I understand the motivation behind this opinion and would like to see testing of beauty products on animals outlawed. But pigs with lipstick is not really what you take the most issues with, is it? It's about giving rabbits cancer so we can test new cancer drugs on them. Assuming we make that illegal, how do you propose new cancer treatments should be tested?
Why would it be ok to test on non-human animals but not on humans?
Both occurr.
There are experimental medication trials with volunteer human subjects, often people in a situation where they have nothing to lose and whatever small contribute they may give to advance knowledge on a given field may very well be their last (or only) act of compassion towards others.
Make-up and so called beauty products can and should be tested on humans alone. But medications and other alike present too much of an unknown outcome to test outright on humans. Too many could die before any good data could be gathered to improve whatever is being developed, which would render most research undoable.
Animal testing is, as we stand, a necessary evil we must all carry with us. Let us hope we find a way to end this in a very near future.
If you want to look at it from such a fundamentalist angle, sure, animal testing is immortal. You'd only be able to test new drugs on terminally ill patients then.
If you're willing to humor me, let me take you on a tanget. I promise it'll make sense: Do you agree that CO2 emissions are fundamentally wrong (leading to a mass extinction event, etc)?
(I will continue this argument under the assumption that we can all agree on that) And do you concede that these emissions are, for the foreseeable decade(s) inseparable from modern human life? Not that they are a basic necessity to survive, but that you and I are indirectly causing such emissions in one way or another for every day that we are alive and continue with our day to day actions (heating, cooking, buying stuff, transportation, etc). This may change in the future, but let's focus on today.
(Again I assume that you are not the 0.1% of the population that lives without any modern amenities (you have some way of writing comments on the Internet for example), and will continue my argument) Given these two basic building blocks of our mutual understanding of the world:
Neither you nor me have committed suicide. So there is a reason that we continue on living, despite our continued existence being linked to habitat destruction and animal deaths. We are working towards a better future and try to change that, but for some reason we consider our current lives more important than the lives of animals that are threatened as a consequence of our existence. I don't know why, and you probably neither. I guess it's just some deeply rooted desire for survival.
Oh, btw, I am actually curious what your answer is to the 100 rats question someone else posted in the comments. Or maybe rephrased a bit: is there any number of rats (or rabbits or fish or dogs) whose deaths you're unwilling to accept and that makes you say "no, take my sibling/partner/parents instead"?
Halt all animal testing and put 100% of those freed up resources towards developing lab grown organs and tissues. If we want to study heart disease we should be growing human hearts and testing them, not using a "good enough" animal model. It could be the next big leap, like the Human Genome Project was.
I did my undergrad in toxicology which is all I can speak about with any sort of knowledge. What you described is more like what my professors actually did when they told us about studies they have done. They try to use the fewest amount of live specimens possible. They start on a computer (in-silico), then they move onto cultured himan cells (in-vitro), then onto animals (in-vivo). Pharmacology will move onto human testing but toxicology doesn't. Pathogens don't selectively choose to damage a heart or liver, they have an effect on the whole body.
The reason why it's done this way is because toxicology is playing catch up to industry. There are more compounds being produced than researchers have time to examine. It would be nice if a company had to prove that it's new chemical is safe but unfortunately that type of legislation will never pass in the west. Would you be willing to be dosed with BPA or PFAS to determine if it causes cancer in place of an animal? Without clear evidence that it was companies would still be making water bottles with BPA. You might be tempted to say just look at population data but it's just not that simple.
In so far as toxicology research is concerned, animals are needed. It would be great if companies would stop removed poisoning the environment and us but unless we have undeniable prove to shove right into their ugly faces that what they're doing is hurtful, they won't stop. Right now the only way to do that without causing a ton of human suffering is to test on animals.
Tons of work is being done to reduce the numbers of animals that are tested on and new AI models are really taking off. Eventually though a living thing needs to be subjected to it to ensure our simulations aren't just removed.
The problem with testing on organs or tissues is that you won't be able to see side-effects that affect unrelated organs. Maybe a stroke medicine increases the risk of internal bleeding or heart failure. Currently, medicines are tested on human tissue (HeLa lines - there's another sad story behind them, but I digress), and, if they pass, on mice. Only once they pass both are they even tested on humans.
It's in part an issue of consent. The animals can't consent to what's being done to them, so to force testing on them is fucked up.
The alternative is voluntary human testing. In an ideal world, we would have good models and simulations to filter out the riskiest drugs (these kinds of models aren't being prioritized in part because people are fine with animal abuse), and then people would volunteer to be parts of trials.
In our current world, we could pay people to take part in trials. We already do this at least in the US, but usually after initial rounds of animal testing. So increase the payout dramatically for the initial rounds which are much riskier. We already pay people to do other forms of risky jobs, why should this be different?
You know who else can help test cancer treatments? Humans with cancer who want to try them.
Models and simulations are already used to develop new drugs. But the tech is simply not there yet to rely on that exclusively.
Voluntary human trials are already a requirement as well. The problem is that there are not many cancer patients that are beyond saving and still in the condition to take part in such trials.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Germany it's illegal to pay someone to take part in clinical trials. You are paid money to compensate you for your time and travel costs, but it's not proper pay. And there is very good reason for that. If you make medical trials a viable income, you will inevitably get poor people to take part in them. You may consider that more ethical than animal trials. I do not.
The comparison with risky jobs is not valid, because we do our best to make those jobs safer. A trial for a new drug inevitably involves getting infected with the disease the drug is supposed to cure.Ah, yes, testing drugs pre-animal trial on the poor and disenfranchised sound so much better, truly the end of a dystopia
Edit: Not to mention, the meat industry produces despair of the same level while being entirely superfluous (something animal testing, unfortunately, is not) and on a scale which would be an ocean compared to the drop that is animal testing
In our current world, we could pay people to take part in trials.
The majority of people I know today regularly participating in cosmetic trials are desperate for a bit of cash. That would just make imporvished desperate people go to get cancer in exchange for temporary survival through money, we would be treating poor people like the animals we wanted to save instead.
Not much different than how people are accepting of terrible jobs for terrible pay because theres no other choice.
Some carnists are so awful they can't even be satisfied with their almost complete hegemony. They have to come into our spaces to explain why we're actually dumb dumbs who changed huge portions of our lives and isolated ourselves socially without really thinking the basics through.
Incurable
If they find it, the hypocrites better use it on themselves as well.
