Debates of all sorts discussion

What do you think? Should animal testing be allowed?

Animal testing for products is awful, for medical reasons its still wrong it doesn't benefit the animals in any way.

Hey for products it's pointless. But medicine, it could save peoples lives and the lives of people matter a lot more to me then some little creatures.

But their not just some little creatures their lives too.

I'm definitely against testing animals for makeup, for medical purposes...I'm a bit on the borderline. On the one hand, it's definitely unfair to count ourselves as above certain animals - rats especially - but on the other hand, I am naturally prejudiced towards humans, I suppose...and they can give a pretty fair guess as to how it will affect humans generally.

They don't have the intelligence that humans do they don't have the same thought process or anything, there main thoughts are the most primitive thoughts, food, reproduction, sleep, and defecation. The lives of animals aren't as important to me as humans.

Cody wrote: "there main thoughts are the most primitive thoughts"

There I must disagree. Rats are more advanced than that, they have the same social needs as we do and are quite smart and curious.

Rats?... Rats are gross... I've actually never heard that... Regardless, I still consider them under humans. We are the most advanced race on earth, and if by killing a rat or two we can save thousands of humans lives it's worth it. The whole make up products thing is stupid though.

They feel pain though.It is cruel to test on them, they should be in the wild or kept as pets and have a happy life.

Hmm kill a few worthless animals and save thousands of lives? Or let some animals live and have thousands of humans suffer through a disease. It's not worth it in the slightest.

I'm not saying let the human race suffer, why not stop the torture of animals and research other ways of testing things.

Because live testing is the best way to do it. You get to see direct correlation between the treatment and the body, it get's rid of a lot of factors. It is the absolute best way to study new medicines.

But morally is it right?

Pretty much, the pros out weigh the cons immensely so yes.

Have you seen the way some of the animals suffer, they have their life taken away from them to save ours, and they suffer allot sometimes.

It's for the greater good though. Sometimes sacrifices are needed to save more lives.

But their are alternatives to animal testing, so its unnecessary.

The alternatives aren't nearly as good. They leave many more variables, you don't get direct results you instead get a not fully tested product that could harm a person over some animal. It is pretty much necessary.

Cell culture is currently the most successful, and promising, alternative to animal use. For example, cultured cells have been developed to create monoclonal antibodies, prior to this production required animals to undergo a procedure likely to cause pain and distress.

This seems like the most logical alternitive to animal testing

It doesn't show physical effects to the medication though. physical effects are very important. You may heal the person but if the medication puts the person in the hospital with a different reaction, well you really didn't help much.

To inflict a animal with the same amount of suffering isn't right though, healing one life and ruining another isn't how it should be

But it heals more then one life, the research can be used on thousands. Besides they're just animals. We are at the top of the food chain for a reason.

To me their not just animals, they are lives who have done nothing wrong, or to harm us.

But don't you see the potential?! We can save thousands of people. I don't care about a few little creatures whose lives basically have no meaning as it is. By putting them through research they can save thousands.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. It is not right to kill animals to save ourselves, especially when their are alternatives, and personally i would rather scientists spent more time researching alternatives than harming animals.

Like I've said, the alternatives aren't nearly as effective. You don't get the physical results you get from cells that you get with animal testing.

But there is allot of potential in this research, it would stop the suffering of animals and cure disease. So why cause more suffering than necessary?

I'm okay with them trying to find a better way, but as of now it's the best way. They should focus on saving lives using the method they know works before they try and change their methods.

I don't think it is the best way when people and animals are still suffering.

Cody wrote: "Rats?... Rats are gross... I've actually never heard that... Regardless, I still consider them under humans. We are the most advanced race on earth, and if by killing a rat or two we can save thous..."

You're gross :( Rats will commit suicide if they don't have playmates/feel unloved. They're not far below humans emotion-wise at all.
But I agree that the sacrifice is worth it.

