Ontario to ban research testing on dogs and cats, premier says

Ford wants to use cyclists instead. They're not people like dogs are.

Wait I had no idea this was even allowed to begin with

That led to an article published earlier this month that found the dogs — mostly puppies — were used for tests and killed before their internal organs were removed for further examination.

What the fuck?

Pretty standard practice for animal research. Mainly mice and rats, but some types of research are better modeled by different animals.
- Do you know what the laws are like in other provinces or countries?
- like the discovery of insulin.
It's baffling. I want to know each province's laws now.
I thought Lemmy would be a little more educated than Reddit...but nah.
Banting and Best used dog models to develop insulin.
Drugs don't suddenly appear at pharmacies.

In regard to some avenues of research that’s too bad. Cats are a point of study for weight gain and loss since they appear to have issues similar to us. Some cats gain and hold weight faster than their mates with similar amounts of food. Some cats compulsively overeat while their mates do not. And so on.

Yeah not to mention animal testing isn’t just for human medical advancements… a lot of animal testing is to develop treatments for animal diseases, test new diet ingredients (after which the animals are adopted out), etc…
We do test some things on humans for human diseases, and we have strict guidelines on proving safety / efficacy before human tests are approved + how those human tests are conducted. It might be helpful for everyone (humans / animals) to adopt some of those guidelines to animal studies.
Since yes, as you said, studying why cats suffer health issues can improve the lives of lots of animals. The key is doing the studies compassionately
- There are regulations, but they’re not the same. I think it’s not really appropriate to compare animal testing to human testing for the primary reason that humans have the ability to provide consent.
  For animal testing, I really don’t like the current idea being proposed here of basing this on how we feel about cats and dogs vs. mice and other animals. Some other metric like brain size or something about consciousness maybe, but that’s very hard to determine as well.
  While I personally think there’s enough benefit to society to do some animal testing, I think a law that said no animal testing would be more ethically consistent than banning only cats and dogs.
  The real thing that should be addressed here is better regulation, not arbitrary bans.
- It was recently announced that a new study using cats showed they developed dementia the same way humans do.
  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce93rn5g848o
many human and dog genes are syntenic, they are very similar, on the same chromosomes.
Without dogs, Banting and Best would not have discovered insulin. That's why the historic pictures always have Marjorie, she was not a pet.

as he called the practice “cruel.”

Cool. Then we can agree that fishing, animal-based agriculture, hunting, fur farms, and puppy mills should be banned, too? Right, Doug?

What makes dogs and cats special?

Nothing, but in the Anglosphere people think there is. It's a perfect culture war to pick in a way, because you can't argue killing dogs is cool, and nuanced points about human attitudes to animals are very easy to shout over.
People only get outraged at cute animals.

Incredibly shortsighted and he’s demonstrating his ignorance of the laws of his own country.

What is the decision framework they used that led to them approving inducing 3hr heart attacks in beagle puppies before killing them?
People here seem happy to have blind faith in the system when it produced results that are objectively horrific. I would genuinely like to understand what the cost/benefit analysis was, what alternatives methods of research were considered, and why they weren't viable.
- Almost certainly they were anesthetised the whole time.
  I would genuinely like to understand what the cost/benefit analysis was, what alternatives methods of research were considered, and why they weren’t viable.
  In some jurisdictions, I think that's published. Not sure about Ontario.
- Animals can only be used in research when there is convincing scientific justification, when expected benefits outweigh potential risks, and when scientific objectives cannot be achieved using non-animal methods. In Canada, there is federal and provincial legislation overseeing the humane treatment of animals.
  This type of intervention makes scientific evidence appear secondary to partisan political opinion, weakening the integrity of the research enterprise. Moreover, such actions embolden activist campaigns that often misrepresent the reality of modern animal research and are usually counterproductive. These campaigns frequently ignore or sidestep the strict welfare standards and regulatory requirements that govern research facilities, as well as the medical breakthroughs that benefit both human and animal health. 
- This was a particular research group that was flaunting the laws, it's far from the standard. You're embellishing it into some kind of trend when you have no understanding how scientific research is conducted or enforced in this country, it's absolutely not that, and if you want to pearl clutch you should be looking toward Ford's constant attacks on municipalities and environmental standards to get his cut from developer friends, full stop.
- People want to be contrarian and support animal abuse just because it’s Doug Ford.
- They said they told him how researchers would induce hours-long heart attacks as part of efforts to improve medical imaging processes for humans.
  If only you'd bother actually reading the whole article, the same phrase you took a bit from actually explains why they do that. But no, better to just attack the whole thing pretending we do that for fun.

What we need is auditing and enforcement of our already comprehensive ethical restrictions on scientific research across fields. He's using this one instance of gross negligence and misconduct to attack science in general, rather than do the proper job of enforcing the regulatory apparatus. Why is he doing this? Attention and optics to distract from his massive failures and bad ideas and investments, and also his side dealing which is getting harder and harder to ignore.

It's because Ontario has among the poorest involvement in biomedical research in Canada despite having 10 universities.
- That's frankly embarrassing for the most populated province, and is also a huge spotlight on the 'leadership' refusing to invest in the growth of the industry. I hope we make it past businessmen politicians and make it to science-based leaders.

Good - do bunnies and monkeys too.

This completely fails to address the actual gaps in scientific animal care legislation, in this case lack of oversight to make sure they actually adhered to the CCAC guidelines and a major lack of transparency. This legislation just sets back science that has good reason to use dogs as model organisms while letting abuse of other animals continue (especially non-government-funded work which has no requirement to follow CCAC rules!)

While this is going on, "dog lovers" are turning in pandemic dogs in record numbers to be euthanized.

I believe that they were testing on dogs because they were developing medicine for dogs...

Testing should be limited to the researchers and owners trying to make money out of their questionable concoctions.

We'll cure everything with essential oils and apple cider vinegar!