I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Organs Zone. It has scientists studying health and disease in various parts of our bodies. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
I think that animal testing is necessary in some cases to preserve human life. And I think that if you do it ethically and with compassion for the animals, it is fine. Without animal testing, we wouldn’t make nearly as much progress in medical research. You can’t test drugs on human beings first….that would be really wrong.
That’s a heavy question for a Sunday morning, on the couch with my fuzzy slippers on! 🙂
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I don’t believe that animal testing is wrong, but I think it’s very important that we are respectful, and that our work is regulated, so that we can’t just do whatever we choose!
Like Carina said, we wouldn’t make nearly as much progress without animal testing, because we learn a lot from animal models.
It’s a difficult question, for sure, and definitely raises some ethical questions, but what we should all remember is that scientists are respectful and responsible with their animal models and only use them when necessary! 🙂
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The animal testing that you’re referring to is hopefully all but banned.
Many years ago, there was no ethics guidelines or acts put in place to protect animals from being abused by being experimented and tested on.
Today, there are strict guidelines, procedures and checks at every level of scientific research that requires animal models to understand how things work. Like Carina said, the ethical implications behind testing say a new drug that might have side-effects on people are huge!
There are also many different animal models that scientists use; the smallest and simplest one being the common fruit fly!
Every scientist that I’ve ever know, like every person I’ve ever met so far, loves animals. Hell I think Beagles and Daschunds are the cutest dogs ever! Some Ragdolls, Chinchilla and Persian cats are gorgeous too. So I believe I speak for everyone here when I say we wouldn’t ever dream of hurting or doing anything bad to animals.
It’s a long answer, but I think it’s important to convey how serious we scientists take animal ethics!
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Hey cor0010 – that’s an important question, thanks for asking!
Animal testing is necessary in research. It’s important to know that studies have been carefully designed to consider alternatives (such as computer simulations). Project proposals have gone through a long process by an ethics committee which decides whether a the use of animals in research study is justified. As scientists we do our best to conduct our research with minimal waste or harm to experimental subjects. For example, in order for certain medications to be safely used by humans, they first need to be tested on animals.
Without animal testing, a lot of our advances in medicine, etc would not exist. No antibiotics, no aspirin, no vaccines against malaria/cholera/typhoid (name your horrible disease!)
It’s not a surprise that most people who work in research love animals and are very sensitive about making sure that animals are treated humanely (or is that animaly?).
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Using animal for medical research isn’t wrong. Animal models help us discover cures for cancer, understand brain illness and make new vaccines and treatments. I am against animal testing for things that are not essential, like cosmetics and fancy foods.
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