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

ive mentioned before i have ALWAYS wanted to be a human guinea pig...since i was a kid i have thought it only fair. I would totes do that thing if i was in brisbane.....

i would be content dragging myself out of a lab with bruises and inflamed skin if they told me it was that or a dead rabbit.

What if they told you that the testing either included:

-Drugs/methods previously tested on non-human animals and/or;
-It's all vegan but if you have a reaction, the treatment isn't vegan and you can't refuse it as it's part of the testing procedure?

Then if you say you won't volunteer due to things like the above, they have to go back to making do with a non-human animal to test on.

If you're vegan, I would think everyone would aim to be the one tested on as it encourages other humans to be tested on where science can, therefore reducing other animals in research. But even testing on yourself technically does not make one 100% ethically against on the issue, at least not during our lifetime where research has a lot of non-vegan components.

Oh, okay. The previous comment I read it as them killing more to make duplicate sort of videos and whatnot. Also thought you're were saying that such committees are above the law. They're suppose to enforce it. If you think they're breaking it you can report it. You claim that it's clear they aren't following the 3R's - if so, you would get an investigation happening out of a report about it. Otherwise again, I need figures to really see if this is actually an issue in your uni otherwise it's just your opinion and I have to take it with a grain of salt until more information is available.

Humans are so damn stubborn.
We try to find cures for everything and fight death to the best of our abilities - causing pain and death to non-human animals in the process.
Just seems disgustingly selfish. There has to be a better way.

We wont be happy until we've cured every illness and gained immortality- but surely this will cause our population to explode in numbers, leading to the destruction of Earth and ourselves.

I understand that most of us want to live long and healthy but... I don't know. Things need to change.

Another thought is, maybe science should be concentrating more on natural methods, instead of medications with huge lists of side-effects.
I'm meant to be on medications for my depression. anxiety, heart arrhythmia, and back pains, but the side-effects are worse than my problems!
I'm on natural methods. They take the edge off, without any side-effects.
Anybody that has seen 'Forks over Knives' would know that some serious health problems can be prevented or even cured with a raw plant food diet.
(Of course I do realize natural methods don't work for everything.)

Totally agree - if we become immune to everything imagine the explosion in population and the demand for food, water and oil, i wont deny i want to live a long life but with all the vaccines to protect us from disease we will destroy the earth at a rapid rate - how scary o.O

It's actually a standard. Once it passes the ethics committee then you may proceed with the experiment. It isn't just an issue at my uni, it's an issue at MANY institutions. It isn't an unknown or 'hidden' occurrence, it's just what happens.

General animal experimentation is poorly regulated, mistakes are often made in which animals are left to suffer.

The OP asked- what are the alternatives? Here are some

In vitro
-cells can be derived from humans (often after death)

Computer modelling
- used to screen thousands of chemicals and predict their likely reaction with living cells

Microdosing

There are more and you can find them at http://www.humaneresearch.org.au/

Don't agree.

This is a common myth that is pushed in any debate on animal rights/welfare. I know Australian scientists that do sometimes work with non-human and human animals. It just doesn't happen the way you're portraying it.

In regards to the other posts regarding 'natural' methods - what do you mean exactly? Either way, it would probably lead us going off topic on the original OP...

For example, I have bipolar disorder. I use regular exercise, good sleep patterns and a good diet to help manage it. I also take lithium which in itself is 'natural' as it naturally occurs in nature. It is just a salt. But it is being used as medicine - so you want to say it's not natural due to that labeling? If you do think it's not natural, can you define what natural is to you in regards to health products?

I havent read through all comments here but humans do not benefit from animal experiments, there is nothing to weigh up here. In fact animal "testing" and "research" is the main cause of human illness. The animal "tested" products(chemicals, pesticides, carcinogens (including tobacco), teratogens etc harm humans then the animal based 'research' consistently fails to cure any human disease. The onus is on supporters of animal experiments to identify even one species of animal which is PREDICTIVE for humans. This is fundamental. No such species exists. Even monkeys are not predictive for humans eg "Drugs known to damage the human foetus are found to be safe in 70% of cases when tried on primates." Developmental Toxicology: Mechanisms and Risk, p313, McLachlan, Pratt, and Markert (Eds). 1987
http://bl151w.blu151.mail.live.com/default.aspx#!/mail/InboxLight.aspx?mid=38773140-1ebb-11e1-be0c-002264c24dec&n=2139988731!fid=4&pdir=NextPage&paid=81fe8de3-d067-42ba-acf8-62c0a1f3da31&pad=2011-02-21T02%3A03%3A39.990Z&pidx=5&n=1780732702&mid=e90c8646-e262-11df-be82-001e0bcbbcf0&fv=1

This sums up the real motives for animal "tests"..."Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons. The predictive value of such studies for man is meaningless."
- Dr James D. Gallagher, Director of Medical Research, Lederle Laboratories, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 14 1964.

To wit..."92% of new drugs fail in clinical trials, after they have passed all the safety tests in animals." US Food and Drug Administration (2004) Innovation or Stagnation, Challenge and Opportunity on the Critical Path to New Medical Products.

"Information from one animal species cannot be taken as valid for any other.  It is not a matter of balancing the cruelty of suffering animals against the gain of humanity spared from suffering, because that is not the choice.  Animals die to enable hundreds of new drugs to be marketed annually, but the gain is to industry, not to mankind."---The 1963 Report of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's Expert Committee on Drug Toxicity

"Animal studies can neither prove or guarantee the safety of any drug. They are not a substitute for testing in humans".--J Jennings, Vice President Science & Technology of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association.

Dr Herbert Gundersheimer, "Results from animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore cannot guarantee product safety for humans…In reality these tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather are used to protect corporations from legal liability."

Report of the Medical Research Council "It must be emphasized that it is impossible to extrapolate quantitatively from one species to any other species."

The Lancet, "We know from drug toxicity studies that animals are very imperfect indicators of human toxicity: only clinical experience and careful control of the introduction of new drugs can tell us about their real dangers."

Dr Ralph Heywood, former scientific director of Huntington Life Sciences, one of the largest contract research laboratories in the world speaking to the CIBA Foundation said "The best guess for the correlation of adverse toxic reactions between human and animal data is somewhere between 5% and 25%" and "90% of our work is done for legal and not for scientific reasons."

For more honest quotes from doctors and scientists see http://www.safermedicines.org/quotes/cancer.shtml

If there is a particular claim made here which people would like me to respond to please present it again in case i dont read through all comments

I've noticed people suggesting that human experimentation is the alternative to animal experiments. This is the opposite of the truth "Animal experimentation inevitably leads to human experimentation" Dr Moniem A Fadali of Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine www.dlrm.org This is because the animal experiment does not ever tell us what will happen in humans so the first humans to try a new drug or procedure 'tested' only is animals are human guinea pigs. Valid testing would protect these people and the rest of us. The problem with real science is that it would not conceal the fact that drugs/chemicals etc are causing human illness and death so would not provide legal protection to drug/chem/tobacco etc industries. Microdosing is a valid method of drug testing. See www.drugtestingconference.com or http://www.safermedicines.org/faqs/faq01.shtml

here are other real scientific methods (should not be called 'alternatives' as these actually work) http://www.safermedicines.org/faqs/faq02.shtml

I'll have a look through that website tomorrow when I'm not cleaning like crazy for a flat inspection as I haven't seen this one before, at least I don't think so.

Though, I do hope everyone that takes on the quotes you've posted actually look at the reports and reads them thoroughly to ensure those quotes aren't just cherry picking, out of date etc.