h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You beat me to it Orcus, was about to tell the viagra story

<> (Z)

These are very tough issues to address in the sense of them being 'necessary'.

Personally, if my child (or hey, even me) needed specific medication in order not to die I wouldn't care how many animals had been sacrificed to achieve this end.

Meanwhile, things like erectile disfuntion or having a breast reconstructed after a cancer op are not life threatening situations. Hmmm . . . I'm really not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.

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Well, this is obviously something you feel strongly about, Z, but I don't think eating meat (though I am against inhumane factory farming practices) can be equated with the torturing of animals strictly for cosmetics.

Like it or not, humans are omnivores. They are not naturally vegetarian. But no, rabbits should not have poisonous substances put into their eyes just to make sure a new mascara will be safe for human use.


az

I would like to point out, that if everyone didn't make an armageddon of cloning technology, there would be quite easy and quick products (cell in any size and type we want) to use for experiments.

There wouldn't be the need to study any kind of stuff in animals (be it medical research or cosmetics). I keep my ground in saying that we could build organisms devoid of any kind of inteligence for experimentation.

About the different age gap in pharmac products: there are experiments in different ages, and there are many types of medicine, thaat because they can't have volunteers, are tested in terminal case patients. In medicine the advanced age situation is quite a big new area of expanding knowledge. Only now and in the next few years we'll start to see many specific age medicine.

About young people experimentations: because of their phisyology, all medicine for them is usually a smaller percentage from the adults, and only in some cases there are specific medication.

Nevertheless, it's probably a question of time for 0-21 type of medication; 21-45; 45-65; 65-80; ....(for example). And i also like to remember that enough research and more open minded people would let the cloning technology be put to good use in cases like the subject of this conversation forum.

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Obviously this was a made up example, as "sort of thing" should've indicated even if the context didn't. But the example I quoted in an ealier post - rats given ecstasy and subjected to white noise at night-club volumes for three hours to see if it had any detrimental effect - was taken from BMC Neuroscience, DOI:10.1186/1471-22027-12, for those who have access to such things. It shouldn't be too hard to find many other examples.

Both this and my irradiated pig experiment were intended to demonstrate a potential mechanism for human harm under very unrealistic conditions, where there is already a large body of evidence gathered using real, human subjects with real-world, human lives that indicates there is little or no risk.

Whether this is done for political, legal or even commercial reasons I cannot comment, but the point is not all permitted animal testing is intended to ultimately improve medical science.

I do note the 'usually', but it is important to remember that children are not just small adults; they are still growing & maturing. Drugs may have a far more devastating side effect on tissues that are developing compared with fully developed organs.

>.I would like to point out, that if everyone didn't make an armageddon of cloning technology, there would be quite easy and quick products (cell in any size and type we want) to use for experiments.<<

Still no good for finding out where drugs go in a complete animal though.

What you say here is in fact already done, and extensively before animal testing is done.

>>There wouldn't be the need to study any kind of stuff in animals (be it medical research or cosmetics). I keep my ground in saying that we could build organisms devoid of any kind of inteligence for experimentation.<<

This is just indulging in fantasy as far as I can tell. Even assuming this is possible, what do we do in the meantime while such an organism is developed?

Would one organism do? No. Different animals are used as models for different parts of our biosystem. I can't remember specifics but rats might be good for say modelling how a drug might act on our neurosytem but are very different when it comes ro developing a drug for use in the liver for example.

As an addendum there, how much animal experimentation would need to be done in order for us to understand physiology and biochemistry enough for us to develop an 'intelligent-free' animal in the first place.

This all presupposing that we know exactly how to define what we mean my 'intelligence-free'

Does an intelligence free animal feel no pain?

<> (Z)

These are very tough issues to address in the sense of them being 'necessary'.>

It might be 'necessary' if the alternative counselling is more expensive.

Come on, if it was you or your wife, who had erctile dysfunction, or a masectomy would you rather have counselling or something that could actually reverse the effects of what was distressing you?

No amount of counselling is going to put a breast back is it? It may help a women come to terms with the loss, but it's not going to help her as much as a reconstructive surgery.

Erectile dysfunction is often as a result of a medical condition - for instance diabetes, if that's the case however good the relationship can be made with counselling it's not going to restore that element of the sex life.