant in our house the first thing we do is get traps to kill them. and from this argument people drew up that humans are superiors to animals so we can kill them and not other humans. but yet if someone breaks into our house the first think we do is grab a weapon to kill the intruder. this shows that humans are not superior to animals because we do exactly the same that animals do when strangers invade there homes. this shows how humans are no better than animals because we are exactly like them just that we have advanced more.
ReplyDeletealso another argument that was brought up is that we should use lesser class humans for experiments. no one agreed to it because of guilt of murder. but we kill animals or people its murder either way. one of the most important researches is stem cell research which allows people who are paralyzed to recover. and yet this processes involves using unborn fetuses which are humans. so saying that animal testing is vital means that humans are being killed for experiments as well.
I think i changed my mind...In all seriousness, I was watching Hogs Gone Wild tonight and seeing what they did to those Hogs made me feel really bad and terrible for them. So I can only imagine what they do to those lab rats/pigs, like inject them with crazy things all the time. That's just me. And if you haven't seen Hogs Gone Wild, go watch it
ReplyDeletei'd like to take this time to adress some minor mischaracterizations in the previous posts, and a few intellectual red herrings.
ReplyDeletefirstly mitchell, although i agree with most of your points, the government does not shoot down human testing, but in order for stage I clinical trials to begin(generally the first experiments in which humans are the subjects of a new treatment) the procedure or drug in question must have already been observed in biologically similar species. for instance, nobody is going to test anthrax as a treatment for cancer, although i'm sure it kills cancer cells too. humans are the end users of all the products we produce in animal research, and the first instance of humans using the new technology often comes in an experimental setting.
second, marissa. i aplaud your vegetarian lifestyle and i respect your moral purity for doing what you can to show your disdain for the killing of animals. i too am of the opinion that we should not waste lives. however, you stated that animal testing hasn't benefitted you. but to the contrary, you have been given vaccinations against deadly pathogens all your life, like the rest of us. even if you weren't vaccinated, a large part of the student population has been, which accounts for the low instances of plague, meningitis, hepatitus, tetanus, flu, and measles in the school. without the vaccinations of yourself and your classmates(all discovered and/or developed using animal testing) it is certain that somebody you know, and likely one of your close friends would have died from one of these or other pathogens.
again marissa(in your most recent post), you've greatly mischaracterized the use of genetic engineering in the medical field. the animals are changed genetically, but not enhanced. one of the most common procedures is to turn a gene OFF, hindering the animal by disabling one of the proteins it uses in its day to day life. observing the effects of the lack of said protein allows scientists to determine what the function of that protein is in the cell, tissue, or animal. by turning off different genes in different animals, research biologists have determined all of the major proteins involved in many important reactions in our bodies, and this knowledge has led to our ability to cure or treat a whole host of diseases. Also, the genetically engineered animals are a field of research all their own, few drugs are tested on them, and those that are tested in genetically engineered animals have similar results because often only one(you have over 100,000) protein is disabled in these animals.
...(continued)
ReplyDeletejack, i agree that using low IQ people to test drugs on is severely unethical. however my reasoning for not wishing to do experiments that are untested on humans is not our superiority although Mr. Yip led the class to draw that conclusion with his questioning. in reality i care more about a human death than an animal death because every human shares a common ancestor with me about a million years ago, while our closest animal relatives share ancestors with us over 7 million years ago(some estimates are as high as 25 million years). this means i'm a monkey's uncle, but you're all brothers and sisters by comparrison. it is natural that we would prefer to risk the lives of organisms that are less related to us.
