No Animal Testing:Relinquishing your right to have care aided by animal testing.

This is a fascinating discussion; I'd never thought about this aspect of this issue before. Well done, doc!

 

I've never seen it in that way. I don't regard myself as morally superior or inferior to anyone. We all make the best choices we're able, and I don't think it serves much purpose to try and claim credit for that. I mean am I ethically superior to a meat eater who spends every free hour doing voluntary work for some charity or other? Am I morally superior to a paedophile, even though they've been made the way they are through being abused themselves? Am I morally inferior to a vegan who beats his girlfriend?

I don't understand your point, sorry. Are you saying you think toxicity testing is ok?

I'm certainly being lazy and dismissive. I've been having this argument with people for nearly twenty years, so I'm a bit tired of raking over the same facts time and again. My personal opinion is that animal experimentation is cruel, barbaric, and perhaps more importantly, it's bad science. Animals do not respond to chemicals in the same way as humans. If they do, it's blind luck and doesn't prove anything. You might as well have guessed.

I'm really sorry Matthew, I honestly can't follow that sentence. Could you possiblty explain it a little more clearly? :&

 

i'm not a christian, but i'm not going to hammer on christians. i'm not vegan, in fact i'm a hunter, but i'm not going to hammer on people who don't wish to benefit in any way shape or form by the usage of animals. voicing their opinions is their right, protesting animal usage is also their right. they are working towards what they believe to be the right thing to do. they will plead their cause, i will plead my own. but getting all cranky and hateful about it never solved anything.

 

hmm a very interesting discussion.....personaly i'm against testing anything on animals.. but I'm going to have to admit to being hypocritical here as i'm asthmatic and need to take preventors and relievers that have at some stage been tested on animals.
My question would be this....if testing a drug is so necessary and we are now capable of cloning...why not clone humans for this purpose...surely this is no more barbaric than using defenceless animals? and if that thought is so abhorant then the answer is simple... testing on ALL life should be an illegal act.
If your neighbour mistreats his pet he is committing an offence.. if a scientist does it he isnt?

 

as for relinquishing my right to have care aided by animal testing... if there was an alternative right now i'd say yes..without a doubt.... if there was no alternative..i'd have to seriously question myself.... to breathe or not to breathe... somehow if my back was against the wall and i had to choose i would say 'not in my name' my life is no more important than any other living creature

 

Yes, I'd rather use medicines that were not tested on animals. This includes medicine tested in a number of various modern techniques. To read about certain examples of non-animal testing, go to www.pcrm.org
Humans can also use homeopathic medicine and medicine that has been already in place for years. Why make more and keep testing? We have enough advantage as it is.

And, yes- I am against animal testing- so I have discontinued my prescription medicines that I have taken for years, and I deal with my health problems in a more holistic way now- and I feel healthier than ever.

 

Fucking hell, Matthew. You're one deeply suspicious dude! I'm not trying to catch you out or something. I just thought it was an interesting moral question that you posed, regardless of the context, so I pondered it. What's the problem?

It's not the same. An egg couldn't exist without a chicken laying it, and every egg laid involves fresh suffering. But a drug could easily exist without animal testing, and once they exist, each further dose of that drug does not involve ongoing animal suffering. I don't think it's a like-for-like comparison.

In some areas, absolutely. And frankly, I'm pretty suspicious of conventional medicine anyway. But sometimes conventional medicine is still the best option.

I'm sorry Matthew, but I find your sentence structure almost impossible to understand sometimes. I'm not sure what you're actually asking here. Are you asking whether I'd rather die than use a product that had been tested on animals? If so, the answer is no. However, if the choice was before the event.... if someone were to say "the only way we can find you a cure is to test on animals", then I'd rather die. After the event though, turning down a cure wouldn't make any difference, so it'd be an empty gesture. However, I still feel like the whole discussion diverts from the real issue: animal testing is based on dubious science and is not necessary.

 

But you really didn't need to do that. I was exploring the issue of ethics - not accusing you of saying something you didn't.

What's pedantic about trying to discuss the issue in depth? If you want a simple 'yes/no' soundbite discussion, maybe you should just go read some tabloid papers? And it would really help the conversation if you'd treat this more like a discussion and less like an argument.

Oh, right. I assume then you're asking me if I'd take a drug that had been developed in the dim and misty past through the torture of children if it would save my life? Yes, absolutely I would. Not taking it doesn't change anything.

 

You already have that right. All you have to do is never go to the hospital. Seriously.

For example, if you are diabetic, don't take your insulin. If not for pigs, you would not have it.

I Don't think we should be putting shampoo into rabbits' eyes to see what happens. That is nasty. We should instead be using natural ingredients.

But medicine...in a life or death situation...sorry, my loved ones come before animals, and I sleep just fine.

This argument is a bit lame though....because if not for a whole lot of animal-related medicine, you and I would not likely be here.....small pox vaccines were first discovered because dairy maids became immune. Insulin. Penicillin. It's easy to give something away when it's been handed to you.

