Animal testing to save the lives of other animals (including us...)

ok; I'll put it another way. You have a friend who has a child who has been diagnosed with cancer. But we now live in the world where PETA has gotten its way and all biomedical animal testing is banned. This means the treatments that could save child's life will never be found due to issues with testing on humans (ethics, and a lack of volunteers....). Child dies and so do many others. Just to put the thought out there, if indeed one animal an hour dies in australia due to animal testing; how many humans die of illnesses (per hour)that animal testing could cure? I reckon it'd be an order of magnitude greater.....at least.....

here is another thing; what about animal testing of products used on animal - like would it not be logical to test dog food, shampoo, medicine etc. on dogs?

I didn't read all the responses.. But why test on innocent animals when we have rapists, paedophiles and murderers in prison? That's not even logical! ARGH. These people have harmed others, killed, committed acts of violence. Yet an animal who has unconditional love gets tortured? Wtf.

My opinion on animal testing has varied a lot since first becoming vegan. Although I still dislike animal testing, I think that for medical purposes some types of animal testing are necessary and prove to be effective.
Though I am 100% against any form of animal testing which serves no real advantage for humans or animals alike - e.g. animal testing of cosmetics, food ingredients etc.

The biological make-up of animals does differ quite greatly from humans, and therefore medicine etc. often proves successful when tested on animals, but ineffective when used on humans. I think this form of animal testing is unnecessary and throughout the history of medicine overall it has proven to be unsuccessful.

After the first stages of animal testing are complete, the final product then needs to be tested on animals to record any possible side-effects and what dosage can be safely administrated before it becomes lethal. This form of animal testing I believe is most useful, because honestly how many people would be happy to take a new medicine which has never previously been tested on a living animal? In theory it might work, but there is no guarantee that it won't kill you or result in negative side-effects.

People need to remember that people are animals too. Is it really any worse to test on a fellow human being than it is to another kind of animal? Animal testing on criminals may sound good in theory, but in my opinion there are a lot of potential problems with the idea:
- A completely innocent person may have been wrongly labelled a criminal
- Although a person committed a crime, maybe their motives behind doing so are justified
- Laws vary a lot from country to country, so what may be legal for you to do here may be put you in gaol somewhere else
- Though someone has committed a crime, their time in gaol may see them change their previous ways and outlook on life.

How many people here would deny having any medical treatment if they were to become ill? What about your pet? If it became ill would you not take it to the vet? You may easily be able to say no now, but I don't think you can really know the answer until you are confronted with that situation.
Just like any other animal, it is our nature to want to survive and preserve our life for as long as possible - even if it means favouring your life over anothers.

I do agree though if humans improved their diet and other aspects of their lifestyle then many of the diseases which are prominent in today's society would be less prevalent and there possibly would be no need for any further research.

If anyone actually reads this long post   I don't expect you to agree with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I just wanted to put forth my reasoning for my opinion on this matter.

Can you name one disease that has been cured by experimenting with animals?

The tone I get from most of the comments here is scientists can test on any animal, for whatever, and it's very easy to do so. I'm just generalising though.

I get we don't want to test on animals at all - except possibly just humans as they have the ability to consent (though I even see abuse issue here. Consenting because you want to help science or just doing it for the money etc, we'll still have areas to tackle).

Scientists do want the same thing. Less use of non-human animals. When they are used, they do have a strict process to go by. Firstly, to even be eligible to test on animals and then how they conduct that testing. It is very highly regulated.

The links are examples of some of regulations, codes etc that scientists practice under.

Federal Regulations for Animal Research (USA):
http://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/TeachingTools/20357/19237/resethpages/regan.aspx

Also, check out the 'relevant web sources' section on here:
http://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/TeachingTools/20357/19237/animalres.aspx

Article regarding animal research legislation (UK focus):
'The ethics of animal research: Talking Point on the use of animals in scientific research'
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n6/full/7400993.html

I'm sure one day we won't require non-human animal testing but I feel the benefits for all people, animals and the environment are outweighing the risks at this point of our existence so I won't be for a full ban on animal testing currently as long at the scientific community continues to practice and develop appropriate ethics in this area.

It's better to find a resource that isn't blatantly biased. I stopped reading when they called us "extremists".

I find people I speak to that are 100% against animal testing as 'extremists'. They don't show any understanding of science and seem pretty intent on making decisions for others ie stopping treatments that were animal tested regardless if a human being suffers or dies. And I don't refer to forum posters here, but the general position many vegans I've met or worked with seem to feel comfortable with that position. I could just bump into the stranger peeps of this world more than others too.

Majority of anti-animal testing articles are very emotive and cherry pick data to form their own version of the current evidence.

So I'm not having much luck finding articles for either side that haven't had something written into it to invoke the reader.

But yes, it would be nice to have material that didn't also have labels and opinions used to trigger an emotive reaction. I'll post it when I find it.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own facts. The previous links I'd encourage everyone to look at the sections that review evidence. Screw the author's own views, see what the evidence says and cross reference it. Those articles should all have citations so you can check.

At the risk of sounding emotive about this, science isn't a good enough excuse to class living beings as expendable and/or test cases without consent.

Okay, first time I've seen this site but browsing in its information sections, it's just talking about the science (being good enough) and not resorting to labels on anyone from the opposition:

http://speakingofresearch.com/facts/

they have this section were they discuss claims made against testing:
http://speakingofresearch.com/extremism-undone/bad-science/

Haven't read any of this section yet but on a scan I didn't notice any name calling.

Note: They are/were a protest group in the USA.

BBC have this that discusses both sides, but they do say 'extremists' mid way:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml

Edit: Noticed that URL had extremism in it but CTRL+F didn't find it or extremists (except a mention in a side bar link).

I can sum up my opinion in one sentence (that's rare for me):
Nothing gives humans the right to inflict pain and suffering on other species to just avoid it ourselves.