Through animal research, scientists are able to develop animals that are healthier and can enter the food production system. By breeding for important traits, scientists are able to improve the size of chickens and other meat animals, improve the health benefits of milk and improve egg production.
What animal should I research?
Wildlife research
- Field studies. Many wildlife studies focus on conservation and management, with the aim of learning about the ecology of a population in the field.
- Captive studies. In general, wild-caught animals should be kept in captive conditions that conform as closely as possible to their natural habitat (e.g. ...
- The 3Rs. ...
- Legal controls. ...
- References. ...
Should animals be used for research purposes?
whether the practice of animals research should be used. Many people believe animals are needed for research, while others think it is not fair for animals to be sacrificed and treated poorly during research. Animals used for research has bettered many human lives by new discoveries and advantages.
What is your opinion about using animals for research?
Theories on Animals and Ethics
- Indirect Theories. Indirect theories state that animals do not warrant our moral concern on their own, but they may warrant concern only as they relate to human beings.
- Religious Theories/Worldview Theories. ...
- Kantian Theories. ...
- Cartesian Theories. ...
- Direct but Unequal Theories. ...
- Direct and Equal Theories
- Utilitarian. ...
- Animal Rights. ...
- References. ...
Is it ethical to use animals in medical research?
The use of animals in the medical research and laboratory experiments is a significant ethical issue. The matter needs to be discussed from the perspective of deontologists who refer to the idea of the moral duty as imperative to influence human actions.
Why are dogs important to research?
What are the incurable diseases that humans suffer from?
Does animal research help save human lives?
Animal research has contributed to many medical advances which we now take for granted. Antibiotics, anaesthetics, organ transplants and insulin for diabetes are just some of the breakthroughs that have depended on animal research. The polio vaccine alone has saved millions of lives.
What are the benefits of animals to humans?
Interacting with animals has been shown to decrease levels of cortisol (a stress-related hormone) and lower blood pressure. Other studies have found that animals can reduce loneliness, increase feelings of social support, and boost your mood.
How do animals benefit society?
society. Companionship, pleasure, service, conservation, and stabilization of the economy are but a few of the contributions animals make that help our society function. Throughout our history, animals have been used to till the soil, aid in transportation, and build structures.
Why are animals important to humans give five reasons?
Animals are our companions, our workers, our eyes and ears, and our food. They appear in ancient cave paintings, and on modern commercial farms. We have domesticated some of them, while others remain wild and are sometimes endangered by our activities.
Rapid Response
Pound et al. (1) take an extremely narrow approach to the question: 'Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?', and they misinterpret their own data.
Animal Research and Human Benefit
Pound et al. (1) take an extremely narrow approach to the question: 'Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans?', and they misinterpret their own data.
Why are dogs important to research?
Dogs were crucial to the research that identified the cause of diabetes, which led to the development of insulin. Recently, researchers have developed insulin pumps to replace injections, and current transplant research offers the hope that diabetes can be cured.
What are the incurable diseases that humans suffer from?
And millions of people around the world suffer from other incurable diseases such as cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and genetic birth defects. Researchers are trying to learn the causes of and the cures for these diseases. Animals benefit from biomedical research as well.
Why do we do animal research?
Most research on domestic farm animals is undertaken to increase the productivity and quality of animal products. Research is also undertaken to reduce the suffering and increase the overall well-being of animals , particularly companion animals. Examples include current research on Potomac fever in horses, the development of ivermectin to eradicate parasitic diseases in a variety of animals, and the development of vaccines for feline leukemia virus and canine parvovirus.
Why are animal studies important?
Animal studies have been an essential component of every field of medical research and have been crucial for the acquisition of basic knowledge in biology. In this chapter a few of the contributions of such studies in biomedical and behavioral research will be chronicled. These descriptions should be viewed within the context of the vast improvements in human health and understanding that have occurred in the past 150 years. For example, since 1900 the average life expectancy in the United States has increased by 25 years (U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, 1988). This remarkable increase cannot be attributed solely to animal research, as much of it is the result of improved hygiene and nutrition, but animal research has clearly been an important contributor to improved human health.
What did Medawar do to help burn victims?
B. Medawar (1944) undertook to find relief for them through the transplantation of skin. For one of his models, he used freemartin cattle. A freemartin is a sexually maldeveloped female calf that is born as a twin of a normal male calf; male hormones that reach it through placental vessels usually make it sterile (Lillie, 1917). Experimentation showed that skin and other tissues could be transplanted with good, lasting success between the male and freemartin twins at any stage in their lives (Anderson et al., 1961). They were "tolerant" of each other's tissues because of prenatal exposure to each other's tissue antigens. Medawar and his colleagues sought to induce such tolerance in newborn mice. When newborns received skin transplants or received bone marrow from unrelated animals, they became forever "tolerant" of the new tissue (Brent et al., 1976). That discovery signaled a new era in immunology, with wide ramifications for health and the treatment of disease not only in humans, but also in animals.
What did Snell and Benacerraf do?
Through a systematic study of the surface immune markers of specially bred strains of mice, Snell and Benacerraf provided the basis for much of the understanding that has led to the success of organ transplantation (Benacerraf, 1981).
How did tissue antigens become genetically identical?
The study of tissue antigens proceeded at the same time as transplantation work, first in mice and then in humans. Inbred (isogeneic) strains of mice had been created by repeated brother-sister matings. Ultimately, these strains became genetically identical, and the exchange of tissues and organs became possible. In the study of minor genetic differences between such strains, it became clear that some genes specify the cell-surface structures responsible for tissue recognition and rejection. "Transplantation antigens" can now be identified by tissue typing, and the most appropriate donors can be chosen for transplantation in both humans and animals.
