Animal rights; which is your view?

Former_MSE_Archna

Poll Title: Poll started 5 June 2006: Animal rights extremists have targeted directors, families and shareholders of drugs and other companies which do animal experiments. Which of the following is the closest to your view of it?

Disgusting. People have a right to do their work and invest without fear 58.6% (1995 Votes)
Over the top. I agree with their cause, but this takes it too far
31.1% (1059 Votes)
Fair enough. When you believe in something, these means are justified
10.2% (349 Votes)

Total Votes: 3404

guineapig2

ravenlighte wrote:

I believe that because of this testing, and modern medicine in general, we all live way past our 'use by date'. The human species was not meant to live 80 plus years. There is a reason why at a certain age women can no loger naturally conceive, why we become ill and decrepid, why our hips give out and need replacing, why our hearts pack in and we have to kill an innocent pig to keep us ticking over for another couple of years.

What then is our ‘natural’ life expectancy? – In Zimbabwe it is currently 36 for men – primarily because of one of the world’s greatest diseases to confront mankind – HIV AIDS. In the US with access to drugs this rises to 77.
This epidemic now infects 39 million people worldwide, with 19,000 new cases every day. Should we accept that our life expectancy should be 36 here too? Should mankind not try to develop treatments and cures for this disease or any other one? Would anyone be willing to tell even one of the 39 million that 'because of a personal moral decision that I wish to impose on others (by threats and actual violence) that there will be no cure for you'? To wishfully say that companies should build a bigger computer, or use more test-tubes is regrettably farcical, any new drug will need some animal experiments to assess its effect in a living animal and to conform to legal requirements before any human can receive it. Nobody would deny that to avoid any testing would be great – whether that’s in animals, humans in clinical trials, or in patients as doctors try different “equivalent” drugs with different doses to find the combination right for them.
Currently there is no other choice, but despite that, if animal rights extremists had their way, then there would be no new drugs – never a cure for diseases that afflict people, no good safe treatments with high success rates and few side-effects for AIDS, bird flu, Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, hypertention, cancer and the many many other diseases that are currently poorly or not treated at all and cause untold suffering and early deaths for millions and millions of people...

In any case, shareholders are not the right targets for legal or illegal protesting – the source of money from drugs comes from sick people… but somehow the prospect of protesters threatening sick people when they are trying to collect their prescriptions makes it easier to label business as greedy and evil and shareholders as a faceless group who somehow are investing money to torture animals and deserve to be threatened is much easier. Taking a moral position feels nice but it is complicated - where does it end? Should one not drive a car? - drivers know that in the summer they will kill a large number of insects while driving as evidenced by their numberplate after a journey. Should farmers not be 'allowed' to use pesticides despite the knowledge that millions of people would then starve?...

SunnyBrighton_2

spaceage wrote:

I'm sure there are a few people on this very forum who suffer from cancer or other debilitating illnesses - perhaps you will be the first to tell them they shouldn't receive treatment.

Please don't twist my argument:( I have never told anyone they can't take any kind of toxic substance they wish.

The whole tone of my post was that society is profit driven, and lacking morals and compassion and that was reflected in our behaviour to animals.

spaceage wrote:

I have no idea what you're on about here - medics are there to help not kill. Unless you are referring to abortion or something separate??
Drugs work and that's why they are used. .

Yet the statistics I quoted say differently - medical treatments are the leading cause of death, above cancers, above heart problems, above everything else.
Drugs are developed to make a profit. And I meant they believe in the system of suppressing symptoms with drugs (and increasing their profits) instead of illness prevention.
If drugs worked, then surely as more are developed, then many more people would be cured and would be healthier - which is not the case at present, in fact illnesses and diseases are rising so that one in three people will now have cancer in their lifetime.

spaceage wrote:

You are misguided in thinking that those who develop drugs do so purely because "they believe in it" - it's dedicated to improving people's quality of life - and I fully support it, as does our PM and the government, and those with common sense.

I haven't called you misguided because you don't agree with what I wish to have done to my body, so please don't resort to insulting me because I don't agree with your opinion. Why do you feel the need to imply I have no common sense just because I have a belief system which differs from yours? Arguing that the government backs it does not seem in the least bit convincing (ref Iraq war, ref MMR, ref so many things that the govt does for their own self interest and profit - this does not make something right).

Fifer

SunnyBrighton wrote:

Yet the statistics I quoted say differently - medical treatments are the leading cause of death, above cancers, above heart problems, above everything else.

