Monday, September 3, 2012

Use of animals for research


Is animal testing good or bad?
I am a strong believer in that no animal should be treated badly, they have feelings and they should be respected, loved and well taken care of. Even with this in my head, I can't help but still be thankful for all the accomplishments medicine has undergone with the help of animal testing. I have seen the effects of Alzheimer’s in a member of my family. It is devastating to see someone slowly forget things until getting to the point where they are not self-sufficient anymore. With this said, I would really be thankful if one day the cure for Alzheimer’s existed. It may be too late for the member of my family, but there will be hope for others in the future. It is so interesting that there are activists that are willing to go to the extreme to fight in what they believe is right. As I had previously seen on a video, some scientists even had to give up on animal testing because they felt threatened by activists as well as felt they were putting their families in possible danger. I am not 100% agreeing that animal testing is good, I have seen many documentaries that are very eye opening and it makes me reconsider my opinion on animal testing.  As I mentioned before no one wants to see an animal suffer, and of course I do not like the idea of them being injected such things to come up with a possible cure or to sutdy the evolution of behavior on animals, but we have to realize we have come a long way with animal testing (in my opinion, of course).

 Would it be better and more acceptable if it was done on humans?
 I am not too sure of my feelings to this question. Animals have feelings as well as humans, but who would dare to volunteer to be tested in order to find a possible cure?



The responses to the questions made sense to me, but there are some answers that I do not fully agree with. Clearly, Dr. Simon Festing is in favor of animal testing since he believes it is used to help humans. I liked that he answered everything without hesitating and sincerely even if I do not agree with some things he said. This video answers questions such as "why do we use animals for research purposes?"

4 comments:

  1. nadia, you are a human being with feelings and emotions and it is ok to feel that animals should be treated with respect i can't judge you for that. But i feel that you know that animal testing is essential to heal and cure diseases that attack our loved ones. You might even want to consider yourself a minimalist, one who wishes to limit animal to studies with little discomfort and much potential value. You love animals but you also love saving human lives. I think studies are better done with animals, doing studies on humans would cause even more ethical problems and may even lead to death of our own species. And yes i know animals don't deserve to die neither, but sometimes we have to look at it through a different point of view, they are actually changing and saving lives. Great blog by the way!!! :)

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  2. Nadia,I completely agree with you, animals have feelings too. It is very sad how these animals are being tortured for the sake of humans. I am aware that they have found many cures for diseases doing animal research, but it would be nice to find another way to cure these diseases. I have seen videos on youtube pertaining to animal research and a lot is being hidden from the public. There is a law that protects animals from cruelty, but isn’t animal research, animal cruelty? Like I said before, it would be so much better if another method was used rather than animals.

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  3. i agree with the comments of these two girls. I know that for some people its hard to accept the idea of animals being sacrifice for the sake of human research. I have a puppy, his name is teddy, and i thought of him when i was reading your blog. I can't imagine my life without him and if something happened to him id be sooo sad. But, it also has to do with the fact that now i have a sentimental value towards him. Before him i had never had a pet, and never really understood why people were against the whole animal research thing. Now i get it, we tend to get attached to animals and feel that they have a right as well. This might be to forward of a question, but do you eat meat? chicken? or fish? we're killing animals for food in order for us to survive. Research is helping a lot us survive as well. Sometimes you have to think of it as "survival of the fittest," or not even that. what if the research can help you or even your children? I don't know, but i think thats something to think about.

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  4. Right off the title, I think animal testing is not only necessary but the best way to go. It is true the animals do have feelings but it is not necessarily animal abuse. The way I see animal abuse is if you go kicking your dog just because you can. On the other hand, animal research is to help other people and sometimes, maybe; even the animals themselves can be helped by the research.

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