The pamphlets shared by animal rights activists about the terrible conditions when working with animals were true in the 1960s. Strict laws and regulations are now enforced and I honestly believe that some animals are very happy with the care and attention they receive in a lab. Experiments with animals need to be approved prior to starting and every step involving a live animal may be monitored. Projects can be rejected.
Cell culture is not complex enough to replace animal models. Studies involving behavior, development, and interactions between different organs (among others) will often utilize animal models.
It’s silly to say that we don’t benefit from the use of animal models I’m research (think most prescription medication). Animal research is an integral part of science.
Animal research ethics revolves around researchers adhering to these 3Rs: .
Reduction: use the least number of animals needed
Replacement: avoid the use of animals whenever possible, or use animals that might experience less suffering, like worms instead of monkeys
Refinement: minimize suffering .
Sometimes getting an experiment approved can be hard. For example, a proposal I’ve heard of being rejected came from a group of researchers wanting to withdraw water from mice for 24 hours. They study eating and drinking, so if their manipulation leads to mice not drinking after a 24 hour fast, then they’ve uncovered something about what controls drinking behavior! That would be super exciting because this will help us understand how our body maintains fluid homeostasis (so how we know to not be dehydrated). Anyway, their proposal was deemed too extreme and rejected. Similarly, a pain researcher told me that research on chronic pain is not very common, partially because it can be hard to approve studies subjecting animals to long-term discomfort. On one hand, that’s great – less animals being hurt! But chronic pain is a major concern (affecting 100 million Americans) with very limited treatments.
Originally posted on Instagram July 5 & June 28, 2018 (2 posts)
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