the ethics of animal research

The Ethics of Animal Research

What is Life?

What is Life?Is there a moral difference between the life of a human and the life of an animal?

What is Life?Is there a moral difference between the life of a disabled person and an able-bodied person?

What is Life?Is the life of a mouse or a fish less important than the life of a cat or a dog?

What is Life?What makes one life more sacred or important than another?

What is pain & suffering?

What is pain & suffering?Pain refers to the reaction following an adverse physical stimuli.

It is an unpleasant sensation and can vary in its severity.

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What is pain & suffering?Suffering is the mental experience of pain, including feelings of shock, fear, foreboding, anxiety, trauma, stress and terror.

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What is pain & suffering?Suffering is harm that is experienced and characterised by a deficiency in well-being.

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What is pain & suffering?Do animals feel pain and do they suffer?

Do animals feel pain & suffer?Does animal suffering matter less, if at all, because animals are different from humans?

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Do animals feel pain & suffer?Is the ethical issue about the differences between humans and animals or are those differences morally relevant?

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Do animals feel pain & suffer?How relevant are the differences and should preferential treatment be given to one species over another?

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The evolution of sentience

The evolution of sentienceSentience is the capacity for pain and pleasure. It has now been scientifically established that animals experience pain, pleasure, and emotions.

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The evolution of sentienceIt has also been established that animals’ lives have meaning beyond any utilitarian value that humans may place on them.

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The evolution of sentienceAdvances in our knowledge of animal sentience are compelling humans to continuously reconsider prejudices towards animals.

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The evolution of sentienceSo how does human sentience stack up against animal sentience?

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The evolution of sentienceLooking at it from an anatomical, physiological and behavioural perspective, there is no clear basis for assuming that a more intelligent life is inherently better (or worse) lived.

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The evolution of sentienceA less intelligent animal may experience life no less richly than a human, in the sensory realms.

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Suffering & IntelligenceJeremy Bentham was one of the earliest proponents of animal rights, writing “Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislations” (1979)

Suffering & IntelligenceBentham argued that animal pain is very similar to human pain and the ability to suffer, not the ability to reason, should benchmark how we treat other beings.

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Suffering & Intelligence“People have assumed intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer and that because animals have smaller brains, they suffer less. That is a pathetic piece of logic.” John Webster

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Suffering & Intelligence“People have assumed intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer and that because animals have smaller brains, they suffer less. That is a pathetic piece of logic.” John Webster

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FACT

Animals do not suffer from the same diseases such as heart disease, high cholesterol and they do not have the same immune response to disease as we do.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Artificially induced symptoms of a human condition will not replicate the underlying cause.

Strokes are induced into rats and monkeys. Although drugs have been produced to protect animals from stroke, none of them are effective in humans.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Monkeys are injected with a toxic chemical that induces a disorder superficially similar to Parkinson’s diseases but the monkey will recover from the condition when the injections stop whilst the human condition remains incurable.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Using dogs in heart research is not viable. The heart, blood vessels and circulation differ widely between dogs and humans. High blood pressure in obese patients is associated with high insulin levels in the blood. In dogs, high insulin levels actually lower the blood pressure.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Septic shock, which is the leading cause of death in intensive care units, has been studied for decades. Although numerous therapies have been found to improve the survival rate in animals with septic shock, none have worked in humans and in some cases, the therapies have decreased the human’s survival rate.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Septic shock, which is the leading cause of death in intensive care units, has been studied for decades. Although numerous therapies have been found to improve the survival rate in animals with septic shock, none have worked in humans and in some cases, the therapies have decreased the human’s survival rate.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals are biologically similar to humans.

They are susceptible to many of the same health problems.

FACT

Most diseases are not the result of one thing or one specific set of circumstances. Therefore, results will be misleading and not able to understand the underlying effects of disease.

So why do scientists use animals in research?Scientists can easily control the environment around the animal (diet, temperature, lighting, etc.) which would be difficult to do with people.

FACT

9 out of 10 of medicines passing animal tests fail when tested on humans.

Two well known examples are thalidomide and TGN 1412 (the Northwick Park Incident).

So why do scientists use animals in research?Animals studies are done first to give medical researchers a better idea of what benefits and complications they are likely to see in humans.

Which is it?Pro-vivisectionThe link between humans and animals makes the animal model a very good model.

Thomas Huxley

Anti-vivisectionIf non-humans and humans are so similar, how can we justify the persecution of animals?

France Power Cobbe

Which is it?Society of MedicineSome of the major advances in the last century would have been impossible without animal research.

Advertising Standards AgencyThe statement “Some of the major advances in the last century would have been impossible without animal research” is misleading and should not be repeated.

What do the experts say?

Society of MedicineVirtually every medical achievement of the last century has depended directly or indirectly on research with animals.

The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades - and it simply didn’t work in humans. What do the

experts say?Dr Richard Klausner

Director of the UK National Cancer Institute

While conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered advances in the war on cancer, they have never produced a single substantial advance in either the prevention or treatment of human cancer.

What do the experts say?Dr Irwin Bross

Former Director of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre

We do trials in people because animal models do not predict what will happen in humans.

What do the experts say?Sally Burtles

Director of Centre at Cancer Research UK 2006

We do trials in people because animal models do not predict what will happen in humans.

What do the experts say?Sally Burtles

Director of Centre at Cancer Research UK 2006

Your tax money is used to fund animal houses and animal research and given the failure rate, is this justified? Ethical

Economics?Do the costs justify the means?

The cost/benefit of animal testing makes it economically unsustainable for biopharma companies. Ethical

Economics?Do the costs justify the means?

Billions of pounds have been spent on trying to create animal models that work

Ethical Economics?Do the costs justify the means?

GM modes cost billions of pounds yet even when identical genes occur in both humans & animals, the same or no disease will ever develop

Ethical Economics?Do the costs justify the means?

After over 200 years of vivisection and animal experiments, there are still no cures for many devastating human diseases. In site of the costs in lives and money.

Ethical Economics?Do the costs justify the means?

2D & 3D cell culture

Computer modelling

Molecular modelling

Neuroimaging Toxicology

based assays Equipment such

as “organ on a chip”

What alternatives are available now?

In vitro studies Volunteer

studies Population

research Human tissue

studies Organ culture Symcip - ADME QSAR – toxicity

testing ACuteTox – cell

based toxicity

What alternatives are available now?

Fingerprinting microbes

BioSIM – computer simulations

Carcino GENOMICS testing for cancer

Sens-i-iv for skin allgery tests

ReProTect – toxicity testin

What alternatives are available now?

TOXDROP miniaturised cell assays

Predictomics for predicting long term safety

MEG – human brain function & disease

Systematic reviews

Microdosing

What alternatives are available now?

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him; that of plants and animals as well as that of his fellow man and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. Where do we go

from here?Dr Albert Schweitzer

Alsatian Theologian, Musician, Medical Missionary

Dominion by Matthew Scully

Speciesism, Painism & Happiness by Richard Ryder

Why Animal Suffer Matters by Professor Andrew Linzey

In Defense of Animals by Peter Singer

Second Nature by Jonathan Balcombe

The School of Compassion by Dr Deborah Jones

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