Animal testing

What are your views on using animals to experiment on? Do you think that it's a neccasary evil to help the human race find medicine's and cure's for diseases, or do you think it should be stopped completely?

Also, I'm not talking about using animals...

for hair product and makeup experiments. That's just ridiculous.
I'm talking about using them to cure diseases and find new medicines.
What are your views on this.

I dunno, when it comes to things like cancer and stuff I wish there was a better way but it is actually helping to save lives...
Now, when it comes to psychology, I mean it is nice that we have all this information, but if you hear what they do to them (poor little rats are shocked to stress them out so we can learn how panic disorders work, or monkeys are kept away from their mothers so we can learn how attachment disorders work...) it doesnt seem like a good enough reason... but maybe you cant have it both ways...

I don't think its evil at all. I think its smart to keep using animals for medical research, anything that will help further knowledge about diseases and cancer is a step closer to finding a cure!

necessary evil.
but only for medicinal research.
if it is true what ty said about psychology research than I am oppose to that sort of thing.
I don't understand how they can learn anything about the constructs of the human mind through animal research.
it seems very far fetched.

Hard for me to choose, All of the doctors I work with had to work on a dog and then later put it down Had they not learned this and had real hands on then they would not be as good as they are. However I would think with computer and everything else now of days, there could be a better way to study and pratice the surgeries without using the real thing. Or learning how to save a human's life.

I personally think its wrong..

This is a subject I have strong opinions about, I'm just always willing to hear other people's sides of it.
Sisienne, you think it's wrong, why is that? Do you think that an animal life is equlivant to a human life?
My opinion from this comes from a personal subject though. My father was given 6 months to live, that was over a year ago. He has colon cancer. They put him on a new experimental drug and chemo, that was first tested on animals. It has expanded his life span greatly. He is not only still alive, but the cancer is not growing, it is just staying the same. Without testing on animals, my father would not be here.
This is why I ask, why you think it's wrong? What if it were your father or mother. Wouldn't you want them to find away for people to keep them around a little bit longer?

Like Steven said, I do think it's a necessary evil. However, I realize the bias on this subject, as human think that they are above animals, when they are animals themselves.

People just don't want to subject themselves, or even unborn cells of them, to such experiments. The medical field would grow and develop medicine and other cures so much faster if they test on human subjects, rather than an animal that is genetically so much different to us.

Unfortunately we put more value on our lives than animals. We have these expected things to do in our future - education, career, family. So humans tend to put animals down because they don't go to school, they don't contribute to the economy, etc.

If we only expand our horizons and open up our minds a little bit, I do think that we can help ourselves within our means. Embryonic stem cell research is a good way to start. But no, that bunch of cells could have been a person, so it's 'wrong'. 'Cut up animals instead'. 'Better them than us'.

Mandy, it IS a very personal issue. We unfortunately put more value on a relative than an innocent lab rat. Medicine is just a stall, a way to slow down something that comes naturally. So yes, a tough issue to digest, so for now it's a necessary evil.

Unpleasant but necessary. The simple fact is that without animal testing, many more humans would die - both due to the unavailability of medicines that require animal testing, and because of trials on humans of drugs that turn out to be useless or even harmful.

Yes, I believe if you use a lab rat for testing a new disease for cancer it is an acceptable evil. How many humans do you save by using a lab rodent for testing? Using them for testing makeup, skin care products and sun tan lotion is crap.

If you kill 1000 rats to save one human life from ovarian cancer, Alzheimer's disease is not only acceptable it is required.

I guess I see it this way:

We think we are superior to animals, but in a way I think we are. Look at technology and science and how far we've grown and how much we have learned.
I also think that if animals could, they would experiment on us, if they knew that they could cure diseases that wipe them out. I truly believe if they had the knowledge and capabilities, they would do the same thing.

I think its wrong but I don't know how to avoid it

I dont entirely agree with it but at the same time I cant see an alternative. I think I mostly disagree with the attitudes that come with it and the idea that its ok for an animal to lose its life to prolong a persons life. I dont exactly disagree with it either, aslong as the animals are treated as well as possibly in the circumstances. I know that its the best way to not only trial new drugs but also to gain a better understanding of how normal and pathological conditions work but at the same time I feel bad for the animals!

hm.. I dont know. I think its cruel to do such a thing just cause they arent as smart as us.