Cody wrote: "I'm okay with them trying to find a better way, but as of now it's the best way. They should focus on saving lives using the method they know works before they try and change their methods."

Agreed. The new methods are well worth testing, but thus far they simply aren't as good.

It's the most effective way of finding as many effects on a body by medicine that we have. The fact that people are still suffering is because we don't necessarily have the knowledge of cures for everything yet, not due to testing.

That is why more research needs to be done.

It does. However, we should not stop using the tried-and-true method in the meantime.

Yes more research needs done on everything. But that doesn't mean we should completely drop our current techniques in hope we'll find a new one, we may not find a new one.

I think animal testing on a whole is rather terrible. Let's think of it this way, how would you like it if rats started using you for testing? But it's okay because it saves millions of lives of other rats? Simply because we believe we are more intelligent than them doesn't mean we should hold the right to putting harsh experiments on them...that's what I think.

Let's think of it this way, how would you like it if rats started using you for testing?

Haha, I actually started writing a story like that once... about rats that did experiments on lab humans. It was not very good. o__o

Brigid *Flying Kick-a-pow!* wrote: "Let's think of it this way, how would you like it if rats started using you for testing?

Haha, I actually started writing a story like that once... about rats that did experiments on lab humans. I..."

It sounds like an awesome premise!

Please, watch the recent Curiosity on Discovery called "Can you live forever" none of that will ever be possible without live testing, it is required and quite frankly I don't care about a few damn rats.

I don't care about the cosmetic testing, they can test on themselves. But (many) medical testing needs a living thing for accurate results

Cody wrote: "Please, watch the recent Curiosity on Discovery called "Can you live forever" none of that will ever be possible without live testing, it is required and quite frankly I don't care about a few damn..."

And those rats wouldn't care about a few damn humans. Would that be fair?

Cody wrote: "I don't care about the cosmetic testing, they can test on themselves. But (many) medical testing needs a living thing for accurate results"

I can understand what you're getting at, but you fail to realize that they are indeed living. Just because they can not cry out in pain or speak to you doesn't mean they are somehow your property to experiment on.

But that's the thing, the rats can't do anything about it. The rats aren't going to lead an uprising, besides the reproduce like crazy it's not like we're even denting their population.

They can't do anything about it...is that somehow making it better to test on them? Humans also reproduce like crazy, killing a few of them for testing wouldn't even be denting their population.

Hey if people want to donate their living bodies to science I say go ahead! If they're lucky it would be a medical breakthrough, if not well they may die.

The odd part is that many don't donate their bodies but end up tested on anyway...

Moving on, the same for rats. I'm not saying rats are more important than humans but we can't completely disregard them as living species simply because we are of higher intellect.

We don't! But as of now they heavily populate everywhere, their species will be just fine. Sacrificing a few of them to decrease suffering in our own species is perfectly fine. Many rats die from exterminators anyways, might as well make use of some of them.

Yes, yes we do. And it's not just "a few of them". I don't know the exact rates of animal testing but I can assure you it's not just "a few" of them. And this isn't just about rats. Chimps, rabbits, guinea pigs and even dogs are used to "decrease suffering in our own species". And it's not just for scientific use. Many of these experiments are doing nothing to help the human race progress what so ever. If it was just a few rats helping to cure cancer do you think anyone would really be against it?

Well... Probably but that's not the point you're making. I'm against needless testing. "Hmm I wonder if I inject this cyanide into the dogs eyeball what it will do" *dog dies horrendously* "Oh crap". No no no, I don't want that, but "Hmm I wonder if I sent this old and dying creatures blood through a blood scrubber to remove old and dead read blood cells and allow the body to make new cells again what would happen" *does it, creature is basically young again* "That's amazing!"

Well, okay, that's not so bad. But I still think we should test on animals a lot less than we do -- they aren't our property to experiment on.

Also what else are we going to test on? It's the best thing we've got.