Animal Rights

[SaxonDarkAngel]

Rainwater: I am not LFA (obviously) but I have an opinion on that subject.

Testing on death row candidates would be useful. As was said, they are going to die anyway, eventually.
However, I dont think it would be forced on them. Death row and jail inmates get 3 meals a day, a library, exercise, and internet. They are probably some of the healthier human beings out there, because they have nothing better to do, and they dont eat junk food.

I think people on Death Row should be given the option to test experimental drugs. Im sure they would do it. At least some of them. Especially the innocent ones. It could be a show of good faith type thing.

Also, on the drug testing procedure; I think that doing it on animals would be acceptable. For drugs that could be used to treat both humans and animals, of course. The problem is, we dont ever KNOW if we can use a certain drug on any of the above. Thats why we have testing. Thats why we dont release a new and hip drug every other day and then have to recall it once 1000 people get sick and die from it.

The testing procedure, from what I can imagine, would be highly regulated. A sample of animals in the prime of their life (healthy, correct weight, etc. etc.) would be given an experimental dose of the drug. Another sample of that animal species who have the disease they are trying to treat would be given that same dose. They test the reactions in the healthy animals, and the reactions in the sick animals. If the sick animals get better and the healthy animals arent affected much, they probably switch to another group of the same animal species.

The testing would obviously be done many many times to make sure the 'cure' wasnt a fluke or due to chance. I dont actually KNOW the testing procedure, but I know enough about it that I can be fairly certain something alongs the lines of what I said happens.

Now, to move onto humans. If there were few bad reactions in the animals tested, the scientists would probably move onto a sample of humans. And so on and so forth.

[Rainwater]

Rainwater: I am not LFA (obviously) but I have an opinion on that subject.

Testing on death row candidates would be useful. As was said, they are going to die anyway, eventually.
However, I dont think it would be forced on them. Death row and jail inmates get 3 meals a day, a library, exercise, and internet. They are probably some of the healthier human beings out there, because they have nothing better to do, and they dont eat junk food.

I think people on Death Row should be given the option to test experimental drugs. Im sure they would do it. At least some of them. Especially the innocent ones. It could be a show of good faith type thing.

If the person was innocent, would he/she want to take a drug that could cause severe disease or death just to make a show of good faith? What if the pool of those agreeing to be tested on would not work for the test? Would people really understand that they would likely have to be infected with a disease just to challenge the drug? And that still doesn't help when it comes to teratogenicity. Also, there is one factor I cannot say I know for human studies... LD50 and LD100. Would we do those to get a better understanding about the dose range? They are going to die anyway, so kill them with the drug (even though we might not really know how good or bad of a death it could be)? I know I have so many questions, but I cant just jump into a can of worms without contemplating all the angles.

I dont actually KNOW the testing procedure, but I know enough about it that I can be fairly certain something alongs the lines of what I said happens.

My main issue is that some people do not want animals to be used in testing drugs that will end up being used for humans. But, when I have asked about using a drug in humans and animals in the past, I would get no response (and I don't just mean hear on MS, I mean other places). I agree that there are many biological differences between species, so just because a cat cannot use a drug doesn't mean a human can't. Just look at Tylenol (not that Tylenol really works for me though....). But for those that do not want animals to be tested on if the drug would have a mainly human application, how would they then recommend the testing for the other species that could find benefit in the drug? Test it in humans (young, old, adult, those with many medications, women that are pregnant or lactating....) then rats, then cats, and then pigs? That is the procedure I am interested in trying to understand.

[SaxonDarkAngel]

Youve got it wrong on the order. They start with rats. Rats are similar in that we can use them and we can use the same drugs.
Then they move up a line. Cats, maybe. They might do it on pigs, since we are similar (similar internal body order, similar liver, kidneys, heart, etc.). Then, finally, we would do it on humans.

I do not know what teratogenicity is. Ill have to look it up tomorrow.

They probably would not want to do that. But ive never been on DR, so I dont know what goes through their minds. It could be a voluntary thing, though.

And I dont think we would do it to the point of death for half or all of the participants. They would probably start the dose low and work the way up until negative symptoms start to occur. Again, I dont know the testing procedure.

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/2381/62

From what I read of that article, they suggest using inmates who already have the disease they are trying to treat. Use them as a sort of guinea pig, while also potentially helping them. Its only the later part of the article that says it, however. The middle is talking about the history of inmate testing.

