Animal Experiment Ethics

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Simon says...
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Animal Experiment Ethics

Post by Simon says... »

I'm working in the Pharma industry at the moment so know a thing or two on this topic, and believe me the paper work involved is amazing, and there are so many regulations and stuff scientists are no longer aloud to do to the animals...

However, some may think this is not enough, for at the end of the day we use animals to cheak if a drug is safe to use in humans, in other words we use animals as living shields against harm, which should ring a few alarm bells surely. The question though is, is it worth it? For how many would die both animal and human where it not for the pharmasuticals?

On the flip side, if we could chuck the ethics stuff out the window on experiments, how much more could we learn and how many more could we save?

What think you ethicists?
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ontologic_conceptualist
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Post by ontologic_conceptualist »

I have NO experience in this field & I may sound cruel, but if it helps the survival of our own species, do it, sure, I've seen all manner of vid. showing the horrors, but shoot, look at some of the horrors that could be provented by the development of specialized drugs, cures ect. human experimentation is in most part out of the question, I'd rather take out a few thousand rats, hundreds of monkeys, dogs, cats ect. than start first line experimentation on humans !!!

We predate on animals every damn day, killing for our food(survival), killing for sport(Just for the fun of it), so why should you want to save the animals, just because they're cute 'n cuddly?

I'm a huge dog lover myself, but damn, we have to live too.

ask yourself this question & don't try to B.S. anyone here or yourself...

If it was yours or your child's life or your precious loved pet of 15+/- years...which would you give up?

Put that in your hat !!!
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wanabe
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Post by wanabe »

we could learn a great deal, we need to be more open to the idea of human experiments as well. Maybe death penalty types. Just to be fair to the other forms of life that we so readily abuse. we really could learn even more if we experimented on humans as well.

While at the same time....

I think we should let natural selection run its course, and be as organic as possible, regardless of the deaths that happen, this is not to say we shouldn't utilize natural remedies, or forget what we have learned.
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ontologic_conceptualist- you must see of course that flagrant/belligerent exploitation, of any species is a exploitation to all species, in the long run especially.

Why are humans so important, cause were “cute 'n cuddly”?

were all trapped on this rock together, for now. we are not going to be able to leave soon enough to justify the exploitation of our planet and its life.
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
Most importantly learning some thing from it doesn't make it the right thing to do, only justifiable.. from a purely ethical stand point, we should stop playing god.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
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ontologic_conceptualist
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Post by ontologic_conceptualist »

Don't get me wrong, but the whole point of animal experimentation is to work out as many 'Kinks' as possible before human experimentation...you may not liked the way I worded it, blunt, cold and possibly even coming off sadistically, but to me, it's a matter of lesser of two evils when it comes to human survival, I'm not a bad guy...just want the best for humans, I eat animals for survival, wear them, might as well, use them to help me(humanity) survive in other ways too !!!
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wanabe
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Post by wanabe »

i have no problem with your wording, its to the point.

why stop with animals, especially since ultimately the drug is going to be used on humans anyway. were one of the most numerous and expendable species, and it would get those oh so needed products to the market faster if we were to test on humans. more over were the only ones who do harm to the planet so loosing a few of us isn't the worst thing that can happen.

yes all people can contribute to society and make life better, unlike the animals, especially if they volunteer to be tested on........are you beginning to see the irony?

we don't put our selves first rightly because we are better than the animals. we do it because we are humans, easy to empathize with ones own species, we play favorites.

i mean we set up this whole moral system to be make fair happen in a unfair world. so lets be fair and test on humans too.

