Reply #29: These are the same sort of arguments... [View All]

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

put forth by opponents of stem cell research.

They're not anymore credible.

"Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. Over 98% never are."

That's why you create animal models. You give the animal the disease that you look for the cure.

"At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in lab animals. They are allowed because it is admitted that animal tests are not relevant."

That's because they tested animals first. Figured out the mechanism that gives cancer to the animals, and since that mechanism is not relevant in humans, it's safe for human testing.

"When asked if they agreed that animal experimentation can be misleading because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans, 88% of doctors agreed."

Of course there are physiological differences. Rats don't get heart attacks. Salmon don't get breast cancer. This is not an argument against animal research.

"Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer in humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate."

And this is why they use the Ames test.

"According to animal tests lemon juice is deadly poison, but arsenic, hemlock and botulin are safe."

Either the lab tests were misdone, or the results are being intentionally misinterpreted. Since you've simply cut and pasted this list, I doubt you can find the original reference.

"Thousands of drugs passed safe in animals have been withdrawn or banned due to their effect on human health."

Yes. That's because after animal testing, drugs are tested on healthy human volunteers.

"Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (heart drug), cancer treatments, insulin (causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would be banned if results from animal experimentation were accurate."

This contradicts an argument already made.

"When the producers of thalidomide were taken to court, they were aquitted after numerous experts agreed animal tests could not be relied on for human medicine."

They were acquitted because their obsolete regulatory agency did not adequately test on human volunteers. This is why thalidomide was not approved in the US.

"At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments."

Maybe. However, animal experimentation is still very necessary.

"Morphine puts humans asleep but excites cats."

Bullshit. Morphine will knock cats out. It's not used by vets because it has other side effects.

"95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately disgarded as useless or dangerous to humans."

And consider how many fail.

"One is six patients in hospital are there because the drug they have taken had been passed safe for us on humans after animal tests."

No one goes to a hospital because of a drug that has not been passed safe after human testing.

"Worldwide, at least 22 animals die every second in labs. In the UK one animal dies every five seconds."

Everyday, thousands, millions of human beings are saved, thanks to animal testing.

"Researchers refused to believe that benzene could cause cancer in humans because it failed to in animal tests."

Researchers didn't believe benzene caused cancer because they worked with huge volumes of the stuff on a regular basis. They practically washed their hands with the stuff. Today it's only a suspect carcinogen.

"Dogs failed to predict heart problems caused by the cardiovascular drugs encainide and flecainide, which led to an estimated 3,000 deaths in the USA."

Both encainide and flecainide are still approved for human consumption.

"Heart by pass surgery was put on hold for years because it didn’t work on dogs."

Yes, until they got heart by-pass surgery to work in dogs. And then they got it to work in humans too. This is an argument for animal testing.

"If we had relied on animal tests we would still believe that humans don’t need vitamin C, that smoking doesn’t cause cause cancer and alcohol doesn’t cause liver damage."

We've known we need Vitamin C since, what, the 15th century? Animals don't need a dietary source, since they produce it biosynthetically. Something we wouldn't have known if we hadn't tested on animals. This smoking and alcohol stuff is also nonsense.

"It was denied for decades that asbestos caused disease in humans because it didn’t in animals."

Since asbestos was not a drug, it didn't go through the rigorous animal testing process. Maybe if it had, a lot of humans could have been saved.

"Polio researchers were mislead for years about how we catch the disease because they had experimented on monkeys."

Because of research on animals, scientists developed a polio vaccine, saving millions of human lives.

"As one researcher points out, 'the ultimate dilemma with any animal model of human disease is that it can never reflect the human situation with complete accuracy.'"

And I'm willing to bet, this researcher is fully supportive of animal research.