Stand up to cancer and animal testing

[OoerBlah]

First of all, I'm genuinely sorry for anyone who has lost someone they love to cancer. But I've been watching this thing and feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Initially it was just that cancer is so incredibly difficult to treat even after all these many years of research that it just seemed so mawkish and pointless.

But then I realised where all these millions of pounds will ultimately be going - to fund research which will no doubt be on millions of defenceless innocent animals and for what? Haven't we been doing that for years already and where are we.

People die. All species die of any number of illnesses. Why do humans feel entitled to use other species so mercilessly in the vain hope of prolonging our own lives?

Anyway. Sorry, but I'm not contributing to the further mass genocide of creatures who in no way deserve to live and die solely for human benefit.

Apologies then U2

www.gov.uk/government/policies/animal-research-and-testing

Just putting this here...

Fairly emotive subject here then?! The whole idea of MN surely is to be able to express an opinion. People can disagree but getting nasty is inexcusable and the resort of imbeciles.

Personally, I'm not sure what the answer is. Both my kids are alive due to all the technical advances in medicine. So am I. My dad died of cancer too. In an ideal world there would be no need to test on animals as there would be no diseases, but I'm not sure what alternatives there are available. Maybe funding research into alternatives to using animals would be more productive.

Regardless though, name calling and expletives are neither helpful or reasonable. A proper discussion between drug companies, government, NICE and animal rights groups would be one step towards solving this emotive issue.

A discussion would have been fine.

OP worded her post horribly. If she worded her OP differently then there probably would have been a better discussion.

Sorry, but I'm not contributing to the further mass genocide of creatures who in no way deserve to live and die solely for human benefit.

That was never going to get the conversation off to a good start.

But some people do feel that way? I am very conflicted on the way that we abuse animals because we have power over them.

Very conflicted, I am haunted still by what I saw nearly ten years ago in the primate testing area. I had to go there for something unconnected with that but their faces haunt me still.

Ugh, such a badly written post.

I have been vegetarian for over 30 years, own a dog and love animals. I also have a child, now almost ten, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. I'm aware her survival statistics were improved by years of animal testing before trials reached the human stage. My daughter was actually treated on a trial. I still hate what the animals have to go through and wish there was another way. The op was merely expressing her opinion and should be allowed to do so.

As a pp said, i am very conflicted as believe it to be wrong yet am happy my daughter has benefitted.

For all those saying "why don't we research into alternatives instead?" This IS happening! Lots of preliminary work is already done using cell models, computer modelling etc but neither of those is sophisticated enough yet to take the place of the next necessary step which is to use animals. Cells in a dish cannot replicate the complex physiology of a living body.

It would be brilliant to be able to replace animal research, and many scientists all over the world are working on that problem, but we don't have a solution yet. In the meantime, do you propose we stop all other research, for however many decades it takes? Scientists don't love using animals, it isn't fun and it is incredibly expensive, but at the moment it is the least bad option of we want to make progress.

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

No upsetting images other than how they are caged but this is something that I am not comfortable with. The primates are experimented on to help with understanding for depression and autism.
My youngest dd has autism, I don't want this to happen in her cause.

Cancer brings a new layer of conflict for me and is not so 'easy' to condemn.

The thought of animal testing is horrific from mice to primates the pain these animals go must go through has an impact physically and phsycologically and it really upsets me, but what is the alternative if you need a medication there is none is there ?

Scientists do as much as possible in vitro because it's faster and cheaper, but if you want to see what happens in a 3D environment rather than just a sheet of cells in a Petri dish, and particularly what happens in the context of those cells being near blood vessels, responding to other types of cells, then so far there's not much choice.
The vast majority of mice used are perfectly healthy even if they carry altered genes - mostly you're looking to see what a gene does and how it's controlled, so given the animals are looked after well (probably better than most pet rodents), anyone who is content for meat, egg or pest control industries to exist wouldn't have anything to worry about.

JelliBelli What sort of cancers are most common in mice vs humans is irrelevant as you're looking into how mammalian genes function (if you're looking at other animal genes you can use fruit flies, and for general eukaryotes we use yeast). Hopefully in the next generation we'll have learnt enough about how genes control each other that it can be modelled on in vitro chips.

I hope I didn't come across as rude. I do think the op should apologise for the "people die"

Not nice to read when people including mn's have lost young children to cancer, picking something like stand up to cancer was always going to have emotional and personal responses.

Aspirins properties were discovered by the Nazis while carrying out experiments on humans in concentration camps. Do we not use it because of how it was found ? I think we use it as a tribute that those people didn't suffer in vain. I hate the idea of animal testing and not sure could do it myself, but boy do I appreciate it as it has saved my child's life.

