General Chat

I have just read something quite worrying, that is scientists in the UK carried out 3.7 million experiments on live animals in 2008 - the highest number for 20 years.
As well as 4598 experiments on monkeys, mice, fish, rats, birds, rabits, cats, horses and donkeys were also subjected to 'scientific experiments'
I thought vivisection was a thing of the past and we had moved on from animal experiments.

shocked

Me to Keith, I know medical research is important but I would have thought that any experiments that needed to use live animals would have been completed long ago.

Well Col, as much as I don't like testing on animals, I won't refuse chemotherapy should I ever need it. Nor will I stop giving my OH his treatment for diabetes, or his heart, because these have all been tested on animals. Without them, we wouldn't have most of the medicines that keep us alive.

why so many animals ?

....And they're using ferrets for swine flu!
Apparently they get flu in a similar way to humans - but they're not human!
Like you, Col, I thought the use of animals in experimentation was to be decreased. Obviously the public were fooled!!
The number of procedures and experiments involving animals in 2004 for the United Kingdom was exactly 2,854,944. The number of animals used is slightly less than this because some experiments used a particular animal more than once.
Quite an increase then!

Must say I dont like the idea of these experiments at all
But have to agree with Teresa on this one

I quite understand Teresa but the huge range of animals involved and the sheer number of the same tests on the same drugs that have been done umpteen times before worries me still.
Maggie from what I understand cosmetic companies have started using animals again for testing - perhaps they that is part of the increased numbers

If this is true,its shocking!
I too though we had moved on from this,it just goes to show as always they take the cheap option! its disgusting!

maybe we should try the experiments on child killers



waits to be shot down

Keith - best idea. A medical friend of mine has often said the only way to test a drug and be certain it is safe to use on humans is to test it in a controlled way on humans

I don't particularly like the idea of animal experiments either, but I'm not sure that there is a viable alternative at present. I'm referring to medical experiments incidentally, not cosmetic.

Drug trials are carried out on humans all the time.

good thread Col

i know of 2 places near me that do this .alots kept very quiet as its a sore subject.
me i,d prefer they do it on humans [paedos/serial killers etc.but thats not allowed so the animals get it.but if its gonna help heal others im wit TW on this.

Experiments on prisoners???you are joking surely,what would that make us??? what an absolutely horrendous idea!
the majority of Animal experiments are a waste of time they are not compatible with humans,so I dont understand why they do it! Oh yes I do Its Cheap! and they want to pull the wool over eyes by saying its been tested and is safe!
the truth is 99% of the time we are the Guinea Pigs anyway!
Thats why Im against animal testing because its a huge cover up with no real justification!

Plus every drug we take, be it for an headache or Chemo has been tested on Animals.

true Budgie,I actually thought that Animal experiments were being done less and less:-((

How can they get less? The quest for remedies is ongoing all the time.

It worries me that the animals suffer when they are infected and new drugs/etc. are tried on them with little or no effect. I just hope that the scientists doing this put the animals down soon and don't leave them to suffer more while more medications are tested.

If they did do it this way, it would account for the extra usage of animals but I would prefer to see that than leave the same ones suffering for a long time.

How nice to be able to take the moral high ground!

I won't, however, be a hypocrite and decry the practise when modern drugs have saved my life and give my daughter a quality of life she wouldn't have had even 20 years ago.

Please all of you who are so against it go and present yourselves at a lab and ask them to experiment on you if you feel that strongly about it.

I am with sueM on this.

My wife takes thyroxine daily after her thyroid was removed, Severe arthritis neccessitates regular doses of anti-inflamatories and pain killers. She also has border-line glaucoma which means she uses eye-drops daily.

(Don't think I have missed anything out !).

All of these drugs have been tested on animals and we have no qualms about her using them. As Sue says, if anyone has a problem with this - go and volunteer as a human guinea pig.

In my town there is a woman who protested for months at a guinea pig farm and actually received a suspended prison sentence for her violent intimidation of people trying to make deliveries to the farm.

Some time after her release she delevoped a life-threatening disease and she was happy to take the drugs that saved her life, even though it was pointed out to her that they had been developed through animal testing.

My wife and I are realists, this woman and her like are hypocrites.

I think we all realise how important some drugs are for life, but the number of experimens on animals seems rather excessive.
Drugs have been tested on animals for years - so if the job had been done properly, you'd think they have a fair idea of the reacton of most elements of individual drugs, and the testing now should be on combinatons of those drugs - not re-testing of known drugs.

They've been doing new trials on thalidomide - using it for treating cancer - by giving it to cancer patients and studying them! Much more efficient than using animals. Unfortunately it doesn't help those suffering from lung cancer.

When we get conflicting reports about certain activites, how have these 'studies' been done, and why are the results conflicting?
Just look at this site :

http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.co.uk/news/news-Lung-cancer-not-helped-by-thalidomide.html

From February to July 2009, these are a few of the studies:

Blood pressure treatment 'protects against dementia'
Moderate drinking 'reduces dementia risk'
Study: Dementia may run in the family

Strikes me that if Dementia runs in the family - there's probably little that can be done about it - it's in the genes!


My favourite is :
'Super-healing' powers could help arthritis

Researchers have claimed they may have made a breakthrough in discovering more about the way arthritis caused by high-impact injuries develops in humans.
Experts at Duke University Medical Center in the US have found a strain of laboratory mice with "super-healing" powers that can help to reduce inflammation in an injury and cut the risk of developing long-term arthritis'

They don't need to find a mouse with 'super-healing' powers - they need to find out why some humans get it!