To suppose that opposing animal research is to advocate for testing on unwilling humans instead is a blatant false dichotomy and requires an absurd logical leap. It is not the case that we treat diseases by testing on animals or we test on unwilling mentally ill or poor people, and the fact that I even have to type that sentence is pretty ridiculous. There are a wealth of alternatives like en vitro, test methods and models based on human cell and tissue cultures, computerised patient-drug databases and virtual drug trials, computer models and simulations, stem cell and genetic testing methods, non-invasive imaging techniques such as MRIs and CT Scans, and micro dosing, to name a few. This isn’t just coming from me, there are many well respected figures in the bio-medical community who do not believe animal testing is in any way helpful anymore. We have undoubtedly gained a great deal from animal testing in the past, but people like Nobel-prize winning biologist Sir Peter Medawar pointed out that we will be at a point where we can dispense with animal research altogether in as few as ten years time, and that was in 1972.
Even ignoring ethical considerations, the animal model of research is deeply flawed, 9 out of 10 drugs that pass animal tests still go on to fail or cause harm in clinical trials on humans. UK based companies like Pharmagene use human tissue exclusively, not out of any ethical considerations, but because they believe that the animal testing model is scientifically redundant. Animals do not get many of the diseases that humans do, so these diseases must be artificially induced. This simply does not give us an accurate measure of how organically caught diseases will respond to treatment, human cell tissue gives us a much more accurate picture. To use cancer as an example, Fran Visco, founder of the National Breast Cancer Coalition said, “Animals don’t reflect the reality of cancer in humans. We cure cancer in animals all the time, but not in people.”
As for the research methodology, it is widely accepted that animal experiments have serious limitations in that results in humans cannot be extrapolated from results in animals. A mixture of high dosage, artificial introduction of diseases and stress conditions of animals in confinement mean there are simply too many variables to gain reliable results. The cures that work on animals very often do not work in humans. Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the US National Cancer Institute, points out that: “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.” So what do we actually gain from animal testing? Last year, globally, we killed 115 million animals in scientific experiments, yet the FDA approved only 35 new treatments. 115 million lives, for 35 new drugs? Does that sound like an efficient research model to you?
Today’s drug companies do the actual research with computer based and stem cell models, and are simply obliged to test on animals once that process has been completed, in many cases slowing down the process rather than helping it. For every research organisation you can name me that is testing on animals, I can link you one that is having equal or superior results using non-animal models. As one researcher puts it, we don’t use animals because it is good science, we use them “because they are cheap, easy to handle and few people care what you do to them.”I think the many people are guilty of a rather obvious confirmation bias when it comes to animal testing, including scientists. They assume because animal research has been done, that animal research is the only way it could have possibly done, with very little possible evidence to back up that claim.
Animal testing is inefficient, expensive, out of date and utterly unethical. It exists because, as you said, people realised it was better than testing on unwilling humans, that being past tense, the decision of a Victorian scientific community that is in no way still relevant today. To suppose that we still living in a time where the only options are testing on animals or testing on unwilling humans is ignorant, which is fine, and given the propaganda of animal testing enterprises, actually pretty understandable. However, to further claim that those of us who oppose the cruelty laboratories inflict on animals must be rich, therefore support abusing humans can only be a purposeful, transparent and utterly ludicrous attempt to misrepresent and discredit our position.
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