is a fetus a human? it's arguable, but i need not argue it, because we DON'T USE FETUSES for stem cell research. in fact by the time an EMBRYO(one cell), develops into a fetus(trillions of cells), most of the EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS(the stem cells that people are debating about) have developed into other kinds of cells, and are as hard to convert into embryonic stem cells as adult stem cells are. when we extract embryonic stem cells we use leftover embryos created from in-vitro fertilization, during which multiple eggs are surgically removed from the mother and mixed with sperm in a petri-dish/test-tube/what-have-you. they extract 8 or more on average because many will fail to be fertilized in some donors, and they'd like not to have to cut the mother open again. the result is sometimes that 6 embryos are produced when the mother wanted only one child, and there are five cells left over. when used in stem cell research these cells are not brought to form a fetus, they divide on a nutrient plate and form more cells, no baby. these stem cell lines can last for multiple experiments that further science and save lives. I do hope this clears up stem cell research not just for you, but for the whole class. late term abortions are another matter altogether, i'm against those
This socratic seminar really did open my eyes to the needs of animal experimentation. At first, my side was that it was truly wasteful and I wanted to stand by my point. I began to dig deeper and listen to what my classmates had to say and I realized they did have a point. Whereas animal testing is very unethical, it is vital. Testing on animals to better the human race is just our nature, we are all about "survival of the fittest" even if we have to cheat our way there by testing on an animal.
ReplyDeleteUsing animals for medications is reasonable, but for cosmetics and various other things not vital to living is not right. For diabetics, insulin was a great breakthrough to help treat a patient who cannot produce the insulin they need to break down the sugar in their bodies. Penicilin was one of the most important things in medical history and that was due to animal testing. When people mistreat and abuse animals for someone's outward appearance and costmetic benefit, it's cruel and unsual. I'm sure if they had a say they would not want their eyes to be held open for hours just to make sure our eyeliner is safe for human use. There are plenty of other resources we can develop to test that, or have people convert to an organic product that does exactly the same thing.
Testing on an animal is beneficial to save the lives of the human race, not to benefit someone's appearance.
Drew
ReplyDeleteI agree with animal exparimentation. It is vital to resarchers to study certain areas of medicnes on animals that are close to humans so we can see the side affects and if it cures the problem. I think it is easier to test on animals too because if the medicne doesnt work and has bad side affects then the animal may just die. But if it is tested on a human then the scientits may have a law suit on their hands. Also i think it is moral to test on animals due to the fact that you know if something goes wrong, then you can kill the animal so it doesnt suffer. But if you test on a human then you cant kill the person even if their suffering because that is considered immoral.
Marissa N
ReplyDeleteBefore I read the two articles on animal testing, i was against it. However, like Luke said an interesting point was brought up in class about how we eat animals and people are okay with it, but when we want to use them for medical tests people are against it. I took into account how cruel it is to harm innocent animals but if we want our medical research to advance, animal testing plays a crucial role in that.
Miranda W
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, animal research is a necessity. I think that our reasoning for it is selfish, but there isn’t anything that’s going to change that trait in people. A good point that was brought up in class was what if it was your family member, specifically your child? You’d do anything for them, so if they needed a transplant or even medication that was tested on an animal, you’d support your child over then animal in a heartbeat.
I disagree with the point that Mr. Yip brought up about using ‘lesser’ people such as criminals or people of a lower class in experiments because they are still human beings. And even if someone did volunteer to do that job, the person experimenting on them would still feel guilty for doing so, as proven with the Milgrim experiment. There’s no reason or sense in changing something that’s already put into effect and is very effective, when you have no other options.
Mr. Morgan said,
ReplyDeleteRight off the bat i am going to state that I am on the side of using Animal Research for medicinal purposes, scientific adventures and inquiries and anything that will ultimately benefit to mankind. However, this does not mean that I condone animal cruelty or mistreatment. Anastatizing a monkey then operating on it to discover how its immune system is allowable because the animal would feel no pain. However, just poking the monkeys with pins to test something like pain reaction would not be acceptable because of the unnecessary pain caused to the animal.
The first thing I would like to bring up is a hypothetical situation I would like everyone to ponder. You're closest friend is dying due to heart failure. However, they can be saved by transplanting the valves of a pig's heart to your friend's system. Do you allow the surgeon to kill the pig to save your friend? Or have your friend die?