[LucifersFallenAngel]

How would you change the testing procedure if you wanted to use a drug on humans and cats/dogs/horses/etc? Are you suggesting doing trials on all species at the same time instead of one first, then another and another? If changing the testing procedure could mean fewer new medications for animals, would you accept this as an acceptable loss?

Also, though I realize it might not matter to you since you say you "hate humans", what if a death row inmate was truly innocent and the testing was forced on an innocent person? If you found yourself in prison/on death row, would you accept this being done to you (especially if you were innocent)? Would you accept being infected with a disease to challenge the new drug, not knowing for sure if it would work or what the side effects could be? What about determining tetatogenicity?

I'm sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to try and understand your viewpoint better.

it wouldn't be used on both, just humans. if the drug is FOR a human, use it on a human. if the drug is for an animal, then use an animal. Don't use an animal for something that the public would never even think about giving their pet or a wild animal. if its meant for a human, use it on a human.

Death row/ people in for life shouldnt have a choice. They had their chance, some more than 1. If the person was innocent and was actually framed/set up and convicted, sorry for them and it's a tragedy but they still aren't going to get out... If i was on death row/ prison for life, i probably wouldn't care...Course I say that now, but I've never been to jail, so who's to say if I ever do go to jail that I wouldn't change my mind...People in jail live better than half the people not in jail., which is stupid.

That's the point of testing new drugs, to see side effects and to see what it does. If a human on death row is given a new drug for testing, then i would think the ones testing it would document what happens and analyze their data based on what happened to the human given that drug. if it created another disease, take blood samples and do whatever scientists do when they find a new virus/disease.


^
obviously, all my opinions and everyone thinks differently. bottom line is I'm still againt animal testing. Other animals have emotions just as humans do. why treat them any different?

[Rainwater]

Youve got it wrong on the order. They start with rats. Rats are similar in that we can use them and we can use the same drugs.
Then they move up a line. Cats, maybe. They might do it on pigs, since we are similar (similar internal body order, similar liver, kidneys, heart, etc.). Then, finally, we would do it on humans.

You aren't understanding me. Some people are saying do not use rats are cats or pigs. They say develop the drug and give it ONLY to humans during testing and NOT use other species. I am asking what would then happen if someone then wants to use it in cats and rats too. Are the people against testing a drug ultimately meant for humans going to support testing all at the same time instead rats to cats and eventually to humans.

I do not know what teratogenicity is. Ill have to look it up tomorrow.

It is potential of causing birth defects. I am curious how we will determine this if we don't use animal testing, as some people want.

They probably would not want to do that. But ive never been on DR, so I dont know what goes through their minds. It could be a voluntary thing, though.

I can't say that I know either. But if it was voluntary, things would have to be documented incredibly well so if they drug causes bad reactions, the prisoner will not scream cruel and unusual punishment.

And I dont think we would do it to the point of death for half or all of the participants. They would probably start the dose low and work the way up until negative symptoms start to occur. Again, I dont know the testing procedure.

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/2381/62

From what I read of that article, they suggest using inmates who already have the disease they are trying to treat. Use them as a sort of guinea pig, while also potentially helping them. Its only the later part of the article that says it, however. The middle is talking about the history of inmate testing.

I'd just worry about drug with very narrow therapeutic windows. And it is one thing to test on someone that may get benefit from the drug. But what if illness must be caused first to test the drug? As I said, many things need to be ironed out before I jump on the bandwagon.

How would you change the testing procedure if you wanted to use a drug on humans and cats/dogs/horses/etc? Are you suggesting doing trials on all species at the same time instead of one first, then another and another? If changing the testing procedure could mean fewer new medications for animals, would you accept this as an acceptable loss?

Also, though I realize it might not matter to you since you say you "hate humans", what if a death row inmate was truly innocent and the testing was forced on an innocent person? If you found yourself in prison/on death row, would you accept this being done to you (especially if you were innocent)? Would you accept being infected with a disease to challenge the new drug, not knowing for sure if it would work or what the side effects could be? What about determining tetatogenicity?

I'm sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to try and understand your viewpoint better.

it wouldn't be used on both, just humans. if the drug is FOR a human, use it on a human. if the drug is for an animal, then use an animal. Don't use an animal for something that the public would never even think about giving their pet or a wild animal. if its meant for a human, use it on a human.