You didn't quote any statistics that I could see, just a headline without a reference which I googled and found this nonsense. They blatantly misuse statistics by lumping together eight disparate categories and arbitrarily christening them as 'Medical Intervention'. They make no attempt (that I can see) of comparing the lives they claim are lost to medical intervention to those which are saved or extended.

SunnyBrighton wrote:

If drugs worked, then surely as more are developed, then many more people would be cured and would be healthier - which is not the case at present, in fact illnesses and diseases are rising so that one in three people will now have cancer in their lifetime.

Of course people are healthier. Look at the age expectancy trends. People are living longer which is the reason more now suffer cancer. Many people didn't used to live long enough to contract some cancers such as prostate cancer which is predominantly a disease of the elderly.

catingrass

Animal testing has gone to the dogs. If it is such an exact science why do they put so much cash into blackmailing students to use the drugs after the animals. Take a good long look at the new ways of testing before you part with your cash. Tissue culture is just one of the many ways of testing available now

7th_Song

What a hornet's nest this one has turned out to be, with a plethora of emotive and predictable responses, so here are a few points that crossed my mind.

Like so many companies the drug companies are much more interested in providing expensive and profitable solutions to the problems of the wealthy than the probably more pressing problems of the less wealthy.

Animal testing has not proved particularly reliable. Penicillin and Thalidomide are the examples everyone has heard of but the list goes on and on.

"Terrorism" or "Direct Action", depending on your own starting prejudice, is the weapon of the dispossessed, ignored and disenfranchised. This can be interpreted as most of us sooner or later, democracy is essentially just a form of mob rule anyway but manipulated to ensure that we have little real choice and are led by the nose at every opportunity. Our government is chosen by a very small number of people in a limited number of marginal seats, few people are generally interested in politics, even fewer seem to understand it. There are groups who have tried to make their position understood, in a totally reasonable, reasoned and legal way, but they can't afford the kind of influence that a multinational can and have been gently ignored for half a century, not a surprise then that some extremist/idealistic objectors start ot explore alternatives. I cannot agree with some of their tactics but I can understand their frustration.

Terrorism has been a frequent and very successful tool throughout history, several states that self righteously condemn terrorism and state that it will never succeed only exist as a result of terrorism. The definition of terrorism also dependes on whose side you are on, many have been the bands of courageous freedom fighters that have discovered that because of a minor change in the political wind thet have become terrorists overnight, the opposite has been true on occasions.

The improvements in life expectation are mainly due to increased wealth and the improvement in diet, it is interesting that predictions are that life expectancy is predicted to fall as a result of the poor dietary habits of many young people.

I suspect many people over-rate medical progress, progress seems painfully slow, with real benefits difficult to name, and of late there appears to have been a number of reverses as over-prescribed antibiotics become less effective and micro-organisms out-evolve their victims.

Fifer

catingrass wrote:

Tissue culture is just one of the many ways of testing available now

The law requires that all medicines are tested on animals. The only way around that is to change the law. I'm afraid that tissue culture technology does not yet come close to fulfilling the requirements of safe testing.

7th_song wrote:

Animal testing has not proved particularly reliable. Penicillin and Thalidomide are the examples everyone has heard of but the list goes on and on.

You should check your facts. The fact that Thalidomide went to market without the necessary animal testing being done is an argument for, not against animal testing. I've no idea why you mention penicillin. It was introduced long before animal testing was required.

victoriav

ravenlighte wrote:

Here is a question for you...why is it ok to call animal rights protesters and activists 'idiots'? Is that a professional opinion? I find it most interesting that the folks who most often resort to name calling and insults are the apparent majority who believe that animal testing is right and justified, and fox hunting for that matter. That to me is a sign of barbarism rather than civilised.

I believe that because of this testing, and modern medicine in general, we all live way past our 'use by date'. The human species was not meant to live 80 plus years. There is a reason why at a certain age women can no loger naturally conceive, why we become ill and decrepid, why our hips give out and need replacing, why our hearts pack in and we have to kill an innocent pig to keep us ticking over for another couple of years.

Here is another thought...why don't we test drugs on prison inmates? Rapists, murderers, child abusers and such like. It would be giving them some worth to call them animals, so why don't we use them. As payment of their debt to society.

I think a previous reference to the huge gap between animals and humans was nothing to do with position on the food chain, rather that testing on animals so genetically different from humans is redundant, as the side effects are not truely comparable.

I think also, that history will show that when peaceful protest fails, the next best thing is intimidation and threat. If I can't move you on compassionate grounds, then maybe I can scare the hell out of you. You all talk as if no animal rights campaigner/protester/activist ever made a peacefull protest. People who care that much about the suffering of animals, are by definition compassionate, so I doubt that they are ever violent without extreme provocation. I think they are justified. When all else fails, give society a kick in the pants. The same goes for fox hunting/ hunting / bull fighting...getting your jollies by killing or watching an innocent animal brutaly killed, says something about you and your perversion don't you think? (That being the Royal 'you' folks).

