Another thrilling round of "Anarchism and Animal Rights

I am a biologist. I have recently been researching developments in treatments for viral infections (bird flu, HIV, stuff like that). One of the most promising treatments for HIV may be able to eliminate the virus from a sufferer completely, even a patient only months from death. This treatment could be on the shelves inside 10 years, thereby saving an incalculable number of lives in Africa and throughout the world. Development of this technique has required modification of the HIV virus to infect mice, and deliberate infection of mice with the virus. I invite those who say that animal testing is never justified to get on the next bus to Africa and personally explain to everybody there who is HIV+ that, whilst we could have cured them all at the cost of a few mice, we've voted in favour of the mice on this one.

I would like to add that I will personally administer an extremely severe kicking to anybody who tries to prevent this research on 'ethical grounds'.

excellent work ghost, keep it up - i know who i'd rather have on my side, somebody who can save human lives or someone who tries to destroy them 8)

no it means you should be informed about current testing rather than repeating some holy fucking mantra about animal testing.

Does this mean you think Captain Birds Eye was better when he had a leather jacket and stubble?

Does this mean that carbon emissions from hydroelectric dams are part of a short-term carbon cycle and therefore irrelevant from a point of view of studying climate change?

Does this mean David Tennant is unlikely to live up to the high water mark of Christopher Ecceston's portrayal of the doctor?

Does this mean you are a complete idiot with no idea how to construct or interpret a rational argument?

good on you ghost

look at that at tell me animal crulety is well good

... no, I'd be telling you it's pretty depraved and sick. That that bear is one of many animals still be used in the world for entertainment, being beaten and abused so that eventually some middle-aged man on the internet can sit there and laugh. Do you want to see more pictures of bear entertainment?

You're such a fuckass Kalabine.

Firstly, Mr Biologist it's not just a few mice that are being destroyed for the research of HIV and AIDS is literally thousands upon thousands of mice, various types of monkey (rhebus for example) and I hear even chimpanzees. Most of that research is complete repetition and legal back-saving whilst that which is meant to be working towards a cure is hailed by many scientists and physiologists as being invalidated by the use of the animal model. People should be working towards a cure for AIDS but shouldn't we be finding alternatives to the torture and killing of countless of animals? That clearly doesn't come into to it for you.

Dealing with AIDS by the way is about much more than finding a cure. Seriously, I think it's pretty sad that you have to compare the dying of thousands of African men and women to the forced infecting of thousands of animals. Their suffering does not justify more suffering in turn. AIDS is alive and thriving not because we aren't killing enough animals in our laboratries but because drugs are, even now, being deprived which could treat the syndrome and stop it spreading to infants.

that picture is funny as fuck!

not as good as the one of the panda playing a trumpet and being pulled along in an alsation driven cart 8)

Freedom ran a story the other week about HIV, on the fact that a post-coital block had already been developed which is something like 80% effective, but Intellectual Property law means it's still too expensive to administer in the UK (note, that's adminster, not produce - that costs pennies).

sorry, fairly irrelevant, but just reminded me.

LOL.

I know very little about your mental processes, Saii, but how could a panda playing a trumpet remind you of that?

well it is fairly relevant, as under capitalism pretty much all scientific research of real benefit to humanity and the availability of its results is going to be hamstrung by the market and the state. although i'm vegan, i have no problem whatsoever with testing of medecines on animals if it is necessary to save human lives, i'm just sceptical as to whether it is necessary to the extent that it is at the moment, and obviously the conditions of those animals that are tested on don't need to be as awful as they are. which reminds me: kalabine, are you against the use of paedononces for the purposes of medical testing? seriously, as you're in favour of the death penalty for them, surely it would be better if they could be put to good use for human society?

also, i don't really see any need other than those created by capitalism for cosmetics to be tested on animals. surely they've tested enough now to have every possible shade and tone of lipstick and eye shadow where the difference is noticeable to the naked eye, that there's no real need for any more. and i've never understood why they squirt cleaning products into animals eyes, what sort of idiot does that to themselves? i mean, i could test my guitar by beating my cat with it to see if it represented a danger to people if you hit them with it, but i'd have to be some sort of idiot punk to want to hit people with it, so it's hardly a necessary test.

and i think computer graphics have rendered the "need" for animals as entertainment by playing musical instruments obsolete. although admittedly, the original iron monkey film is somehow improved by having an actual fight between an eagle and a monkey to illustrate the differences between monkey and eagle style kung fu...