Aspirins properties were discovered by the Nazis while carrying out experiments on humans in concentration camps.

Haven't RTFT, but aspirin was synthesised in the late 19th century. Its natural form (from willow trees) has been used for thousands of years. The Nazis most definitely did not discover its properties.

BishopBrennansArse
Flumpybear

Yes but not a cure as such. The way people go on about it (especially fucking Cannabis Oil) you'd think we were literally sitting on a cure for everything and anything. It upsets me because good people have died due to believing this bullshit will save them.

fuckweasel

Yep, the Nazis didn't have anything to do with Aspirin being discovered. There were some tests done by the Nazis that discovered the blood thinning properties it had though, but nothing on a huge scale and most of their research on it was destroyed I think. Bayer, the company that manufactured Aspirin was under Nazi control for years.

And also the fact that after so many years of research a cure has not been found.

Cancer is a collection of diseases that are all very different -- different genes, cells, mechanisms, pathways. Each cancer is very specific. A single cure will NEVER be found. That would be like treating every infection, whether bacterial, viral, fungal etc with one single drug, or thinking a single treatment could cure HIV, Alzheimer's and diabetes.

Researchers look at and work to treat manage and cure individual cancers.

CML treatment with Gleevec is one of the most successful cancer 'cures' (it's more management, but it works long term and has been very successful). People who survive 2 years on it have the same life expectancy as people who don't have CML.

Engineered T cells have cured some blood cancers.

Testicular cancer can be cured.

Thyroid cancer can be cured.

None of these treatments work on other cancers because other cancers are completely different diseases. But none of them would exist without animal work.

OP The cancer I survived in 1993 would have killed me twenty years earlier and the difference was chemotherapy tested on animals. And I am not going to be persuaded that it was wrong. Feel free to decline any treatment you want for yourself.

Not discovered. But they found it could be used as a blood thinner and for blood diseases. Read the bit about Bauer http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11CompaniessThatSurprisinglyyCollaboratedWithhtheNazis. Man was actually a Jew but trials were then done on concentration camp inmates

I have a BIG problem about testing on animals for cosmetics.

But not medicine.

And I suspect that anyone saying otherwise would not refuse treatment for cancer or anything else, for themselves or a loved one, because it had been tested on animals. Hypocrisy in the extreme.

I lost my mum to brain cancer when i was 20, and yet i partly agree with you. Testing on animals is NOT fair, and they also aren't biologically the same as us, so what works on them wont necessarily work on us. I am biased as i am very fond of little furry animals like rats as i keep hamsters and gerbils, and would keep rats, rabbits and who knows what else if my housing situation allowed it. We do however, have prisons full of people who won't ever be getting out who have negatively affected society with awful crimes, with no problem violating other peoples rights, why can't we test on them?

I have a problem that research is duplicated by many countries ad infinitum, it needs to be more joined up so less animals suffer overall and until it is then i dont give money
to research charities including cancer research, which seems to be the emotive one.

I say that as someone who has lost family to cancer and my mother currently has cancer.

Humans do not have the monopoly on suffering.

MissKatieVictoria

Please don't. Just don't.

I love animals and have several of them, but the fact is they are always going to be less important than us. Even many vegetarians and vegans will support drugs testing when it could save a human life or potentially millions of lives. Until there is a better replacement, animals will have to do.

Human testing isn't right, especially not using prisoners. What about miscarriages of justice, rehabilitation and other factors?

I can’t understand why people argue that, because many drugs have been developed with animal testing, this somehow means that those who object to animal testing are being hypocritical in using them.

The development of existing drugs is now history, which cannot be changed, and refusing existing drugs will have no beneficial effect on the animals that suffered during their development. There are many things that we have to use that were developed in ways that we cannot approve of; take pethidine, used to treat labour pain: this was developed by the Nazis, but I can’t imagine that there is anyone here who would not accept its use in spite of that.

The use of animal testing for pharmaceuticals will gradually disappear, as superior replacement methods come on-board, especially as development of more sophisticated drugs and medical procedures tailored for individual humans becomes more commonplace. One driver for this is pragmatism: I don’t think that anyone can argue convincingly that animal testing is not substantially flawed; certainly, perusal of the biomedical literature shows that the use of animal is scientific experiments is often used as a (poor) substitute for good science.

My final point is a more philosophical one: many posters seem to think that animal testing is a fundamental requirement in drug and medical development. Do these posters really think that, given the extraordinary abilities of our human brains, we could not have made, at least, the same advances in medicine if animal testing had never been available?