Animal Testing

"We care about the environment and other animals species because they either directly or indirectly benefit us." -So if you believe this to be the case, then any points about the "natural rights" or "equality" of animals can be set aside. Whether animal testing is ethical or not is no longer a component of this debate from this viewpoint. "According to David Graham, associate director of the US Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety, an estimated 88,000 to 139,000 Americans alone had heart attacks or strokes as a result of taking Vioxx, as many as 55,000 of them fatal." According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org...) over 80 million people were prescribed rofecoxib (trade name Vioxx). When you consider that the "disastrous effects" of the drug were only present in less that one-fifth of a percent of patients receiving the drug, you have to wonder whether any study, animal or human, could have predicted its effects. "Drugs originate not from such [animal-based] tests but from clinical observation, serendipity and rational drug design." -I believe you may have missed the point I was trying to make (lost among the rambling sentences of my last argument, I'll admit). The main purpose of animal toxicology testing (the kind of testing you are referring to when you mention how animal testing doesn't prevent drug disasters such as the thalidomide tragedy) is NOT to ensure the safety of a drug, but to try to uncover possible effects of a drug without administering it to humans. For example, if a drug is shown to cause brain damage in mice, then researchers would try to figure out exactly how the drug caused this damage. If it is determined that the drug would have the same effect on humans, then it would not be given to the public, however, if the damage is such that it would only appear in mice, or if the mice suffered no ill effects from the drug, then further testing would be conducted. Yes, it is true that the testing process we currently use is fallible, but so is any sort of testing, animal or human. And no testing is even more open to disasters such as the ones you describe. Scientists admit that animal testing is not the be-all and end-all method of determining whether a substance is toxic or not, it is merely a "preliminary" sort of screening for any drug. All the examples you state for drugs that produce different effects in animals are the exceptions. Animal testing with a variety of species and conditions will be quite accurate, just as any sort of human study will be more accurate with a large, representative sample. I also feel that in our debate we have neglected other kinds of animal-based research, such as in the relatively new fields of genetics and bio-engineering, focusing mainly on toxicology testing. In conclusion, animal testing is beneficial because it provides a safe way to test a drug, at least as a sort of preliminary test, without the excess cost and ethical concerns of human testing. Some research requires animal subjects, such as in determining how a gene will affect life-span or future generations, or for inter-species comparative studies. There are countless examples of medical and scientific breakthroughs that would never have occurred without animal testing practices. However, like anything, animal research is still a work in progress. Alternatives such as microdose testing may one day decrease our reliance on animal testing, but as of right now they are either too expensive or not completely developed to become substitutes, and I doubt that they will ever become reliable enough to do away with animal testing completely. Like I mentioned before, we can never be completely sure, and that is why we do testing like this: to compensate for any knowledge we don't know we lack.