why can't we eat people for survival, and wear them and so on, to help the greater good?
~~~~~~~ ~~~
again in all seriousness we really should just learn to deal with the things nature throws at us naturally and then there would be no need for this ethical debate.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
Simon says...
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Post by Simon says... »

I'm not going to try to remove animal testing (cos if I did my dad would be out of a job and we would have no new pharmasuticals) but neither am I going to ignore the potential ethical qualms that may ensue. Statements like "humans are better than other animals" ring alarm bells for free, partly due to it being completely untrue in any case and partly because I believe that no sentitent being in existence is any better or worse than any other, ever...and I think the only reason to think other wise is a desire to dislike other beings and feel justified in doing so.

From my perspective ethics is not about splitting beings into good and evil but looking at the good and evil of the actions, consequences and intensions...and if they are evil, it is not the fault of the moral agent (who merely has genetics and part experiance to guide his/her/its actions of which they did not choose for free will is non-existent) but is a genuinely unfortunate circumstance for all involved.

So as regards the actions, consequences and intensions what are the ethical qualms. Well first off there is that fact that one is using another being as a living shield against harm, yes experiments are done on humans of course, but only after numerous toxicology on animals, many of which involve pushing the animal to see how much it can take! The animals are also give a much higher dose, and so the dangers from toxicity and potency are much higher. So how are we to justify this conduct for our benefit of at the expense of theirs? (I know the answer but do you?)

It has also, only recently got better in fact, for now there is a mountain of paper work and research is not aloud to deliberately kill it's animals or make them suffer for something that isn't really important to know, and if any animals do die the whole project's safety margin (how low the dose is) is turned right up immediately. But this wasn't always the case, anyone can site experiments in the 60s and the like with Rhesus Monkeys and cats on LSD and its really appauling, and the question is was it worth it?

& in animals defence, they are just as much moral agents as we are, because as I explained, you can't just say "they only act on instinct and thus nothing they do has any validity morally" because if that is true, then neither does anything we do, because we too are animals and we too only act on instinct, the only difference is that our instincts, our drives are a bit more complicated than theirs, but free will has nothing to do with it, we do what we are compelled to do, be it helping others, helping ourselves or just sitting and doing nothing. It is the actions, intensions and consequences that have moral value in and of themselves and if you lack the moral ones then that is unfortunate but its not your fault, all you can do is hope that you experiance some stimulus that will compell you to the moral ones (maybe even this thing your reading). That which compells us are our instincts, and our experiances.

Animals are also moral agents, elephants who flock togethar to defend another's calf from lions at the risk of their own, bees who give their lives for the hive, wolves who work togethar to survive, any animal that shows care and compassion to its young...human's are hardly unique in that we have moral urges, moral instincts.
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wanabe
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Post by wanabe »

whats your answer Simonsays, to: "So how are we to justify this conduct for our benefit of at the expense of theirs?"

if you know an answer that you believe to be truth. it would be immoral to hold it from us, because not knowing could cause harm, so do tell.

the only true justification would be to protect the natural habitat of all life, which is something were failing at. they "take care" of us we take care of them; is just not happening.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
Simon says...
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Post by Simon says... »

LOL fair enough, I was hoping not to be preaching a monologue but to have a discussion but since you asked...

Essentially, a human being has a lot more to loose, a rat, lives for three odd years. Such creatures as rats are also a lot easier to keep happy, and many of the rats that we experiment on are happy...well, we try at least...

For example, the only needs a rat has to be happy (happiness is the body's way of telling you its reached biologically equilibrium) are plenty of food (which we give it) shelter, which we give it, company of other rats (which we give it), ability to reproduce (which we need to give it if we want more test subjects) and affection (there is a lot of stroking involved)...So we attend to all these basic needs and they are perfectly happy, and we make a huge effort not to put them in discomfort. & of course, in three years they will die anyway, so it is actually better for the rat to potentially die of drug overdose, than gradually grow old and weak and sick...like most humans do in fact! So actually, the animals have it better than we do!

Stuff like apes are more expensive for they are smarter and need at lot more care and attension to be happy, and they also have a nasty habit of knowing what your doing to them and protesting so we tend not to use them nearly as much, which is a pain for they are most related to humans and thus ideal test subjects.

A human on the other hand needs a lot more to be happy, and of course there is a golden opportunity, for a human is capable of consenting to the experiment. But humans have a habit of mating for life and forming much stronger emotional bonds than most species and so to kill them tends to be more disastrous on their loved ones...(rats tend not to have this issue). So basically, humans have much more to lose than rats do.

The obvious flaw here you would think is consent, for said rats can't consent to this...in answer...they really don't care...they cannot comprehend what we are doing, all they want in life is to be fed, loved, safe and shagged...and we are happy to provide that, and in return we get our clinical data...
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Post by ontologic_conceptualist »

You worry about the "Rat's concent", but tell me that either you or your family has NEVER purchased traps and/or poisons for said rats/mice or other undesirables in your house...

Don't you dare lie, I know damn well, you didn't say "Oh me, Oh my, no, we must get one of those 'Humane' traps, and let them out by a niebor's or elsewhere"

