To think that many pets suffer more abuse than animals kept for experiments

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25888372

I am in favour of animal experiments when there is no viable alternative in medical research or medicine testing. Animal testing has saved lives and improved the quality of life for people all over the world.

Many animal extremist exaggerate the cruelty involved. Britian has the strictest rules in the world. Every experiment requires ethical approval.
In the UK rats have more toys, social interaction, interesting cages than most pet rats. I believe that many laboratory rats and mice live longer than domestic pets.

I feel that animal rights protestors should focus their attentions on pet owners who neglect their animals. Many pet shops have far poor standards of care than animal research facilities, but pet shop owners don't get threatened with bombs.

Ironically bomb threats increases animal cruetly because many pharacutical companies choose to do their animal testing in India where the laws are far more relaxed.

[Mrsmorton]

YANBU. Good luck though, I'm sure some people get frothy about this despite their cat/dog/budgie being confined to a cage etc.

[hiddenhome]

Yes, pets are widely neglected

I would also like to see all these animal rights activists being prevented from accessing medical care in the future seeing as they object to animal testing so much.

and

I wonder if they ever take antibiotics because bacteria have feelings too you know

[CailinDana]

Yanbu. I wouldn't mind being a lab rat. Life of bloody riley, fat gits. My cats feel horrendously neglected because they can't sniff my face at 3am.

Seriously though people who object to medical testing on animals are a bit thick really.

[mousmous]

yanbu

[Grennie]

Yes pets are neglected. I got my animals from a rescue. It was full of animals that had been poorly treated. And some animals should never be pets, such as parrots.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

Yes let the activists rescue all the pet dogs from slavery.

I think animal rights must be the worst thought through cause ever.

[Commander6]

hmm. Not sure. On the fence with this one.
I suppose we dont know what goes on in labs behind closed doors. Bound to be some rogue animal lab techs, let alone, who knows what experiments.
But there again, some awful things are known and can be guessed at with pets too. hmm.

[LaurieFairyCake]

I don't agree.

Those animals are being doubly poorly treated - they only get abused if their having toxins tested on them - at no point are they given cuddles or developed a relationship with.

Pets that are poorly treated are usually at some point wanted and loved .

Fuck it, it's equally shit and neither should happen

[Grennie]

Some pets do live the life of riley.

But so many owners buy animals without understanding their needs. For example the guinea pigs I have need a bigger cage than nearly every pet shop sells to owners.

And so many dogs need more exercise than they get.

[snoggle]

Do the campaigners also target pest control people who kill millions of rodents every year by putting poison down?

[Dahlen]

I don't really know enough about the conditions to form an opinion, though I have boycotted cosmetic/cleaning products tested on animals for many, many years.

I am not above losing my principles if my child needed treatment, and I don't want to be hypocritical, so I guess I am not against (as opposed to pro) animal testing for medical purposes provided distress is kept to a minimum. I guess I hope that one day we will understand human physiology well enough to be able to create perfectly accurate computer simulations that will render animal experimentation void. It makes me uncomfortable.

What I don't understand though is how those extremists who profess to be against physical cruelty can justify using violence and terrorism to promote their views, although there are, of course, many non-extremists who protest through perfectly legitimate means.

[CailinDana]

Laurie, in the lab I know the mice and rats are given professional care and that includes interaction (and cool mazes!) commander any animal testing for official medical research is highly regulated. I'm not sure what the point of doing "rogue" research would be.

[Ehhn]

I know one young girl aged 19 who was deemed by SS to be an unfit mother and has had an adoption take place, which her family agree was a good idea (took child in). She has the biggest collection of dogs, including a new litter, that live in piles of shit and wee and general awfulness. RSPCA won't act as they are fed and mostly get access to water.

Also I know a man who has a stallion that he keeps locked in a stable 24/7 as he can't handle it, and only mucks out every three or four days. We have called RSPCA 3 times but again, because it has feed and water, it's deemed fine. We aren't allowed to take the horse/sell it as unless seized the stallion is property of him.

At least with animal testing, because they are a commodity, the animals are valued and looked after from that point of view (I realise that this was also the highly dubious defence of slavery and therefore to a large extent fallacious), and that there are strict EU rules about care. And there is the utilitarian argument of the greatest good in medical research etc. however, I think that the researchers who test cosmetics on animals ought to be strung up by their genitals.

Maybe we should start testing on murderers or paedophiles?? (Sorry, slightly daily mail suggestion, but it would cover the fact that animals are often inexact equivalents to humans, and cast suffering upon those who've inflicted suffering on others, with the possibility that it might produce good int he future as social compensation for their heinous crime)

[CailinDana]

Gosh Ehhn that's harsh. Are you in favour of corporal/capital punishment?

