Very interesting thread. I have read Plague Dogs too and found it thought provoking and ultimately very depressing because I am sure too that all the experiments have or are still being done somewhere. Morally I think it is wrong. If I advocated using humans ( for example, convicted murderers, rapists, etc) the outcry would be immense with the "all life is sacred" cry predominating. Does not the "all life is sacred" apply to all manner of animals? Or is it just human life that is superior and therefore has the God given right to inflict suffering on inferior beings? I am pretty certain to the beagles being forced to inhale cigarette smoke (in order for us to deduce that smoking is bad for you and damages lungs - and the subsequent warnings being ignored by millions around the world who continue to smoke) that their lives - before the intervention of man - was sacred to them too.

The facts are that experiments ARE carried out on humans, with their consent in prison or out.

That is how we progress in life.

ANYONE who takes drugs of ANY description, is WILLINGLY supporting animal testing because they either were or still are being tested on them.

How many would say no to treatment that will cure or improve their health because the technique/drugs were tested on animals? Not many I expect, like NONE!!

Don't think I can like cheese anymore than I already do

I read the Plague Dogs when I was a kid in Junior High School... I dont remember much of it, the flies in the head thing does kinda stick with you, though. I liked it. Though I had a teacher tell me I shouldn't be reading that kind of stuff so young... but then I read the Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick when i was 12 so the Plague Dogs is a touch better than that LOL

Yes, I've read The Plague Dogs years ago. Richard Adams was/is an amazing writer. Of course he also wrote the incredible "Watership Down" as well. It's a very good book, although very dark, as you say...

Wys
x

Shame we can't just do the experiments on the convicted rapists, murderers, pedophiles etc that we have in prisons. I'd rather them suffer than innocent animals.

Testing of medicines I can understand although I don't like it, testing of things like make up however I think is wrong. I also eat meat, wear leather and probably use products that have been tested on animals so I guess I'm a hypocrite.

We are all hypocrites Sarah.

Every single advancement in the field of biomedical sciences has its basis in us understanding the basics of how the body functions, at a genetic, molecular, cellular and in vivo level.

All only possible through the use of animal models in research. In order to gain accurate data, we need large sample sizes from genetically identical cohorts. Not possible in humans, unless we start cloning people!

But! We are not just talking drug testing. Drugs are an end point of years and years (average is ten i think?)of research into a particular field.

Research isn't just let's take a drug and see what it does. Drugs are very specifically developed as targets for specific pathways/genes/proteins based on information we have gained through research in the first place.

Bottom line is no surgeries, blood transfusions, or treatment for any disease, would exist without this initial years and years worth of research. Maybe somewhere along the timeline human data has given us more info, or corrected an erroneous theory, but everything has it's basis in this "basal" level research.

Take cancer - how do you think cancer treatments even exist now? Becuase we have developed drugs that target specific cell types and specific signalling pathways known to be involved. How do we know what cancer is, what genes are implicated, what these genes function are in the body, how they interact with other genes etc etc etc - only through using animals as models. You simply could not get the required data from taking tumour samples from a sample of patients all with different genetic profiles skewing the results!

A point to remember too. The UK Home Office has highly strict laws regarding the use of animals in research. If banned here, all the major pharmas would do is move their research facilities to countries like China, Korea, or Japan, where there are NO animal welfare laws. Not a pleasant thought.

But what about the millions who have gave up smoking, or never started, because scientific research has made us aware that smoking causes lung cancer. Imagine we didn't know that, and the drugs companies had by now pushed to allow kids to smoke? It's easy to go "no way would that happen," but that's only because science had made you aware of the dangers of smoking.....

So what if that research had never happened? Doctors might suspect that smoking causes it, but there would be no actual peer reviewed research, just anecdocal evidence from doctors. For every case that we showed a person smoking with lung cancer, the tobacco companies could show a person who smokes without lung cancer, or a non smoker with lung cancer........

Without the correct experimental conditions only achievable in a lab environment, it's all just anecdocal evidence, and correlation does not equal causation....

The tobacco companies could still claim nothing is wrong with smoking. The certainly wouldn't publish the massive list of carcinogenic compounds found in cigarrettes (how do you think we know something in a carcinogen ) and in actual fact, when the research data was announced, they tried to prevent it's publication in the first place.