I've only read the last 2 pages of this thread, so I apologise if I overlook some important stuff already commented upon.

I have had difficulties over the use of animals in testing medicines only, because I have a heart condition and have to take regular medication now, for the rest of my life...

I would prefer it if ALL medical testing of drugs etc, could be carried out on human guinnea pigs...who receive a good deal of cash compensation (I believe) for offering their services. Should it be necessary at all to continue to do the testing on animals, then I think the type of animal chosen should be seriously considered, so that the biologists are aware of whether or not the animal's response to the drugs would be the same as that of a human...and also, that the animals should be given doses of the drugs relevant to their size/weight, as humans would be, in order to test their effectivity, rather than by being fed huge amounts of the chemicals which induce gross effects and really do torture the poor creatures.

Drugs tests are very low-paid. It was ruled unethical (rightly IMO) to pay people more for more dangerous tests.

Sorry pushka I think this idea is fucking terrible - it means that drugs would be tested on the poor.

Good point John. but at least they would be getting to choose for themselves whether or not they wanted to be tested on, regardless of the amount they would earn for doing so...I don't believe in forcing them to be tested...I do see that it could be exploited so that only 'poor' people were tested on...

Even the really early stages, where you don't have any idea what the lethal dose might be?

I'm pretty sure all these things are already done. It'd be pretty shit science otherwise. Although obviously if you're trying to find out about toxicities, you need to increase the dose until nasty things start to happen, and you need to do it to a large number of individuals due to differences in metabolism and such. I'd much rather they tried that on animals first (after carrying out computer simulations of course), before they start on poor people.

Thanks Garner...I see there are many pros and cons of this issue to think about before making a stance either way...unfortunately. If only we all went back to using herbal medications?

I don't see how that'd help. Any new ones would still need testing in exactly the same way as new synthetic drugs. Just because it comes from a plant doesn't mean it's safe, as anyone who's tried datura can attest.

I think patents are a much bigger problem than vivisection, but that's a whole nother topic, and I can't really see much of a link between the two.

Obviously money's a major issue - it's cheaper in the short term to do lots of tests on animals in shitty conditions than to develop alternatives that work. But even with the best possible alternatives, I think you still have to do in vivo tests at some stage, preferably in animals before you do them in humans, because you can never guarantee that your simulations are going to be accurate for a new substance. Sure, results in animals won't always apply to humans, but there's a good chance that they'll at least show up any flaws in your simulations.

It goes without saying that the animals should be kept in the most humane conditions possible.

Sorry but:

Ghost of the revolution: Qualified biologist working in medical research

Volin: Read some SHAC leaflets or something

And yes, I know a lot of animal testing is innacurate etc but if you want to test for things like lethal doses of new drugs it is invaluable and there is no alternative.

Erm, I think it's you that's doing that.

Of course it's true that lack of access to treatments and contraception is responsible for the 3rd World AIDS epidemic, but unless you've heard some news that I haven't there's still the little problem that there is no all-out cure. And there's no alternative to that either, unless you want to ship all AIDS sufferers out to quarantine colonies or something.

Yeah, but, imagine a panda playing a trumpet. Now imagine the panda is wearing lipstick and mascara - you've just DOUBLED the comedy.

But herbal meds are no more or less likely to be poisonous/have side effects etc than chemicals, so still need testing. Also, they don't work unless you're a hippy.

