Humans have experimented on a vast number of non-humans for millennia. Animal testing draws criticism, but at the same time, leads to medical benefits.
Scientists use syringes in animal testing.
History
Animal testing contributed to medical knowledge as early as the third century BC when, according to the Royal Society of Medicine, the Greek physician Erasistratus "performed innumerable experiments on animals" that led him to a "sound explanation" for human pneumatics. In 1998 the Nuffield Council of Bioethics reported animal testing has become so common researchers worldwide use about 50 to 100 million animals annually.
Breast Cancer
Clinicians use Herceptin to treat Her2/neu-positive breast cancers. Herceptin's efficacy and toxicity can be tested only in living models. Researchers must determine how Herceptin affects their complex, interdependent systems. Computers cannot model such systems well enough to replace them, partly because no one fully understands how living systems function--so researchers can't give computers sufficient information. Models using dead animals don't meet all research requirements, either, because (among other needs) researchers must analyze how Herceptin influences cancer cell motion. Such motion doesn't occur in dead organisms.
Diabetes
In 1923 surgeon Frederick Banting and physiologist J.J.R. MacLeod received Nobel Prizes for the practical extraction of insulin, a hormone used in treating diabetes patients. Their team ligatured a dog's pancreatic duct to gather insulin and surgically removed other dogs' pancreata to mimic diabetes. Then the team injected the insulin into the de-pancreatized dogs, which kept the dogs alive. Others built on this work, and 2007 National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse statistics show that an estimated five million diagnosed diabetics in the United States alone depend on insulin.
The Three Rs
In 1959 microbiologist R.L. Burch and zoologist W.M.S. Russell set forth reduction, replacement, and refinement as principles for reducing animal testing inhumanity. A 2007 Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation journal article said "adoption of these principles across the scientific communities of the world" has become "widespread."
Reduction decreases the number of animals used or the distress inflicted. Replacement substitutes other models for living models or less sentient animals (such as invertebrates) for more sentient animals (such as vertebrates). Refinement makes testing methodology less painful.
Controversy
Some philosophers consider animal cognition relevant to testing ethics. René Descartes, who thought animal testing justified, considered animals mere machines in part due to their inability to communicate abstract concepts. However, David Hume argued animals are obviously "endowed with thought and reason" since they purse goals intelligently in ways sufficiently similar to humans. He advocated "gentle usage." As scientific research on animal communication advances, philosophers refine their positions on animal cognition, often differing as to how behavior, communication, and cognition relate.
Some philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham, believe the point isn't cognition or communication but whether research animals suffer. Still others condemn giving humans and non-humans different moral weight simply due to species; Peter Singer calls such distinctions "speciesist," an analogy to "racist."
The Animal Liberation Front and other terrorist groups translate extreme "animal rights" philosophies into violence, including research facility bombing. Nevertheless, researchers typically concentrate on "animal welfare," not animal rights.
Tags: animal cognition, animal rights, animal testing, animals such, living models, sentient animals, sentient animals such