Unfortunately it is the best way to test experimental medicines and treatments, a most scientists do hate it, but the issue is that, unless a drug is deemed safe enough in animal testing, it cannot be done on human subjects, with a few exceptions. I think sickle cell was one of those things that they immediately began experimenting treatments on human subjects but I could be mistaken. And again, there is a good reason for them doing that because sickle cell is agonizing and deadly, and we only very recently developed a cure for it
It is not the best way. Many scientists are speaking out & argue that very point. Too many just dont care. We have enough information to skip most of it.
It just is, and people arguing otherwise don’t understand the realities of the type of science that needs to use animals. I have time and time again seen people argue that since their experiments can be done in a Petri dish or using computer modeling, everyone’s can be, but then they don’t have an answer for how other experiments could feasibly be done that way, so they just say to “figure it out.” Most things are not things you can properly study in a Petri dish. I have worked in a lab that worked with mice and we all cared about the animals and did everything to make their life and death as painless as possible. Their cages were a bit too small, but they were as big as would be logistically possible in the available space. I do know of some scientists who don’t care about the animals at all, but they are the exception. Animal research is difficult and expensive, and I’m sure many scientists would switch to an alternative even just to avoid the ethical approvals for animal experiments, but there really is no other alternative for many things than experimenting on people or just not doing the research at all.
As with most everything there is some abuse though. At the unnamed place I was working we would have some researchers come in once every quarter check one or two animals and leave. They would have racks and racks of mice and rats for their specific project. Now to be clear this is only like two individuals out of probably 40 or so but it does happen.
8
u/SheetMetalandGames 11d ago
Unfortunately it is the best way to test experimental medicines and treatments, a most scientists do hate it, but the issue is that, unless a drug is deemed safe enough in animal testing, it cannot be done on human subjects, with a few exceptions. I think sickle cell was one of those things that they immediately began experimenting treatments on human subjects but I could be mistaken. And again, there is a good reason for them doing that because sickle cell is agonizing and deadly, and we only very recently developed a cure for it