It wouldn't "be exploited so that only 'poor' people were tested on" - having paid drugs trials on humans would mean drugs would only be tested on poor people. The rich wouldn't risk their lives having drugs or whatever pumped into them for a few quid, only the poorest and most desperate would. Sorry I say fuck that and use rats and mice instead.

thanks to the wonder of modern computer technology, not only is my panda in a tutu and wearing make-up, he can also play voodoo chile (slight return). face it, all those of you finding animal entertainment amusing are just stuck in feudal idiocy, and are only a step away from primitivism...

a hell of a lot of damn useful chemical are present in plants, just because some idiots have mystified it doesn't make them invalid. one of the less obvious bad effects of deforestation is that many undiscovered plants with potentially beneficial properties for the human race are being destroyed. but clearly, new ones would at some stage need to be tested. and unless they were really stupid, back in the days of tribes and such like, when they were trying to find a plant to cure headaches of what to rub on stinging nettle stings to stop them from stinging, they would probably have at least fed it to the cow/cat/dog/captured enemy tribesman before using it themselves.

clearly, the practice of vivisection is far crueler than necessary under capitalism, as are most things, but that doesn't mean that it should be abandoned altogether. it's like anything else really, like the production of t-shirts. often this involves child labour, certainly crap working conditions, or at the very least exploitation of some description. does this make t-shirts bad? no, it just means the system under which they're produced requires changing.

No need for the 'would' - this isn't conditional, it's what actually happens now, for the stages after animal testing (phase I trials, I think). It would be insane not to do animal tests first. The real problem in a libertarian society would be recruiting people to take part in phase I trials.

Yeah I know - but with no animal testing there would be very high casualty rates (deaths, illnesses, disability, pain...) caused by them which is avoided by animal testing - this would condemn poor people to suffer it.

all the asthma drugs i take were tested on animals and without them i would die. to me the real issue is not that drugs are tested on animals but the reasons why certain illnesses are researched and certain drugs developed ie. those with wealthy consumers and the way in which we already test drugs for wealthy markets on the "developing" world.

i would use any drug tested on animals tomorrow if i knew it would give me a better quality of life and so would most people. would those of you who think animal testing is so abhorrent refuse agressive drugs for cancer? if you were HIV+ would you refuse the complex chemical cocktails that have greatly increased the quality of life and lifechance for many people ? i know the arguments against using animals in medical tests and i reject them partly because drug companies appear not to be largely interested in developing non-animal methods of testing. If a substancial amount of research had gone into it and those methods were proven, only then would i prefer not to test on animals.

i also do not believe that green tea infusions and head massage cures cancer. there is a role for the use of alternative medicine but there is also a use for agressive drugs and i totally disagree with testing them on people in the early, unpredictable stages of use, peadononces or not.

and if this means i rate a pedophile higher than a cat then i suppose i do. not meaning to come over all liberal but many pedophiles were sexually abused as kids themselves. pedophillia, however abhorrent it is, has to be seen as human behaviour in the context of society and the way in which it destroys families and is perpetuated has to be broken but bulklabeling human beings as deservedly fodder for toxic tests for the profit of the lucrative drugs industry is hardly the way to do it.

redyred; nice ad hominem argument there, d'you even know who I am? No I'm not a biologist but I have a fair amount of knowledge on the subject and, in fact, there are a growing number of scientists who share my opinion on animal testing if not only because of the immense degree of pain caused then the scientific inadequacy and fallibility of the process. Obviously you dont know "a lot of animal testing is innacurate etc" because animal testing has never been an accurate way to "test for things like lethal doses of new drugs"...the only way a new drug can be assured to be "safe" enough for use is by things like in vitro, computer modeling, epidemiology, clinical observation and autopsy of humans; ie. being applied to the human model. Not one species of animal, or all species of animals taken together could predict their effects on human beings. (even individual humans differ) There's soo many examples of drugs being shown to be safe in x animal and then bloody lethal in clinical trials. Then there's also several recent examples of drugs being recalled because of limited human testing but enough animal testing [I can get sources for ya].

