• Question: what are your thoughts on animal testing in scientific research?

    Asked by moaty to Alberto, Chris, Emmanuel, Jennie, Michelle on 19 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by skywombat2000.
    • Photo: Chris Whittle

      Chris Whittle answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I think that animal testing is necessary as to test what we think is happening in pregnancy, we can’t test on pregnant women! Animal testing nowadays is strongly regulated and you can’t do anything which is cruel or unnecessary for your work. It’s not pleasant having to do it, but there is no other way of doing it.

    • Photo: Michelle Taylor

      Michelle Taylor answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Thankfully animal testing in the UK and many other countries such as the US and Australia is very carefully controlled now. Scientists MUST use every other possible way of finding out what they want to know before they use animals. When animals must be used to test the safety of a new vaccine or drug they must be very well cared for, only the smallest number of animals are allowed to be used and the experiment must stop immediately if the animal is thought to be suffering. I think this is a huge improvement from the days when animals were thought of as things to be used and chucked away and of course we are always trying to improve the way we work.

    • Photo: Emmanuel Amabebe

      Emmanuel Amabebe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Though I dont work with animals but I think animal testing must always be done following the stipulated rules and regulations on animal handling. The researcher should be passionate about this.

    • Photo: Alberto Lapedriza

      Alberto Lapedriza answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      I think that if we want to find treatments for human diseases, and to understand how they work, we need to use animals in research, because we cannot do experiments on humans. Therefore, animals are the only way to test our theories, and to understand how cells and organs work without harming humans.

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