Animal Experimentation

What is it?
1. Use of non-human animals in experiments
2. Majority of experiments to develop new medicines and test the safety of other products
3. Many experiments only involve minor procedures (e.g a change of diet). Those requiring more invasive procedures are given pain relief if appropriate.
4. Animals are humanely destroyed after experimentation
What are the ethical issues?
1. Slippery Slope
  1. lead to the creation of hybrid embryos? and then the creation of human-hybrid embryos?
  2. cloning
2. Stewardship
  1. 'Stewards to the earth, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky'
  2. created to look after the earth, not to cause pain and suffering
3. What rights do the animals have?
  1. Equal rights to humans - e.g. Peter Singer
  2. No rights - e.g. Kant, Carl Cohen
  3. Some rights, but not equal to humans - Tom Regan
4. Alternatives
  1. Cell cultures
  2. Brain recording techniques e.g. MRI, PET, CT
  3. Microdosing - giving humans small doses of the drug to collect information about how it is metabolised, and how safe it is - has not been fully validated as an alternative yet
  4. Animal testing is the best method
    1. Large sample
    2. Interaction between drug and entire body can be seen
Examples
1. Banting and Best: discovery of insulin in dogs in the 1920s led to treatment for both diabetic humans and dogs.
2. 2012- less than 0.5% of experiments were on cats, dogs and primates (senient organisms). 99% of experiments were on birds, reptiles, fish and rodents (insenient organisms).
3. 90% of veterinary medicines are the same or very similar to human medicines
Scholars and Quotes
1. Immanuel Kant
  1. 'Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as means to an end'
  2. Animals cannot reason, and therefore the categorical imperative does not apply to them
  3. Indirect duties towards animals
    1. 'Must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals become hard also in his dealings with men'
  4. Can use consequentialist reasoning, as we have no direct duties towards animals
2. Carl Cohen
  1. Animals have no moral significance or rights (ability to make moral claims), as they do not have intellectual attributes
    1. Criticism - human beings, e.g. babies and brain damaged people, cannot make moral claims and thus must also lack rights
3. Peter Singer
  1. All creatures should be given moral significance
  2. 'Speciesism' - belief that the interests of one's own species are more important that interests of another
  3. The same experiments, with the same amount of suffering, should be performed on human, or no experiments should be performed at all
  4. Proponent of preference Utilitarianism, therefore interesting in the pain and pleasure an action will bring
    1. 'a being is not capable of suffering, or of enjoyment, there is nothing to be taken into account'
Religious Views
1. 'A humans being may be worth many sparrows, but even a sparrow does not die unnoticed'
2. Roman Catholic
  1. Catechism - 'animal experiments are morally acceptable'
3. Other Denominations
  1. Rev. Anne Wilkinson-Hayes (baptist) - 'most baptists would be sympathetic towards the use of animals in medical research, but less enthusiastic towards their use in cosmetic products'

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