Since I'm an ignorant peasant who doesn't have the right to object to institutionalised suffering where I see it, I'll give an expert's evaluation of animals in the finding for an AIDS cure;

"Over the last 20 years, billions of dollars have been spent trying to infect animals with AIDS, and these efforts have been entirely futile. It is true that researchers have succeeded in infecting chimpanzees with HIV; however, none has progressed to AIDS. The inability for researchers to produce an adequate animal model—despite years of effort and billions of dollars—makes it extremely unlikely that animal experimentation will lead us to therapies and cures for this terrible disease. Investing AIDS research money in animal research is therefore wasteful. With as many as 34 million people infected with HIV worldwide, blood cells from those already afflicted will serve as our most illuminating research material. In fact, in vitro research on human blood cells—not research on animals—has revealed a number of idiosyncrasies that allow HIV to proliferate freely and progress to AIDS in humans. The efficiency of the virus relies on very specific and minuscule aspects of human white blood cells called helper T-cells. These cells have portals on their surface called receptors. These receptors work in tandem with precise proteins to invite HIV into the white blood cell, where the virus then reproduces. Receptors can be very species-specific and sometimes vary even within a species, which explains why chimpanzees and even some people who are exposed to HIV never progress to AIDS. That is also how HIV-infected humans who do not progress to AIDS offer valuable insights into possible ways of countermanding the disease. Furthermore, the identity of those HIV-infected humans who do not progress to AIDS was derived through epidemiological studies, and in vitro research has isolated the human gene believed responsible for their immunity. The sequencing of the HIV genome was also accomplished through in vitro research. And the development of AZT and other anti-AIDS medications was not dependent on animal experimentation. In short, it has been human data, not animal research, that has reliably informed the development of HIV medications and the effort to produce a vaccine."

But the same's true for every form of animal testing. In science and elsewhere animals are used as a convenient safety check for the releasing of a new product. Despite there being considerable evidence that we dont need to use animals and that they're actually harming the testing of new drugs (and indeed scientific progress) you can expect to find dumbasses across the world standing up for "Vivisection" [that's the wrong term btw]. Unfortuneately, just to gauge the stage we're at, people still aren't fighting against using animals even for cosmetics. I'm still seeing, "surely they've tested enough now to have every possible shade and tone of lipstick and eye shadow where the difference is noticeable to the naked eye, that there's no real need for any more." Fucking hell! That attitude disgusts me GT even if you are against cosmetic testing today. Animals are still being used extensively for hair, skin and body products. They've never be needed to do that, and yet they have been and still are -L'Oreal, Procter and Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Gillette etc. are an example.

I agree John, it'd be a completely deplorable situation if drug testing was down to the poor and destitute; those that had no choice but to risk their bodies and health for money. But then you dont understand the process -all drugs need to go through clinical trials regardless of whether they've been tested on animals or not. Animal tests provide a legal safety net, they can never adequately tell what will happen when it comes to humans. So humans need to come into the process, but that should be voluntary, under the most strict of checks and amongst other humane testing.

"Rather than safeguarding consumers, animal tests create a false sense of security with regard to the safety and effectiveness of drugs, working against the health interests of the public and diverting precious research dollars away from solid, human-based testing methodologies. Animal studies provide only two sure things: a very accurate picture of the effects of a drug on animals in the laboratory, and a legal safety net for the government and pharmaceutical companies. Beyond that, drugs that have been released to the public based on misleading animal studies have caused harm and even death to tens of thousands of people. Animal testing in no way provides any real indication of how a drug will affect humans because animal models are an ineffective way to extrapolate data for human reactions. Although subjecting the substances to animal testing is designed to reveal anticipated effects and side effects in humans, very often the results differ dramatically between species. Substances that could save many human lives are not approved because they are harmful to animals, thus preventing ill patients from receiving the medicine they need. Likewise, substances that are therapeutic to animals get approved, but then sometimes harm and kill humans. An astonishing number of animal-tested drugs make it to market, only to cause problems later. It is well accepted that about 100,000 deaths per year and about 15% of all hospital admissions are caused by adverse reactions to medications. Between 1976 and 1985, 102 of the 198 new medications that had undergone extensive animal testing were either withdrawn or relabeled by the FDA due to severe and unpredicted side effects." The stats. there are from the States but I've read similar proportios for the UK.

lucy82; nobody's saying you should give up drugs because they may or may not have been tested on animals. That's completely stupid. I have asthma too, it's pretty much gone now (probably because I moved to the country) but when I was a kid I sometimes relied on my inhaler. The point is, by using the drugs you aren't justifying animal testing. Few scientific advances have actually been down precisely to the torturing of animals and rejecting the use of a drug doesn't help them anyway. That's the past, we need humane ways of testing drugs now and in the future.