 

Yes, I already have....While my mother was pregnant she got German measles, so I was born with major heart problems. I had open-heart surgery when I was in high school.

My need for surgery had nothing to do with the food I ate or my lifestyle.....



heart lung machine

About 300,000 open heart operations are carried out every year in the UK. Open heart surgery is possible because medical research developed the heart lung machine to bypass the heart and lungs, taking over both the pumping of the blood and its oxygenation. This requires safe ways to stop the heart and to prevent the formation of lethal blood clots. Under these conditions the heart can be operated on for many hours, and delicate procedures such as heart valve replacements can be performed. Animal research was crucial to all these developments.

Developing heart bypass using animals

Bypass of the heart using an external circulation was first tried by John Gibbon in 1937.1 Partially replacing the circulation between the heart and the lungs, he managed to keep a cat alive in this way for four hours. Two years later, under sterile conditions, 3 out of 13 cats survived for more than 250 days following similar procedures, with the remaining animals living for between 1 and 23 days.2 During these early experiments, Gibbon tested various types of pump and oxygenator. He found that a pulsing flow, like that produced by the heart, was not necessary, so a simple roller pump could be used to provide continuous flow. He developed an artificial lung based on a spinning hollow cylinder into which the blood was trickled. This spread into a thin film under centrifugal force to facilitate absorption of oxygen which was fed in under pressure. Oxygenated blood was collected at the bottom of the cylinder and fed back into the animal. After World War II, Gibbon and his colleagues3 started extensive experiments in dogs to test the effects of the prolonged passage of blood through an artificial lung and total exclusion of the heart and lungs from the circulation. He discovered that simply passing the blood through the external artificial circuit caused death in less than 12 hours from multiple small blood clots. This problem was overcome by incorporation of a fine metal mesh filter in the circuit.
If you have problems with your heart and need any valves replaced...thank a pig!
need the above heart-lung machine...thank a dog!
need coronary bypass or transplant....thank many animals!

 

You can make a choice in the here and now... obviously the point of us not being here if .. is a valid point, but you can still make a choice..my mum ate meat thereby 'feeding' me and i am now a vegeterian.. should i go to to the hymalian mountains for 25 years for penanace .. surely not :sunglasse

 

Well sorry for not sticking strictly to your agenda! I thought it was an interesting issue - especially in the context of a discussion regarding morals - so I explored it. It had nothing to do with 'muddying the water'. What's the problem? Surely discussing the nature of ethics is entirely in keeping with this subject?

But Matthew, I'm attempting to discuss with you - not argue. That's the whole fucking point. You've thrown god alone knows how many accusations my way and I'm still trying to keep this as a polite conversation. Please stop picking a fight or looking for ill intent where there is none. You annoy me from time to time, but you're also a funny and reasonably intelligent guy. I'm honestly not out to attack and undermine you at every opportunity.

I absolutely would. I don't think that point was ever in question. However, my point about the 'dim and misty' past was just intended to illustrate the lunacy of refusing a medicine on the ethical grounds you describe. At what point would we draw the line? If the Catholic inquisition had invented a cure for cancer by experimenting on witches, would anyone in their right mind say that we shouldn't now use such a cure? Even though using it wouldn't change the past?

Not at all. I don't have anything to apologise for. I'd use a medicine that had been derived unethically without hesitation. After all, to do anything else would be to allow the vivisector to annexe all the cures in the world and put them beyond my reach. And ultimately, I've stated that I'd kill myself sooner than have another creature tortured to produce a cure in the present, and that's a pretty damn clear moral position. But you can't chage the past, so I don't see the point in suffering for a point of principle when what's done is done.

 

Ok Ok.. carry on.

Past experience impeading on present 'friendly relations'..... apologies..

Once upon a time everything seemed reasonable and rational even ethical.. You do [i agree] have to 'draw the line' somewhere but the question needs a 'yes' or 'no' .. not a 'maybe' or 'alright but'. The products of the 'dim and misty past' are as relevant as you wish to make them, conceding that they are ok because they are a cure [say they are just a stop gap from pain and no cure at all] is a compromise [and dare i say a cop out] imho... A lot of drugs are in no way cures and having operations squawkers7 highlights, is a choice of either yes or no. You could reasonably assign everything to the 'dim and misty past' if you wished... 5 10 15 years where do you draw the line ?.

Animal testing and research is ongoing so the aplications and medicines or cures are not likely to be available fo many years. Declaring that [on principle] 'From this day forward i will not benefit from the 'torture' of animals' is not something you would go for then ?... I appreciate having a howard hughesesque fixation on the things you touch and have done to you is slightly ridiculous and [like you say] 'At what point would we draw the line'... We are vegeterians for a reason and we don't eat meat that died of old age or in its sleep do we..?.
Fundementaly a principle of 'trying our best' would apply imho . Everything around us is tainted in some way with suffering and pain but imho just mark out your goal posts and 'do your best'.