Me thinks you all do protest too much, about animal rights protesters that is. If it irks you so much that you think they are idiots and terrorists, it is most likely that you feel secretly ashamed and chastised. And most likely you wish you were that dedicated to something other than your good selves.

My last thought for the day, is that surely we should take anything said by someone who actually takes part in animal testiing or vivisection or hunting, with a handful of salt. Aninal rights activists/protestors are doing what they do out of love, comapssion and sympathy for innocent animals who cannot defend themselves. A selfless act. Folks on the other side of the debate can make no such claim. For them it is all about greed, money, their ego, their perversion...all about self. And if you try and call it sympathy for the suffering of mankind...that is suffering that is self inflicted for the most part.

As far as being at the top of the food chain...well that is debatable. Put on an even playing field with no weapons, we all know who would win. And it is not the one who thinks he wears the trousers.

That said, if any activist is involved in violence for violence sake, then they should indeed be prosecuted along with all the other filth of society.

Hear, Hear!! This is the best post on here.

I am not so diplomatic when it comes to this and I, and many others will agree, that if people want to torture animals then they deserve everything that they get. I love the animal rights protesters, you know, they are not 'nodding dogs or lemmings' they stand for what is right and are not afraid to say so, the government protect the animal abusers, they all want blowing up as well! I cannot understand the mentality of people who think animal testing is ok, because they think they are superior as they are 'higher up in the food chain...' Animal abusing is never right. It cannot ever be justified. And diplomatic protesting doesn't work, it is just blocked by lies, government changing goalposts, its all on here.

Fifer

victoriav wrote:

Hear, Hear!! This is the best post on here.

I am not so diplomatic when it comes to this and I, and many others will agree, that if people want to torture animals then they deserve everything that they get. I love the animal rights protesters, you know, they are not 'nodding dogs or lemmings' they stand for what is right and are not afraid to say so, the government protect the animal abusers, they all want blowing up as well! I cannot understand the mentality of people who think animal testing is ok, because they think they are superior as they are 'higher up in the food chain...' Animal abusing is never right. It cannot ever be justified. And diplomatic protesting doesn't work, it is just blocked by lies, government changing goalposts, its all on here.

I presume that you never take any medicine (prescribed or over the counter), given that it is all tested on animals?

7th_Song

"In fact when the link between human foetal abnormalities and thalidomide was established (through clinical observation), the world-wide explosion of animal testing, using a large range of species, proved very difficult to duplicate the abnormalities. Writing in his book Drugs as Teratogens, J.L. Schardein observes: "In approximately 10 strains of rats, 15 strains of mice, eleven breeds of rabbit, two breeds of dogs, three strains of hamsters, eight species of primates and in other such varied species as cats, armadillos, guinea pigs, swine and ferrets in which thalidomide has been tested teratogenic effects have been induced only occasionally." Eventually after administrating high doses of thalidomide to certain species of rabbit (New Zealand White) and primates could similar abnormalities be found. However researchers pointed out that malformations, like cancer, could occur when practically any substance, including sugar and salt, be given in excessive doses."

"All this just reaffirms what many doctors and scientists have been warning for a number of decades-animal experimentation misleads science and any similarity to the human situation is merely a coincidence and cannot be verified until the experiment is repeated on humans. Experimenting on animals is like playing roulette."

https://www.thalidomideuk.com

Just a small part of this site's historical commentary, with plenty of references for further research, none of which inspires much confidence in either animal testing or the drug companies.

"Despite the ineffectiveness of penicillin in rabbits, Alexander Fleming used the antibiotic on a very sick patient since he had nothing else to try. Fortunately, Fleming's initial tests were not on guinea pigs or hamsters because it kills them. Howard Florey, the Nobel Prize winner credited with co-discovering and manufacturing penicillin, stated: 'How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never been granted a license, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized'."

vivisection-absurd.org.uk

Worth a look, listing as it does 50 Disasters of Animal Experimentation.

No doubt someone will claim that since I am not uninformed, that I am misinformed, however my distrust of animal experimentation is not primarily based on the philisophical arguments but on the endless supply of bad science, misinformation and profiteering of the drugs industry. As in so many cases it is sometimes difficult to be comfortable with the infomation available, but it worries me that so many know so little, and won't let a little research get in the way of a good prejudice anyway.