to think this is not a suitable place for school to send a 14 yo on work experience

[princessparty]

..an animal testing laboratory !!
He rang me from school this morning to say this is what the school has suggested when he said he wanted to do lab work for work experience.Apparently they have placed students there in the past !
Apart from the obvious upsetting nature of their work,the place is often frequented by animal rights activists who have not only targetted people working there but also employees of any companies doing business with them !!

I did my work experience at a vets. On one memorable occassion, the frankly rubbish vet attempted to spey a male kitten, and on another the very short veterinary nurse was pinned to the wall by a frozen alsation. I stopped wanting to be a vet after that.

yes but nickelbabe not everyone feels the same as you. as i said my nephew thinks it is a cool placement.

dilemma, pmsl at someone using a "bull cock" as a football

I don't see why animal testing is necessarily upsetting to come across in a work exp environment. Personally I am delighted that there are effective medicines available to treat terminal and chronic disease as a result of medical research involving animals. Cosmetic research, yeah, that I don't like at all, but is a different issue.

Would leave it up to the child, I think.

no brux,i don't have a limited understanding,thankyou very much

however,i think YOU do as we all know how we are supposed to deal with trolls....report them!

If she believes that animal testing is torture then she's too stupid to leave the house unassisted

Have just googled and found some undercover photos from inside the lab don't know how you define torture Brux ?

I don't.

The UN does

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions."

I'd define torture as deliberate and sustained infliction of pain, whether mental or physical, in order to extract a confession or for the torturer's own gratification.

OED says :-

torture

? noun 1 the infliction of severe pain as a punishment or a forcible means of persuasion. 2 great suffering or anxiety.

I would think no 2 would cover animal testing ?

Sounds like an interesting placement. I can't see any harm in that at all.

Do they still cut up frogs and worms etc in school lessons or has that all been stopped these days?

I'm sure you could find a death-metal band named torture if you googled hard enough, that's not the main definition of the word. That's like me saying watching Cbeebies all day is torture. Poetic license.

2 great suffering or anxiety.

As in "I'm tortured by the decision I made"

agree, eleanora: was just giving another side of the story: how the child would feel (i don't recall being given a choice in my placement, just got sent there)

it seems that a lot of people are slating the OP for not wanting her child to be subjected to the cruelty.

it's not just another thing in life that needs to be dealt with and got over, and i think it's unnecessary and cruel to torture an animal. and i think it's cruel of the school (and unethical) to support such a business.

(regardless of how cool a teenager migth find it, it's still barbaric)

Do you actually think that animal testing causes great suffering, PP?

What are you doing about that?

Nickelbabe - you have used the words "cruelty" and "barbaric".

Now apparently calling this kind of language deliberately inflammatory is in itself trolling, so I'll stick to "excessively emotive".

How do you think new medicines and procedures are tested? Would you prevent your child from having life-saving therapy because it had been tested on animals?

If so then kudos, that's some moral fibre. If not, that's pretty hypocritical, isn't it?

Not everyone thinks that though nickelbabe.
Obviously if he doesn't want to go, then he should find another placement.

If OP is opposed to vivisection then she could find an alternate placement.

I don't like squeamishness confused with ethics though.
If you eat non-organic meat, milk or eggs then there's no moral high-ground here regards torture.

what a GREAT place for work experience. I am serious. if thats what ds is into. testing, lab work, seeing the reality of what happens.
a great place. am shocked at why you all think this is not a good idea.
14 ? mature enough to know how it works and not be phased. or i was at 14. maybe OP's ds is not ?

Princessparty - what did you Ds think about the placement ?

Bruxeur - bog off !

onagar - it's pig hearts now. The pigs are dead before hand though. They don't actually slaughter them in the class. (At least I think DS said they didn't.....)

bruxeur, i believe that the practice is barbaric and cruel.

i think we have enough scientists in this country (and lots who need jobs too) who have the skills to develop a way of testing new drugs without needing to use animals.

it's been proven that MOST drugs don't work the same way in human as in animals and it's not a like-for-like test.
(aspirin, paracetamol, thalydomide for examples)

yes i would.

wastingaway: there are loads more types of labs that can offer placements without needing to send them to torutre labs (materials for example)
and i only eat free-range eggs (and products containing FR eggs) and don't eat meat, but will only buy organic meat and milk.

Oblomov: it's not that 14 YOs can't cope with lab work, it's just that it's unnecessary to send them to something that's by its very nature mean and cruel.

blood testing labs, abbatoirs, etc can involve gross and blood without torturing.
(abbatoirs aren't the same because you are killing the animals in order to eat, not to see if this droplet makes the animal shriek if we put it in its eye)

Nice, thoughtful argument there CU. Anything else you'd care to share?

he probably wouldn't be let anywhere near the animals would he? wouldn't let my ds do it.

of course he would be let near the animals, otherwise what would the point be?

Humans are perfectly capable of surviving without meat.
Some people think that using animals for food is cruel and barbaric.

Nickelbabe - you think there's a kind of critical mass of "scientists" - very non-specific - that are needed to develop non-animal based testing?

So if we stuff enough particle physicists into a room, we'll spontaneously invent cold fusion?

What with that and the droplet/shriek theory, it's fairly apparent that you're woefully uninformed about this.

It's just such an emotive issue, clearly ... but in regard to the original post, I would say YAB a bit U because it is not inherently unsuitable. It is just not suitable for every pupil. It depends on his/her feelings on the matter. I would have been ok with it morally & emotionally, as others here have said. But then lots of other people wouldn't.

I don't think you can realistically say it's a case of the school being in the wrong for offering it, though. That suggests that you would only be happy if the school shared your viewpoint on this issue and imposed it on all the kids as well. IMHO that is unreasonable.