Those poisons & snap or glue traps can be far more cruel than any med experiment, I know, seeing the horrified look on the rat/mouse whose face is half burried in the glue, a rat/mouse that is futilely trying to drag a snap-trap because it's back is caught, snaped, but it lived, in pain, the poison that causes buckling pains, oh yes, very humane, very voluntary, far better than making their death at least a usefull one !!! :wink:

By the way, have you ever seen how they but those creatures that you eat every day down, those that you wear, there's no gun or quick painless drug, yah, download some vids, you may turn vegitarien very quick !!! :wink:

Trust me, being in the scientific community, the experimental animals get far more respect and treatment than you realize !!!
Last edited by ontologic_conceptualist on July 25th, 2009, 7:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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The question you should be asking is...who are you?
Simon says...
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Post by Simon says... »

Think I don't know all this?

What does any of that has to do with animal experiment ethics? All I'm doing is fine tuneing a very specific subject...If I wanted to discuss the ethics of pest control or the meat industry I would have posted a thread called "ethics of pest control & the meat industry"...but I didn't...So why are you ranting?

& by what evidence do you "know damn well"? Because actually we did invest in a non-lethal trap...But we don't have mice anyway, the beach martins ate them all...I'm not one to argue with the ecosystem...

& as a side note I've already voiced my views on the meat industry, in the Vegie thread...a lot of **** needs clearing up, I just don't think boycotting the industry outright actually helps...besides why not eat dead meat that you havn't actually payed for which is often the case for me...
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Post by wanabe »

We don't have a lot more to lose compared to a rat, we just have a circumstantial psychological construct that says we do.

Time is relative.

A rat is not happy in a laboratory, in his little cage.

You assume so much about the cognitive ability of rats, without seeing the obvious, that we keep them prisoner.

a safe and comfortable life in prison, is far better than the dangerous free world?

How the rat feels is very much part of the ethics of the situation.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
Simon says...
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Post by Simon says... »

So now we have OC saying they get a lot more respect and treatment than everyone realises, and wannabe saying they are not happy at all. Hmmm...Maybe you two should discuss that

Ok wannabe, so apprently I assume a lot about rat cognition when I say they are happy...ok why then are you not assuming when you say they are not? What makes you true and me false in that dilema?
I don't think they are cages as such btw...I mean they are not that big, their living quaters but still...

"a safe and comfortable life in prison, is far better than the dangerous free world?"

Um, depends how safe and comfortable and how dangerous doesn't it? No idea how long your average sewer rat lives or the quality of life, but I'm sure it's not pretty. Freedom to starve is no freedom!

Experimental rats never want for food! Unhappy unhealthy test subjects make for bad results at the best of times.
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wanabe
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Post by wanabe »

I'm not assuming anything. i know so little about what makes a rat happy.

i never said they weren't happy at all. I'm sure at times they are quite happy, due to their Stockholm syndrome.

by putting my self in the rats "shoes" i would not want to live a life in a tiny cage. only to be taken out to have giant objects shoved into me. or be made to consume strange substances.

the rats in the sewer have some kind of choice, and the ones in New York seem quite healthy, judging by their size. so they are hardly starving.

oc hasn't asked me any thing yet, so i will wait till he does.
Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, Help All Others To Do So.Meaning of Life Is Choice. Increase choice through direct perception. Golden rule+universality principal+Promote benefits-harm+logical consistency=morality.BeTheChange.
Simon says...
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Post by Simon says... »

Fair enough, but as you no noubt know, though "putting yourself in another's shoes" in other words "do as you would be done by" works fine in humans who have the same outlook on life as we do, it is a lot harder to do that with an animal. Their minds work differently from ours.

However, we reckon we do know quite a bit about animal psychology, and we think we know a lot about what constitutes "happy" in most species, for their seems to be a lot of both behavioural and neurological correlation between a happy rat, and a happy human (dopamine etc), just as there is correlation of panic.

Humans I think have a great need to think they are in control of a situation, which is why we always ask for their consent before hand. Animals like to be in control to I think, but I'm not sure to the same extent. It's interesting that (this is what I heard) that a lot of Rhesus monkeys, once they learn that being injected rarely ends badly and they get a reward afterwards, actually consent to the experiment (hold out their arm without any resistence at all).

In fact this is true of most species. Animals do consent to experiments, just as a dog consents to pretty much anything you train it to. Pavlov I think would have a thing or two to say about operant conditioning. One gives an animal a reward for certain behaviour and it will gladly repeat it if it thinks it will not be harmful to self. And these experiments rarely are harmful anymore, we have come a long way since the 60s.

But at the end of the day, we don't just inject animals with nasty chemicals that make them suffer, what is the point in that? That doesn't actually help, is expensive and is a waste of everyone's time. We inject them with what we think are safe chemicals...The idea is to cure organisms.
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Post by JELLEN »

Morally as an individual you have a right to question whether or not animals should be used in this manner to further man involvement as a species on this planet. One of the greatest attributes of the human being is to show love and affection. I believe that we cross boundaries when we are cruel to any species. The domimo effect is so noticable.You have to judge for yourself the importance of your work and live by your credo. All things are connected.
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