Ethical Issues- animal experimentation

Question 1

Animal testing- against

Answer 1

Chris Atterwill- use tissue from an abbatoir instead from animals who have already been killed, drugs toxic to liver and nervous system should be tested on this, use brain cells instead of animals, test cells from 1 chick rather than 200 chicks. People should share information and research so that animals don’t need to be used. Animals are necessary in medical treatment as it speeds up the development of drugs and treatments. Certain drugs haven’t been successful with humans e.g. thalidomide. We should combine animal and cell culture testing.
Tom Regan- argues for complete end to using animals in experimentation, science, commercial agriculture and sport hunting. We should conserve habitats and improve their quality of life. The system of seeing animals as a resource for humans is wrong because they have intrinsic value, so we should not manipulate them to our advantage. Regan is also a realist though-lifeboat and dog example.
Peter Singer- don’t be speciesist towards animals, they are different but we shouldn’t treat them differently, not all humans have equal worth in what they can do e.g. disabled, but we do not experiment on them. Singer is a preference untilitarian so believes we should treat animals with equal preference if not equal status.
Gill Langley- shouldn’t cause other animals pain, suffering or distress on ethical grounds. If we experiment on humans why not experiment on babies? We are similar to animals so shouldn’t do something which causes them pain because animal welfare and human welfare are as important. There need to be new, improved ways of testing for her to agree with the process. Human volunteers are better because they can consent and represent humans better.

Question 2

Human testing- for and against

Answer 2

• are we exploiting humans
• is it entirely safe and should we expose humans to risk
• exploits poorer sections of society who do it for the money
• using gods creation and temple, exploiting the image of God and his perfect form, intrinsic value of all
• elephant men trying to find a cure for leukaemia- serious organ failure, lost toes, bodies swelled up, 2 weeks on life support for some
• better representation of the drug working on humans
• consent given
• safe because there are three stages of testing; tissue, animals, humans (healthy, small group of ill, large group of ill) to test for dosage and side effects
• drugs wouldn’t come to market it without this, is a higher moral duty to help the testing
• the smallpox vaccine was a success- cowpox injected into child 8 and then exposed her to smallpox carrier
• tanzeum injection to control type 2 diabetes
• guinea pig club and skin grafting experiments revolutionised plastic surgery

Question 3

Animal testing- for

Answer 3

Professor Stock- rats used for how obesity develops and genetically links, animals must be killed after experiments to avoid contamination but it is does humanely and professionally, pain and suffering is kept to a minimum, if you don’t use enough animals then you waste those you have used because it cannot be legalised, rabbits are used to raise antibodies for hormones, rainbow trout are used for anti-vomiting in cancer drugs, if the vet is unhappy with any experiment it can be stopped immediately.