• Question: are you for or against animal testing??? do you think it is right?????

    Asked by anon-12964 to Alex, Jools, Lynz, Matt, Rika on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by apoole09x, pratiksha21.
    • Photo: Matthew Dickinson

      Matthew Dickinson answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Now there are two ways of looking at this for me. The first is let’s say that animals are going to be tested on for make-up this is wrong its unreal. However let’s say god forbid that a 1,000,000 people become ill almost at the point of death. In this case I would say yes testing on animals is the best thing, I don’t feel that there is a right or wrong answer to the question.

    • Photo: Alex Davenport

      Alex Davenport answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I feel that animal testing is an unfortunate but neccesary fact of science.
      I cannot speak for the cosmetic indusry but I can for the scientific research side of animal testing.
      In the UK the law is very strict about what you can and cannot do to the animal and you must pre guess what you think will happen. If anything out of the ordinary happens to cause the animal (in most cases mice) any distress that you havn’t accounted for, then you must stop testing or face a criminal prosecution. Other countries are not so strict and I think this is a bad thing!
      However, testing on animals is a requirement for any medical treatment that wants to be approved for humans. Now there is a strong arguement that animals do not make the best models, and they are correct. However at the moment they are the best we have.
      So I would like to see a move away from animal testing in the furture to a more computer based simulation, but unfortunately it is just not possible.

      That being said, all the scientists I know who work with animals, love them a lot! They go in weekends to look after them and the wlefare of their animal is always top priority. Afterall if the animal is unhappy, how do we know that won’t skew the results?

    • Photo: Lyndsey Fox

      Lyndsey Fox answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Contoversial question! I think it’s very difficult to say what’s right or wrong, but my personal feelings on the subject are that animals should NOT tested on in the cosmetics industry, Animals shouldn’t have to suffer for human vanity.
      But sadly when it comes to medical testing I think it is still neccesary, especially when you consider all the diseases that have been cured as a result: rabies, tubercolosis, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc etc. Hopefully one day technology will advance to the point where animals aren’t needed any more.

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