Experimenting on Lab Animals

College Confidential Community
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<p>I started this thread primarily for VeganActress as a place for discussion/friendly debate on the subject of using animals in the lab. I'd be happy to have anyone else join, but please keep the flaming to zero. Personally, I'd prefer if this discussion would never elevate to the heated debate level, but you never know.</p>

<p>Anyway, on VeganActress' initial point, she stated that animals are completely different from humans and that we are able to cure diseases in animals that we cannot cure in humans.</p>

<p>I concede that this is completely correct. Animal testing is never conclusive. However, the fact that we use mammals zeroes in on this "accuracy." Mammals share so many common genes that our proteins are more or less very similar. As we test from rats to monkeys, more DNA becomes common between humans and animals.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, this method of testing is still inconclusive. But if it passes these initial phases, then human testing process begins (called clinical trials). These trials span 4 phases, are extremely expensive, and very time-consuming.</p>

<p>First phase: test drugs on healthy humans (usually fewer than 100) to determine safety. Generally, if anyone dies as a direct result of the drug, it's cancelled.</p>

<p>Second phase: test drugs on patients (around 200 or so) to determine if the thing actually works.</p>

<p>Third phase: Test drugs on many patients (anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand) to determine overall activity and efficiency of the drug. I believe if the drug passes this step, it's released onto the market.</p>

<p>Fourth phase: The drug is continuously monitored to determine drug-drug interactions. </p>

<p>I'll post more later, but I'm at work and I gotta get off CC for now :p</p>

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<p>OK, so now I'm back.</p>

<p>On the steps that I previously outlined, animal testing comes before the first phase of clinical trials. Why? Well, if the new drug kills all 30 of your monkeys, there's no way in you're gonna test in 50 healthy humans.</p>

<p>Animal testing also extends further than trying new drugs for potential new medicines. We also need animals to produce antibodies for research purposes. Say we needed anti-rabbit antibodies. How many humans are willing to let scientists continually inject some random protein from rabbits into them and then take blood samples at regular intervals over a period of a few months? Well, there might be a few, but definitely not enough to generate an adequate amount of serum. Also, what if we needed anti-human antibodies? No human will generate antibodies against themselves. We'd have to inject human proteins into other mammals.</p>

<p>I will also concede that it's sometimes not easy for some scientists to sacrifice lab animals. There's a reason they are warned to refrain from naming the subjects.</p>

<p>Could there be another way? Possibly, but we haven't found it yet. As of right now, it's either animal testing or scientific research slows to a crawl.</p>

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<p>I agree - animal testing is the best we can do for now.</p>

<p>However - soon we will be able to grow animal organs and tissues in vitro. We don't even need animals. We might be able to block proteins involved in ectodermic brain tissue synthesis in the genetic code of the animal - and this would prevent suffering from taking place (as long as the tissue of the brain stem is preserved).</p>

<p>Now - some animal research is humane. All animal research involves a lot of uncontrolled variables. However, we can control for variables that involve stress. There are quite a few experiments that require this control to take place, and which are consequently humane (for example, calorie restriction experiments where we want to measure the maximum lifespan of mice). </p>

<p>All in all - I think that factory farming is an issue that demands to be tackled more urgently than animal research. factory farming yields NOTHING useful (the world would support more people with the same amount of land if everyone became vegetarian) - whereas animal research does yield useful results. There are a lot of drugs that could be potentially carcinogenic - and the only way to know is to use animals. Again, in vitro tissue growth may make this unnecessary in the near future</p>

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<p>You two raised some excellent points.</p>

<p>I work with mice in my lab every day, and sometimes I have to euthanize them. It sucks and I don't want to do it, but I am certain that the scientific knowledge gained through my and others' research projects will save lives.</p>

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<p>Besides - animals do respond to similar chemicals as humans - there are exceptions when humans have some protein and mice don't - but the vast majority of mammalian proteins are preserved between different species.</p>

<p>Thus - you see that cocaine and amphetamines affect mice in a similar way as they affect humans. So does cyanide, so does mercury, so does lead, so does carbon monoxide. It is rare for a mammalian organism to be immune to a toxin that humans are not immune to - and vice versa. Of course some mammalian organisms do have resistance to certain plant-based toxins - and we need to figure out the mechanisms of such immunities accordingly (for example, eucalyptus leaves and koalas). Usually those immunities are the result of some selection pressures that are unique to a particular species.</p>

<p>Of course, there's also the added complication of the cytochrome P450 system and its associated enzyme breakdown system. Some animals have certain cytochromic genes in the system that other animals do not have. </p>

<p>==
Dissection was the reason why I didn't go directly into biology. I'd still like to go to biology through the route of applied mathematics though.</p>