This is obviously a drastic situation that I bring up. However it brings about the question, is a human life more important than an animals? This is why I am 100% behind Animal research and experimentation. The amazing medical advances that were made by Louis Pasture would have been made either impossible or delayed to a point that lives that were saved by his work would have been lost. Also, the lives that were/are saved by the drug Penicillin are uncountable. It was used in wars to save wounded and at home to cure diseases. Now let's say that animal testing had not been used in developing the drug? Then it could have very easily been delayed to a point where it was not available for the Second World War. Thousands of men would have lost their lives to the infection caused by their wounds. Is the lives of the animal used in this experimentation worth the lives of the men who fought for us?
There is another area that animal testing that has made a huge difference; the advancement of cures and vaccines for cancer. I would like to refer to an online article www.highlighthealth.com/biomedical-research/the-benefits-of-animal-research. It speaks of how testing on dogs helped to develop a vaccine for Glioblastoma, a cancer that has the ability to kill its victim in one to two years. Despite surgery, radiation and chemotherapy this cancer still killed. Without the animal testing this form of vaccine would never have been developed.
All in all Animal research is a necessary and vital part of our medical world. Without it thousands of lives would have been lost. The ethical questions that are called into mind when experimenting on animals are far overshadowed by the results that are produced. It is our right as the planets dominate species to further own lives and gains by any means necessary. So long as the animals are not treated with cruelty or subject to undue amounts of pain because of the experiments.
Sara B
ReplyDeleteIn response to the articles and our discussion in class my position has remain unchanged. No one can argue the medical and scientific benefits that have resulted from animal testing, the only argument against it would be that it is immoral. Those who are against animal testing most obviously find it morally flawed, but in all truth that cant really be applied. The reason is that regardless to whether its immoral or not, we would find it more disturbing and wrong to allow a human to die for an animals life. In the discussion Cam mentioned how we as a species will do what it takes to survive, that mindset changes what we find to be moral or not. In the end its not about whether animal testing has any moral faults but rather what we find to be more righteous, the fact is that we find it more moral to preserve a human life then to lose one for the sake of an animals. Our true morals lie within the boundaries of our species.
I am, as the class already knows, in full support of the use of animals in medical testing. In the pro-testing article, the testing of meningitis medication and vaccines on monkeys in 1992 is cited. Coincidentally, in August of 1994, I, at two weeks old, contracted spinal meningitis. My situation was so dire, in fact, I was strapped to a board, IV's and sensors strapped or inserted into every inch of my tiny body, and baptized on a hospital bed, because my parents truly believed that I was not going to survive. Those very same medications tested on those very same monkeys saved my life, and I will be forever indebted to both the scientists, but more specifically, the monkeys, who lost their lives so that I, and thousands of other people, could keep mine. As can be imagined, I am a strong proponent of animal testing in a medical setting. Even my mother, once a deep believer in PETA and the inherent wrongness and evilness of animal testing, acknowledged the need of it in some situations. Why? because her son was saved by it.
ReplyDeleteNo human being would allow their offspring to die in such a manner, because it is human nature to keep your child alive. Such an individual who would allow their child to die for the sake of such an ideal would be considered a human of psychological abnormality, and possibly disorder, akin to those, like Scientologists or super fundamentalist Christians. Thus, it can be deduced, that idealists are crazy. I dare you to wax idealistic when you're six feet under everyone else. no one will hear you, because the earth is fairly soundproof.
Of course, my argument is not without it's flaws. I do harbor some humanistic feelings that seem to have come from my own Catholic upbringing, and though I wouldnt be citing scripture to defend them, much of my opinion comes from being a christian, or at least donning the robes of one when it suits me. Also, there are rumors in the scientific and medical communities that those very same drugs that saved my life also may have caused the interrupted brain synapses that cause my stutter. Perhaps, because monkey's cant talk, this had never shown up in testing. But, quite honestly, I really like to live, so I'm okay with stuttering, it's quite alright.
This issue is complex and deep, and there is no right or wrong side. Both sides have merit, but I think, somewhere in the middle it can be accepted that animal testing is a necessary evil, but one that should be severely restricted to medical use, and even then, one that should have to be approved on a case-by-case basis.