[MagratGarlik]

It's a very complex subject, which is always somewhat oversimplified by the media.

What I don't agree with is animal rights activists who threaten and/or persecute lab workers and their families.

Anyone who thinks they 'boycott' products which are tested on animals is incredibly naive.

[Prettykitty111]

Yep I knew a girl who worked in a government animal lab. She was really pissed off because they drew straws for who would go in Christmas Day and she DIDNT win. She really wanted to go in and give them there christmas toys but everyone did thats why they had to draw straws. Interestingly I've heard of research now being done using the less cute animals I.e. spiders who pain responses match human anatomy far better than mice. I wonder if the animal rights lot would be up in arms about spiders being tested on?

[Joysmum]

I think far more harm is done to animal welfare in the name of food production than either pets or research animals. This is possible because meat eaters disassociate themselves from eating animals and instead shop on price and not welfare.

[catballou]

I would be up in arms about spiders being tested yes. And sharks and snakes-they all have only one life and we humans have no right to harm them. I don't only value the lives of cute ones. Why, Magrat Garlic is someone naïve who boycotts products tested on animals ?

[CrohnicallyFarting]

Well, in the case of medicines, I think the vast majority have to undergo animal tests at some point before being released.

And also, with cosmetics/toiletries etc the product itself might not have been tested on animals but the ingredients will have been. Might have been a long time ago, by a different company, but they can only sell things that haven't been tested by animals because they have a wide range of ingredients to choose from where testing has already been done.

[MagratGarlik]

catballou, because four example, there is a legal requirement to test medicines on non human animals before they go to clinical trials, there is also a legal requirement for agrochemicals to be tested on animals before going to market. The latter is not just for toxicity testing, but also to analyse the amount and types of pesticide metabolites within tissue of e.g. ruminant animals, hens etc which allows the impact of new agrochemicals on the food chain to be assessed. Then, even assuming you live a completely drug and agrochemical free life (including not eating any food grown using those agrochemicals), medical research within universities and other research institutions relies on the use of animal models to help better understand mechanisms of disease and therefore how best to help cure it. Even if you look at research into alternatives to animal testing, animals need to be used in order to compare the results. This is just a very small number of examples in what is an extremely complex field.

[MagratGarlik]

Gah, four = for

Damn autocorrect on phone.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Having read a book written by an undercover investigator about a "dr" who performed painful , uneccessary experiments on rabbits , no medical relevance and the dr was incapable if administering the anaesthetic correctly, I'd say a lot more goes on in labs that we think.

There is of course the argument that many medications passed at animal level are rejected at human testing level.

Many medicines such as morphine and paracetamol are toxic to some animals yet used with people. Hence questioning why animals were used to test drugs.

Also as far as make up goes, it's not essential so not something that "needed" to ever be tested on an anal. It has saved no lives ever. Although it is desired by many and I do but stuff that hasn't been tested on animals. Although I can't trace the individual Ingredients.

I realise it was along time ago but I studied this at school and it brought me to tears. There was more that went on that I ever imagined possible. :(

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Oh ffs ANiMALS. hurls iPhone out window

[Gileswithachainsaw]

www.marscandykills.com/experiments.asp

One example of approved yet uneccessary testing.

[Labperson]

I have namechanged for this only because doing this sort of work you do have to be careful what you say to some people.

I work in an animal research facility where we do experimental work on mice, rats, rabbits and farm livestock. I can assure you that the farm livestock is definitely treated better in research facilities than on farms (I also grew up on a farm).

Before any trial is done the experiment you are planning on doing must be submitted to an ethics committee who have to approve everything before you can do it. They can and do say no to trials.

We are also required to have our trial design looked at by statisticians who will tell us how many animals we need to use to get a useable result. There is no point in doing experimental work if the results can't be used because too few animals were used as it is a waste of a life. At the same time the fewer animals that can be used the better. The statisticians often reduce the numbers of animals required.

When the animals are under experimental conditions they are fed, checked etc a minimum of three times per day and again through the night. The Home Office can come in and inspect at anytime and if animals are not cared for correctly the research facility stands the chance of losing their licence. We have teams of vets on-call at all times and if at any point the animals go past a certain clinical score they will be treated/euthanised/removed from the trial.

At the end of the trial (depending on what it was for) the animals are either euthanised and post-mortems carried out, rehomed (cats and ponies usually), go back to the farm (sheep sometimes) where they will be raised for meat or stay on the facility farm and be used in another trial (this helps to reduce animal numbers as well).