How did rhesus monkeys help with polio?
The use of rhesus monkeys for the study of polio began when Landsteiner and Popper (1909) showed that injection of spinal cord material from patients dying of polio caused paralysis in the animals. Flexner and Lewis (1909) promptly confirmed this result. To learn how to immunize monkeys to protect them against infection, researchers first used live virus, then formalin-inactivated virus from infected brain suspensions, and eventually modified live virus. A major breakthrough occurred when Enders, Weller, and Robbins (1949) showed that the virus could be propagated in cultured cells of non-neural origin. That set the stage for mass production of viruses that could be made into formalin-inactivated Salk vaccine or the modified live-virus Sabin vaccine (Salk, 1983).
What were the benefits of artificial kidneys?
Those people benefited from the invention of "artificial kidneys," which periodically washed blood and removed poisonous substances from it. The recipients of the benefit, however, had to undergo frequent, laborious, and uncomfortable procedures and had to rely on hospitals and mechanical devices.
How to evaluate animal research?
Several methods are available to evaluate animal research. These include historical analysis, 7 critiques of animal models , 8 investigations into the development of treatments, 5 surveys of clinicians' views, 9 and citation analyses. 10 However, perhaps the best way of producing evidence about the value of animal research is to conduct systematic reviews of animal studies and, where possible, compare the results of these with the results of the corresponding clinical trials. So what do studies that have done this show?
Why is animal research wasted?
Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews. Clinicians and the public often consider it axiomatic that animal research has contributed to the treatment of human disease, yet little evidence is available to support this view.
What is a Ciccone study?
An unpublished study by Ciccone and Candelise systematically reviewed randomised controlled experiments of animal stroke models that compared the effects of thrombolytic drugs with placebo or open control. 17 The background to the study was the finding that clinical trials of thrombolysis for acute stroke had found a substantial excess risk of intracranial haemorrhage that had not been predicted by individual animal studies. When the animal data were pooled, a significant difference was found in the rate of intracranial haemorrhage between animals in the control and treatment groups.
Why is systematic review important in animal research?
Systematic reviews of animal research would increase the precision of estimated treatment effects used in calculating the power of proposed human trials , reducing risk of false negative results . They are able to throw light on the process of translation (or its lack) between animal and clinical research as well offering the opportunity to review the appropriateness of the animal models used. Finally, the results of the animal and human research need to be compared to see how well one predicts the other.
Why are systematic reviews important?
24 Systematic reviews would also be relevant in veterinary medicine to evaluate the efficacy of treatments for sick animals.
What are the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations?
The Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations for systematically reviewing evidence in health care and social science offer models for how the literature on animal experiments might be systematically organised and examined. 27 28 Several sources of potential bias exist in systematic reviews—for example, pharmaceutical industry animal trials are likely to be excluded from the public domain for commercial reasons, resulting in publication bias in systematic reviews—but space precludes considering them here. Ideally, new animal studies should not be conducted until the best use has been made of existing animal studies and until their validity and generalisability to clinical medicine has been assessed.
Why is it important to investigate the validity of animal experiments?
Moreover, if animal experiments fail to inform medical research, or if the quality of the experiments is so poor as to render the findings inconclusive, the research will have been conducted unnecessarily. Investigating the validity of animal experiments is therefore essential for both human health and animals.
Why is animal research important?
The use of animals in some forms of biomedical research remains essential to the discovery of the causes, diagnoses, and treatment of disease and suffering in humans and in animals.
Why are animals important for biomedical research?
There are several reasons why the use of animals is critical for biomedical research: • Animals are biologically very similar to humans. In fact, mice share more than 98% DNA with us! • Animals are susceptible to many of the same health problems as humans – cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.
Why are animals important to scientists?
Until such a discovery, animals must continue to play a critical role in helping researchers test potential new drugs and medical treatments for effectiveness and safety, and in identifying any undesired or dangerous side effects, such as infertility, birth defects, liver damage, toxicity, or cancer-causing potential.
What percentage of animals are used in biomedical research?
It is important to stress that 95% of all animals necessary for biomedical research in the United States are rodents – rats and mice especially bred for laboratory use – and that animals are only one part of the larger process of biomedical research.
What is Stanford's responsibility?
Stanford Researchers are Obligated to Ensure the Well-Being of All Animals in Their Care. Stanford researchers are obligated to ensure the well-being of animals in their care, in strict adherence to the highest standards, and in accordance with federal and state laws, regulatory guidelines, and humane principles.
What is the ethics of animal experimentation?
The ethics of animal experimentation. Nothing so far has been discovered that can be a substitute for the complex functions of a living, breathing, whole-organ system with pulmonary and circulatory structures like those in humans.
Can animals be used as a substitute for humans?
Nothing so far has been discovered that can be a substitute for the complex functions of a living, breathing, whole-organ system with pulmonary and circulatory structures like those in humans. Until such a discovery, animals must continue to play a critical role in helping researchers test potential new drugs and medical treatments for effectiveness and safety, and in identifying any undesired or dangerous side effects, such as infertility, birth defects, liver damage, toxicity, or cancer-causing potential.
Why are dogs important to research?
Dogs were crucial to the research that identified the cause of diabetes, which led to the development of insulin. Recently, researchers have developed insulin pumps to replace injections, and current transplant research offers the hope that diabetes can be cured.
What are the incurable diseases that humans suffer from?
And millions of people around the world suffer from other incurable diseases such as cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and genetic birth defects. Researchers are trying to learn the causes of and the cures for these diseases. Animals benefit from biomedical research as well.