Many drugs used for humans are also used for animals. If they want to test a drug to see if it can help cancer lyphoma in humans, why not see if it can treat a dog's lymphoma too? One of my family's dog was treated for cancer with the exact same drugs as the father of his veterinarian! Different doses of course, but the exact same drugs.

Death row/ people in for life shouldnt have a choice. They had their chance, some more than 1. If the person was innocent and was actually framed/set up and convicted, sorry for them and it's a tragedy but they still aren't going to get out... If i was on death row/ prison for life, i probably wouldn't care...Course I say that now, but I've never been to jail, so who's to say if I ever do go to jail that I wouldn't change my mind...People in jail live better than half the people not in jail., which is stupid.

That's the point of testing new drugs, to see side effects and to see what it does. If a human on death row is given a new drug for testing, then i would think the ones testing it would document what happens and analyze their data based on what happened to the human given that drug. if it created another disease, take blood samples and do whatever scientists do when they find a new virus/disease.[/quote
^
obviously, all my opinions and everyone thinks differently. bottom line is I'm still againt animal testing. Other animals have emotions just as humans do. why treat them any different?

How would forcing testing on prisoners (especially those that could be innocent) not be cruel and unusual punishment? And yes, testing a drug on a living being is meant to see if it works as desired and what the potential side effects are. But when talking about forcing testing, that opens up a very large can of worms. To test for teratogenicity, will we impregnant female prisoners and give them a drug during different stages of fetal development just to see what happens? Pregnant women often need medications too, so we'd have to find some way to know if the tested drug would likely be an issue. If we need to see how a drug will work when a person has renal disease (and treating renal disease is not what we are doing), will we cause renal failure in someone that had healthy kidneys to see?

obviously, all my opinions and everyone thinks differently. bottom line is I'm still againt animal testing. Other animals have emotions just as humans do. why treat them any different?

Why make it so animals may have to suffer and not get viable medications? Testing is expensive no matter how you look at it, and some companies may decide that it just isn't worth it to see if a new antibiotic/antifungal/anesthetic/antineoplastic/antiviral/antihistamine/etc works in veterinary species. Sure, it makes some sense to create medications for pets/livestock for potential zoonotic diseases and things that irritate us (fleas for example). But would companies still really do significant testing to find drugs that could help pets with the changing microbiological world if the payback was much less than the payback in the human world?

[TxCat]

A point of order for pondering: Many drugs used on humans were originally developed FOR animals and therefore tested on animals first. In fact, in the drug production industry often a medication is only approved for human testing AFTER it is found to work in similar conditions for animals. For instance, someone researching a cure for an autoimmune disorder in rats discovers a compound that works for that condition. Someone researching a cure for a similar disorder in humans who has not reached the experimental stage sees the research and then writes up a proposal for a clinical trial. If approved, the the firm then advertises for people with that condition and JUST that condition (no other health problems because it might cloud results) to enroll in the trial. The volunteers are then divided into control groups, one being given the test treatment and the other a placebo. If there are other medications or treatments on the market, then some may be given those other treatments for comparison. The results, in a proper study, are then tallied over a large number of volunteers for a period of at least a year. They usually conduct follow-ups as well.

When animals are used for experimentation, they have to be kept healthy and have to be well cared for. Otherwise it invalidates the results. The most common animals used are rats, pigs, and great apes because their DNA and organ functionality closely resembles ours. From what I've seen and read, the animals in question are not MADE to have a disease they would not otherwise have had. Instead, they're screened from the general population as already having HAD a similar condition.

Caveat: I know this because my current chemotherapy treatment was thus approved. It was originally intended for an autoimmune conditions in the great apes and once it was found to bring results, other scientists found use for it in humans. The medication I will be taking is so new they don't even know about long-term results and side effects; the treatment evaluation is still on going and I will be part of that reporting database.

A link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial

A good layman's explanation. I would encourage those who want to know more to explore the additional links. Wikipedia is not necessarily the best reference available for such things but it can lead to better resources.

On animal testing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing

Contains some dissection photos!

Again, use Wikipedia with caution but it DOES have a chart showing which kind and how many animals are used in research. Be aware, also, that the data included doesn't include the US which tends to be behind in adopting safer, humane trends.

