I work with animals in medical research. AMA

[wokeupinnewyork]

Name changed for this, mainly to keep it separate from my usual name in case it gets nasty as this topic occasionally can.

I've worked with animals in research labs in both research and pharmaceutical settings for 6 years. My job is still controversial and secretive, despite attempts to change this, and people I tell always seem to be curious and have lots of questions. I'm happy to answer anything.

I really don't want to get into a discussion on morals. Whilst I know it's a big part of this, I can only speak for myself and I really don't want to be a representative of all that work in this area. All I want to say on that part is that for me, what I do isn't easy. Some days are harder than others, are fully emotionally draining. Many of us end up finding out partners in the same field of work like I have, you need people that know the situation to really understand how you feel each day.

I work with several vegans and many of us are vegetarians. I know this doesn't 'make up' for what we do but I just want people to know there are different levels of love and responsibility that people feel towards animals. A lot of you might not consider me an animal lover given what I do, but I know that I truly love every one of them and it kills me a little more every time I have to end a life.

I'm happy to continue answering questions on the work itself but please understand that some of it could be very outing. If this gets into the hands of the daily fail then I don't want to put myself or my colleagues in the firing line.

There's been several mentions of using humans instead. I briefly mentioned it before but this article explains it more than I ever could. www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/communications-media/why-testing-on-prisoners-is-a-bad-idea/

Sorry about the big link, I'm not sure how to change it on the app.

Personally, I think that the world is dangerously overpopulated. If we find a cure for every disease, we will be in even more trouble. Of course, I don't want anyone, human or animal, to be in pain, but sadly, disease is a natural part of life.

This is an easy opinion to hold until it’s you or your family going through this ‘natural part of life’, IME. Watching someone you love die slowly feels anything but ‘natural’, it feels all kinds of wrong and unfair and terrible.

I am a vegetarian, I also donate money to Compassion in World Farming as I believe that the way we rear animals for food has a lot of room for improvement. I also try to consume consciously to minimise the impact I have on the environment.

I very much appreciate the sacrifices that animals, and the people like OP, have made so that the people I love could live longer, live better and die in less pain and with more dignity.

I am an animal lover too. I’m on the fence here but at the bottom of my heart, I think I see the need.

Do you genuinely think the results from animal trials is useful? I assumed mice were simply too different to humans.

For all those upset for mice, please join me in trying to get glue traps and poison banned. Glue traps are sold legally in the U.K. and are horrific. All the “animal lovers” I know happily use this stuff and it’s laziness.

Sorry to digress!

All animals have to be bred in an establishment that has been licenced by the home office. There are very rare exceptions.

There are teams of animal care technicians, their sole role is to care for the animals, clean cages, feed water etc. I started out as one before a research group recognised my care and compassion and asked me to join their team to look after their mice.

I have been involved in some groundbreaking work and I'm so proud that I can actively see lives being helped as a result of lives being lost. It makes it a little bit easier knowing that someone is able to give their child a cuddle the way I can.

Avoiding repeating work that has been done elsewhere comes under Reduction. When the work is proposed they need to prove that the information can't be taken from a previous study. That also then gets double checked by the ethics committee.

Ever proposed study also needs to prove that enough in vitro work has been carried out to help ensure success of the animal work. Many applications get refused because the cost doesn't outweigh the benefit.

Blueplasticwig thank you for being interested in finding out more. I understand my title sounds harsh but I didn't quite know how else to word it. I'm glad you see that being spat on isn't productive. Luckily it's not so common now. Some more extreme animal activists also once send letters to the neighbours of a person involved in animal research accusing him of being a paedophile. We've all come a long way since those days and hopefully we'll continue. Unfortunately it may be a long time before we can stop using animals completely but it's the goal for us all.

Errol, as far as I'm aware the UK still has the highest animal welfare laws. In 2015 an EU directive was put in place to bring other countries in the EU up to our standard, I'm not sure what effect brexit will have on this. I'm not sure about legislation in other parts of the world but there are programs in place for sharing care and welfare information around the world.

Sorry if I've missed questions, I've been trying to type and breastfeed at the same time. Please just ask them again if I've not answered yours.

Calledyou yes I really do believe it's useful. It's all very targeted. We use genetically modified animals to look at how certain genes interact with others. There are many differences between humans and mice but there are also a lot of similarities. We can also give mice human immune systems nowadays too.

Even if a study doesn't result in a cure the way it was initially hoped, we still would've progressed in our knowledge of that area of medicine.

I have actually found this very informative. OP you have very clearly explained a lot of details that I am ignorant of. Never in a million years could I do what you do, but thank you for dispelling some of the myths surrounding a very emotive topic.

I've just remembered the comment mentioned about pharmaceutical companies 'hiding a cure'. This really upsets me when I see this. I worked for a pharmaceutical company and everyone works so so hard. The end goal for everyone is to save lives. Yes the profits some of these companies make is massive, I can't comment on the prices they sell their drugs for. But please trust that the scientists in the labs are working their asses off. They collaborate across the world in the hopes of finding cures, if one was found it couldn't be kept quiet for long even if someone wanted it to.

Correct me if I am wrong but, all drugs must be tested by law in two separate species before even being allowed to go into human drug trials?

If the legal requirement is there for animal testing then I would rather testing be carried out by compassionate people using compassionate methods. If the idea of testing is so intolerable to people then we must work to change the law.

Brilliant thread OP. Every respect to you doing what must be a very emotional job. Thanks to you and people like you my husband is alive and far less disfigured than he could have been. The advances in medicine from work like yours is simply amazing.

