• Question: Why do you test on animals?! its not fair!

    Asked by laniiefanie to Darren, Gavin, Liz, Panos, Vijay on 4 Dec 2011.
    • Photo: Vijay Yadav

      Vijay Yadav answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      We use cell culture as far as possible, but somethings can not be studied in isolation. Like for example how our brain or bones works, as they are made of lot of different kinds of cells which talk to each other and other organs to make it work.

    • Photo: Darren Logan

      Darren Logan answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      Hi Ianiiefanie.

      We always try and use alternatives to animals whenever possible (in fact, the law says we must do this and inspectors from the Government ensure we do). So like Vijay we use cells and we also use computer analysis as much as as can. Ultimately, though, if we wish to understand the genes that allow our brains and body to interact, we have to study something with a brain and a body. There simply isn’t another way at the moment.

      My lab is a little unusual in that it studies animal behaviour, so quite a lot of our work involves understanding how animals live and interact naturally. This enables us to make advances in animal welfare and therefore improve the life of animals. I have submitted a proposal to an animal welfare charity, for example, for a study into finding what types of smells make animals stressed, so we can keep them away from animals in future.

      But ultimately we have to make difficult choices with animal testing. People with serious diseases like Alzheimers disease will also think it is not fair on them to suffer. If we wish to cure or treat these diseases, we need to accept that using animals is a sad, but necessary part of that. Currently our society accepts that choice, but it doesn’t have to. We could change the law to stop animal testing, but would you feel the same way if you were dying of a disease that is currently untreatable, and animal testing offered you a lifeline? Its a pretty tricky ethical question.

    • Photo: Panos Deloukas

      Panos Deloukas answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      research is also very active in generating more alternatives for example reprogramming fibroblasts (skin cels) to become stem cells and then differentiate to other cell types will further reduce the need for experimentation in animals

    • Photo: Gavin Wright

      Gavin Wright answered on 4 Dec 2011:

      laniiefanie – you’ve asked one the most frequent and difficult ethical questions that scientists have to deal with regularly. I’ve thought about this a lot myself and there are no easy solutions. Yes, at first it seems unfair that animals are used in scientific research. However, if you’ve ever taken a medicine then this would not have been possible without using animals in research. How would you feel if you had to tell a mother that her sick baby could not be cured because we don’t have the right medicine? Or, if you yourself were seriously ill and there were no medicines to help you? If we banned all animal testing then we’d have no new safe medicines.
      All animal testing is strictly regulated in this country – a licence is required and members of the public can see these licence applications so that nothing is “hidden away”. In fact, no other country in the world has stricter regulations – if animal testing was banned in this country testing would move to other countries where the regulations aren’t as strict.
      We live in a democracy and so the law could be changed to ban animal testing – and if that happened all animal testing would stop.
      Another thing to think about is which organisms do you object to being used in testing. Several different organisms are used in research: would you have a problem with microorganisms (bacteria), plants, flies, worms, fish, frogs or is it just mammals such as mice or rabbits? For most people there is a line – few people object to using plants but don’t like the idea of using rabbits. But think: they are both living creatures – why is it okay to use one but not the other?

    • Photo: Liz Murchison

      Liz Murchison answered on 4 Dec 2011:

      Laniifanie, much of our understanding of biology and diseases has come from doing research with animals. My research is aimed at saving animals, but even to save animals sometimes it is necessary to do experiments with animals. How would you know whether a new treatment might work if you don’t test it on the animal itself? I do strongly believe that we should avoid experimenting on animals and causing animals suffering as much as possible. But in some cases, in order to make great progress in helping and curing animals and humans from terrible diseases, it is justified to test on animals.

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