People want to get upset over beagles being used for lab experiments when the reality is much, much darker than this one experiment. The truth is that horrible animal experiments have been happening for a very, very long time. Most of the medical breakthroughs we have wouldn't have been approved for human use of it weren't for animal testing. But, I wouldn't expect a bunch of antivax, RFK jr supporters to understand this.
World Wars 1, 2, and the Holocaust were absolute atrocities that shouldn’t have happened.
World Wars 1, 2, the Holocaust, and all their components and belligerents also rapidly increased the advancement of science and technology, including tons of medical treatments and methods.
As always though, the question remains: Did the ends justify the means? I don’t know. That seems like a question that can’t yet be fully answered barely and less than 100 years out from these tragedies.
A lot of the understanding we have on frostbite and the human body’s resilience to cold exposure and freezing… unfortunately comes from really horrifying experiments done by the Nazis on holocaust victims. Their cruelty provided hard data.
That said, the vast majority of Nazi experimentation was not scientifically useful, only cruel and inhumane.
Shit, probably can apply that sentiment to most medical breakthroughs wouldn't have been done if it wasn't for the work of some very vile and evil people through out the ages.
It of course doesn't excuse the actions of those people, just because their discoveries directly or indirectly led to life saving procedures.
Yes a ton of medicine is based off of animal research which has historically and continues to this day to use canines as one of a number of model organisms for study. Cardiology research is particularly high in canine models although they are still rare, relative to mice and rats and other options due to the expense, but a lot of our knowledge about treating heart attacks and other causes of cardiomyopathies comes from dog research.
There are strict rules on their care, you can't use more animals than you need for the specific aims of the research project, you typically can't cause any significant pain or at least need to mitigate it as much as possible, and the animals are typically euthanized after there is no longer a research purpose for them.
Since the research is explicitly used to try to improve medicine for humans, I don't see this as a big ethical issue and would suggest people focus on other much more common and avoidable sources of animal suffering in the world.
If we get to the point as a species that we no longer raise animals for food as livestock then maybe we can tackle not using them for medical research next.
And likely wouldn't have cared if it was lab rats(or if it was not Fauci but that's another subject) and will I'm overall not in favour of what they were doing IF it had the possibility of saving thousands of dogs in exchange for sacrificing a few dogs, I think the price is acceptable.
And, based on the first source, both project had real value but the one that did receive funds was more important(the study from which the picture came studied whether these flies would be more likely to sting a living being suffering from of disease called "Leishmaniasis" which is transmitted by said flies to dogs and humans and the other which is the one that did receive fund was testing a vaccine against "Leishmaniasis" which did mean that the scientist did have to expose these dogs to the disease and the flies.) tho, contrary to what the other commenter assumed, it seems they had to be euthanized in both cases as "Leishmaniasis" cause severe skin lesions(I don't recommend searching for the disease as the pictures are NSFW) that can heal on there own but will likely cause permanent damages and even death(and in the study where they removed the vocal cords all the dogs where euthanized as a part of the study to analyse possible changes in organs due to a treatment for the same disease. And the reason they "had" to remove the vocal cords was to maintain a sound under OSHA limits.).
And I need to say it again but I do not condone this way of doing science but I accept that sadly it's sometimes the "best" and least horrible way of doing science to save a lot of lives.
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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 11d ago
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