• Question: what are your thoughts on animal testing?

    Asked by hevaarawr to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I am very uncomfortable with it and I hope that they find good alternatives to it very soon. We’re starting to – some products are now tested on human cell cultures rather than living animals.

    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      At the moment it is necessary. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need to do it but I don’t believe we should put animal lives over and above the chances of treating or curing a human being. Ian is right – there are some alternative methods but they are really hard to develop. I actually discussed this with a local scientist who works in this area on my radio show last week: http://www.rhysphillips.co.uk/pythagoras-trousers/episode-41/.

    • Photo: David Corne

      David Corne answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      For cosmetics, and other inessential things, I think animal testing is very bad and of course should not happen. For things that have a serious chance of helping to save human life and suffering, I think it is worth considering. The question, then, is whether there is another way to do it where the results would be just as valid and useful. Then it all comes down to the particular situation in hand. These days I think it is becoming much harder to justify, as we have more and more ways to get useful data about the same questions, such as using human cell cultures.

      Just read Helen’s answer, which is clearly authoritative on this. I was probably overoptimistic about the chances that we could replace it with human cells or computer models anytime soon. The root of the problem is that humans are extremely complex biological machines. Imagine a really complex mathematical formula written in tiny font but about ten miles long (the human), which does things to “x” and gives an answer at the end. A computer model, or even a cell culture is a much much much simpler machine – a bit like a mathematical formula a few inches long. If you put in the same “x”, you won’t get the same answer as the human formula. But, an animal is a formula about 8 miles long, and so it should get much closer to the right result, giving a better idea what would happen in the human case.

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Since 1998 it has been illegal to use animal testing for cosmetics in the UK. We can only use animal testing for health interventions (eg., drugs and vaccines). We do use animals to develop vaccines. We use mice to test vaccines are safe and to screen potential vaccines for testing in humans. Mice are actually not very good models for selecting vaccines for TB, HIV and malaria (otherwise we would already have vaccines for these diseases). It is though a requirement of the UK MHRA and also ethics committees that we test vaccines in animals before giving them to humans. The immune response is highly complex and we just don’t know enough about all the complex cellular interactions to be able to do the testing in tissue culture rather than a mouse. There have been awful problems is the past with people giving a treatment to humans without extensively testing its safety in animals http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4811626.stm. We have a duty to be very careful and animal testing is part of that process. There are scientists who are trying to figure out all the complex cellular interactions so that they can create cell culture systems as alternatives to working with mice. It will be many years though before we will be able to use these alternatives. All animal work is done under the strictest conditions, see here for more info. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/animal-research/
      We have to use the smallest number of animals possible and prove there is no alternative to using a mouse. We also have to minimise suffering to the animal and give pain relief/anaesthesia before/after giving the vaccines. All people who work with animals have to be trained and issued with a Home Office licence. Everything is done under the supervision of a vet and everything has to be recorded and reported back to the Home Office. It’s not perfect. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have to use animals. If you do have to use animals the best place to do it in the world is in the UK because we have the highest standards of animal welfare and strictest legal requirements of anywhere in the world. There are groups of people in the UK who actively campaign against animal testing. This is a very good thing as every experiment done comes under close scrutiny and it keeps animal welfare standards in the UK exceptionally high. This is a difficult thing to talk about on a message board as I’m sure you have many questions but I hope this has been a useful answer for you.

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