just how bad is animal testing?

Answer 1

Its super bad, I mean, who wants medicine that will actually work? Not me, I want to play Russian roulette every time the doctor prescribes something.

Most places have very strict guidelines about animal usage. Here is actual first hand knowledge, not anecdotal "omg scientists evil omg omg nothing ever works omg omg 20150150311055 animals a day so evil and for nothing at all".

At the university I used to work at, every experiment using mice (or any animal) had to be cleared through an ethics board. The ethics board would dictate how many animals you could use, with an emphasis on as a few as possible, as long as you could derive statistically significant statistics. For mice, that meant using 6 per condition in an experiment. That makes the science harder, but it's done so that excess animals aren't used.

Furthermore, you have to minimize pain and discomfort for the animals. This means giving them a general anaesthetic prior to the experiment, then they get an opium derivative at the start that lasts for the length of the experiment. And finally, the instant that they begin to show signs of suffering or trauma they have to be euthanized. This means 24 hour observation, in a small lab like the one I was in, the person whose experiment it was had to sometimes work for 30+ hours straight watching the mice. Sounds excessively cruel to me....

It's also extremely hypocritical for anyone to take a position against animal testing iif they've ever voluntarily eaten meat or animal products, worn leather or wool, or taken any medicine.

Answer 2

Animal testing helps scientists have a better understanding of viral diseases, vaccines [that have gone wrong so many times;; only a few have succeeded ONCE, causing ONE animal to have a MERE chance of living], and all the other nerdy scientists want to find out.

BUT, animal testing kills millions of what some scientists call "expendable" animals. Some of the lucky ones die off. Others have to endure the pain and defects as a result of animal testing, and have to brace themselves for possibily more evil science tests.

So....we should be fortunate that cockroaches won't be the next to rule the Earth.

Or are they? 0=

Answer 3

Bad? I would say that thoroughly testing a drug for efficacy and safety before giving it to a human being is a very GOOD thing. Failing to do so could not possibly be supported either ethically or morally. If 10,000 cats have to die to ensure that my granddaughter doesn't have a cerebral hemorrhage as a result of an injection of a new drug, then let's get those cats and get busy!

Answer 4

Try to imagine yourself in the animal's place and having tests run on you to see how you react to different things. I would imagine that it's not very comfortable, at the very least, and sometimes probably pretty painful.

Answer 5

Collecting data on how a animal slowly dies due to side effects.

Answer 6

pretty bad

some scientist killed 200 pigs a day doing brain test

but than they save thousand of humans