A question for those against the process: does your stance include the non-cuddly creatures such as fish and amphibians and insects? Those, after mice and rabbits, constitute the larges population upon whom experiments are conducted. Does that fruit fly, for instance, have the same rights as a rat, mouse, or chimpanzee (which, by the way, is one of the smallest groups used).

There are, of course alternatives:

http://www.iaapea.com/humantissue_page.php?id=8

Mice, which were not forwarding the experiments, have been replaced with test tube research on actual human cancer cells.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12729856

Microdosing of new drugs on human volunteers.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=7128867

Stem cells which allow drug testing in a petri dish.

http://www.drugresearch.com/drac_lab2pharm.htm

An article on the lab-to-pharmacy procedure which may be enlightening.

http://www.animalresearch.info/en/drug/process

The process of animal research.

Note in the Wikipedia article that people ARE aware that the creatures are giving up their lives to the greater good and they do honor them. I suspect that the future of drug testing and experimentation will like in a combination of continued animal research and other, more humane methods of research. As long as the animal is honored, I don't have a problem with that. Having visited a lab, I can tell you that the animals are better fed, clean, living in good conditions, and even loved...more so than some children's pets, considering how society finds the various rodents and other species to be expendable.

[Rainwater]

When animals are used for experimentation, they have to be kept healthy and have to be well cared for. Otherwise it invalidates the results. The most common animals used are rats, pigs, and great apes because their DNA and organ functionality closely resembles ours. From what I've seen and read, the animals in question are not MADE to have a disease they would not otherwise have had. Instead, they're screened from the general population as already having HAD a similar condition.

When testing heartworm preventatives in dogs, they will experimentally infect them to challenge the drug. I cannot say how often that procedure is done for other medications though, and you are correct that many tests are done on animals (or humans) already diseased.

[BBkat]

I think perhaps you're thinking of animal welfare rather than animal rights.

(Copy-pasted from another place)

Rights: Animal Rights (and again, the overall meaning of the word itself) is defined as privileges and civil rights that would be given to the animal in order to make it equal to that of a person. This would mean that we would not be allowed to eat any animal, kill any animal (even a fly) and they could not be kept as pets, used in work without pay, and so forth as that would be taking away their rights.

Welfare: Animal Welfare (and the overall meaning of the word itself) is defined as the wellbeing, safety and interest of the animals. In other words; making sure that owners don’t unfairly and violently beat their pets, animals aren’t worked to death and in areas such as meat, clothes and medical testing; the animal is treated with kindness and respect and, in the case of the animal dying, is given a death that results in as little pain as possible.

Here's the stamp where I got the information- http://stories2day.deviantart.com/art/A ... -214065965 It's much more detailed

Animals cannot have "rights" but they can be protected through animal "welfare". There is a difference and the two are commonly confused. So, unless you wish to free all animals unless they're paid for their jobs (such as seeing eye dogs) and free all your pets and so forth, what you really want is animal welfare.

[Synchronized]

it wouldn't be used on both, just humans. if the drug is FOR a human, use it on a human. if the drug is for an animal, then use an animal.

Stopping this right there to tell you that's exactly where you're going wrong. For many medications, there ARE no differences between some things they use on humans and some on animals except for dosage. For example, I recently had to treat my bird with an anti-fungal called nystatin for her crop yeast infection. When looking up information on it, I found it's often used to treat thrush in babies and mothers. It's used as an effective treatment against most Candida, as well.

People will use aspirin or allergy medication for their dogs if they need to-- many antibacterials are likely the same things, just different brand names between animal and human. If a medication in animal testing works on the animal, and works on the human, why restrict it to just one species?

[TOrideleKeto]

[quote="Nightshayde"
Fishing etc.- Marine animals may seem less human, but we never have contact with them. Is it right to kill massive amounts of them, leading to endangerment and extinction?-I do not disagree with fishing as fish are much simpler than say a dog. We keep dogs as pets and we keep fish to but you don't eat a beta or a goldfish. You can't walk a goldfish or hug it and you can't really truely love a fish in my opinion.
[/quote]

Not just Marine animals! Freshwater fish are also hunted and kept as pets! You can love a fish. I have fifty gallons of fish tank, and I love all my fishes. Unfortunately, many people take fish not being like terrestrial pets (dogs, cats, ect.) as an excuse to harm them. I'm not accusing you, Nightshayde, but that is an unfortunate common view.