This is really informative OP. Im so reassured that so many things are put in place to minimise harm, and I am sure we have all, each and every one of us benefitted from animal research or animal exploitation in some way, whether we would admit it or not

Hi OP, no question but just wanted to add my thanks for the hard work that you do. I could t do it, but I am grateful that there are people who care that can.

In my young and idealistic teenage years I was an avid follower of animal rights activists. I cried at night when I thought of dogs/cats/rats being experimented on, especially primates. I thought people like you should be locked up for obvious sadism.

Then I got pregnant with dd, it was a complicated pregnancy and medication kept us both alive.

I soon realised that if it was a straight choice between keeping an animal (even a gorilla) alive or killing it for the sake of my dd’s wellbeing, I’d do it myself if I had the knowledge.

So apologies for any hypocritical knee jerk reactions that you or colleagues may experience. Most of the time they are probably people, like I was, who haven’t got enough life experience to properly think through why what you do is absolutely necessary.

"Most medication causes more harm than good anyway"

Nonsense.

Op, this is AMA, which stands for 'ask me anything'. I think it's bad form to start a thread like this and then refuse to discuss a major aspect of your topic, I.e. Ethics.

SPOFS- The OP has answered plenty of questions about ethics.

OP you knew you’d get questions about ethics if you start a thread about inflicting pain on and killing animals for a living. If you’re not willing to talk about that what’s the point of the AMA?

And are you really saying that you work with vegans who are hurting and killing animals? Because if so they are not vegan they are plant based.

Do you think we will see a day when cancer and the like is completely curable?

What’s the most frustrating part of your job?

Do you ever start looking for one thing and find something unrelated but amazing, if so do you stop and explore the new thing or plough on with the original direction?

Is it all white walls, high tech labs behind laser locked doors like the movies suggest?

SPOFS if it's a genuine discussion you want then I'm happy to try. At the same time, with such a sensitive topic I don't want to inadvertently speak for others that do what I do. I hope you can understand. PP have not exactly asked me anything, they've accused me of being something. That's fine, it's what they believe and I know nothing I say will change that, the same way nothing they say will cause me to quit my job tomorrow. So I meant more that I won't be responding to statements like those before. If you have a question, I promise to do my best to answer.

How did you get into the job?

Do those of you who are vehemently against animal testing carry some sort of identity bracelet/card/instructions that you are not to be given medication that has been tested on animals?
If you get cancer or some other life threatening illness in the future do you intend to refuse treatment involving drugs that have gone through animal testing?
If you have young children would you refuse life saving treatment on their behalf if the meds had been animal tested?

Personally, I think that the world is dangerously overpopulated. If we find a cure for every disease, we will be in even more trouble. Of course, I don't want anyone, human or animal, to be in pain, but sadly, disease is a natural part of life.

I assume you would have anyone with any kind of medical issue just die out in that case?

Sorry - anyone with type 1 diabetes? No insulin for you
Sorry - anyone with epilepsy? No anti convulsants for you
Sorry - anyone with any kind of autoimmune disorder - no life saving drugs for you
Sorry - any of the 1 in 3 people who will get cancer - no treatment for you

That should definitely sort out over population. Which ones of your family and friends would you pick to die if they can't get any medical treatment for any medical issues they might have?

No vaccines either

And I assume if you ever need any dental work, you won't have a local?

Or period pain or a headache, no paracetamol or ibuprofen for you

How many medical trials have you signed up for, out of interest?

Do people know its not just drug testing that is done on animals.

Early stage research to just understand how a disease changes changes the molecular profile of cells can be essential in identifying potential drug targets.

It's currently essential for biomedical research. And a legal requirement for new drugs to be tested and have succesful trails on both small and large animals before phase 1 human trials can begin.

Animal free research is great and I currently work in a lab that can't use any animal products...although of course that a unrealistic as at the antibodies required for most experiments are raised in animals. Bit we use human serum etc. However the limits are we can either do very early stage test or mostly drug repurposing...so looking to see if drugs already through earlyphase trails can be repurposed for other diseases...as that way you can skip animal trials.

Animal research is hard but it is necessary.

Alonso, I really hope so. I've seen some amazing treatments that are shrinking tumours. Unfortunately as cancer is a cell mutation it means it is so varied we might always be playing catch up.

It's going to sound ridiculous but the most frustrating part is when the animals hurt each other! Male mice can be vicious little things and tear each other to shreds. Female mice can sometimes be just as bad. We try to house males with their male siblings as they normally cope with them better. We don't like males being alone as they're social animals naturally, but in the wild they would live in harems with female mice. Obviously we can't do that without resulting in lots of baby mice!

Animals are put under anaesthetic for any procedure more painful than a needle prick so when they cause pain like that to each other it's definitely frustrating.

Yes I'd say that happens regularly. Finding something unexpected. There's still so much we don't know. I can't go into detail but the group I work with recently noticed something unexpected whilst on a high fat diet that could be very interesting. We're trying to figure it out at the moment.

Yes I guess it is a bit white walls. Mice can only be kept in areas designated by the home office and they have to be clean so we wear scrubs and overshoes etc. Although there are places that aren't quite as strict, it depends on the work. We don't want to risk the animals catching anything that could result in the work being useless, otherwise it's all for nothing.

Firstly, thank you for the important work you do

You have mentioned that your work is (unsurprisingly) very emotionally draining so my question is what do you personally, and what do your employers do in terms of wellbeing/self-care?