 

It cuts both ways. Now let it go and move on, young padawan

Well I've already explained my position, so I'm not too sure what further clarification's required. But again, I have to say that I think the question is (unintentionally) misleading, since it tends to imply that animal experimentation is necessary and we're all reaping the benefits of it.

Look, don't get too hung up on the 'dim and misty' past phrase. It's simply a way of highlighting that it's not a black and white issue. I mean can you be sure that some of the medical science you currently enjoy the benefits of wasn't advanced through cutting up human subjects in mediaeval times? And if that was the case, would you stop taking advantage of such science? Or would you shrug, and say "what's done is done"?

Agreed. But it's still a misleading question. These procedures could have been arrived at though other means. Just because scientist were (in my opinion) foolish enough to follow the animal experimentation route, does that mean that I should allow them to put such procedures beyond my reach by having ethically tainted them?

I agree. That's exactly my point. The past is the past. We have no control over it. We can't change it. So why should we base out ethical decisions on something that can't be undone?

I think part of the problem with this discussion is that we're coming from opposite ends of the argument: you seem (I think) to believe that animal experimentation was necessary for these medical advances in the first place, so by taking advantage of these advances we're reaping the benefits of a process of which we disapprove. My position is that these medical advances could've been developed through different techniques, so I don't see them as being intrinsically linked to animal experimentation. It's not my responsibility if someone chose to follow the less ethical path to their discovery.

What if someone went to Mars on a spaceship fuelled by little babies and brought back a plant that cured cancer? Would we decline to use it because of the little babies that had been burned to get to Mars, or would we still use it because the plant was always out there waiting to be found, regardless of whether someone chose to reach it on a baby-fuelled rocket?

I don't see it that way. I don't see it was 'benefiting from the torture of animals' any more than I see buying Jack Daniels as 'benefiting from the exploitation of the Native Americans'. Once you've arrived at something, you can't change the past.

On the other hand, if I felt that using a cure or medical procedure was somehow contributing to the ongoing process of vivisection, then it would be something that I'd wish to avoid.

No, but then I don't stumble across fresh cow corpses very often. If I did, and I felt a craving for a steak, I'd have no ethical problem carving off a rump

Well I certainly agree with that statement. Living an ethically pure life is virtually impossible, so all we can do is our best.

 

Quote:
A lot of drugs are in no way cures and having operations squawkers7 highlights, is a choice of either yes or no.
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at the time I had open-heart surgery, I had no idea that I would be thanking animals for the medical miracles. But if I needed the same surgery over today I would still go thru with it.
without the surgery I wouldn't be alive today & have my 7 kids.

 

*moves on* *lets go*
*forgets thread dedicated to ones self*
'reasonably inteligent' ??? 'mildly inteligent' at best.

Well versed as you are in these matters.. i have to disagree [not for arguements sake] . There is a quantifiable amount of data that does not hold that it is unbenificial. Necessary it is at this time , though even the site concedes:

RDS believes that research using animals should be well regulated, conducted humanely and only when there is no alternative. We work with welfare groups and government to promote good practice in laboratory animal welfare and the development of non-animal replacement methods.

I won't continue disputing your belief , but i think you are wrong.

As i am not signing this form .. i would not have this as a dilemma. I understand that advances are inter linked and that nothing is going to be 'pure'.. The solution would be to remove yourself from ALL medicine that is based on human/animal experimentation . Like jehovah witness's who refuse blood http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/08/23/1184199-sun.html You just refuse it.. point blank. Taking advantage of medicine is a choice.. thats the choice somebody would have to make.

It is not a misleading question , just you have no quibbles about justifying the use of certain things, thats fine. I suppose it comes down to self preservation and the right to have treatment of your choice. I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands of other treatments where none of the ethicaly difficult conundrums apply.. unfortunatly i think we don't have them available as widly as they could/should be [not that i have looked that intently].

Opt out the 'system'.

'necessary' mmm naively yes i think so, but:
'What if' they never did these experiments ?.. We could be in a completly different paradigm right now.. good or bad ..
It would be arrogant to conclude either way imho.

You have a vivid imagination thats for sure.

Your very pragmatic. How deeply did you look at the drugs or procedures you may have had in the past.. and how thoroughly would you look at the treatment you may have in the future?. You would still face the quandry this threads question [albeit pedantic i have to admit] puts forward.

Really ?... you suprise me. I suppose you could find some friendly farmer who looks after 'old betsy' into her old age and lets he die peacefully with her friends and family gathered around her [if you se desired].

Glad we agree on something

 

um as someone who works at an animal testing facility i have to say something on our behaf! the animals we test on are dicks! they deserve it! like this one time i was taking bone marrow out of a dog (we ran out of sedatives) and the effing bitch bit me! she can rot in hell for that(fyi i dont use sedatoves on that dog anymore) soo now that thats all cleared up you know those animals deserve it