• Question: Do you like animals? If so, do you agree with animal testing for new experiments?

    Asked by bettynaylor to Craig, Sheona, Jack, Giuditta, Flavia on 10 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by Evangeline, sophieella2004, Emma, Abby, josie.
    • Photo: Craig Bull

      Craig Bull answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      I do like animals – I do not agree with animal testing for new experiments (this is a difficult subject to discuss, however a very valid subject)

    • Photo: Giuditta Perversi

      Giuditta Perversi answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      I love animals, there was always a cat at home back in Italy and my family rescued plenty of abandoned kittens from weirdest situations.

      That said, I do agree with animal testing and I believe in its necessity. The two things are not mutually exclusive because animal testing is not a whim, it’s something that you do only if there are no alternatives (every experiment that you propose needs to be approved from an ethical committee and won’t be allowed if there are other ways to perform it, the legislation is really fair and strict).

      I don’t work with animals and I never will because it’s not my field of study, but having several friends that work in cancer research, biomedical research and stuff like that, and they were kind enough to fill up my blanks in a field that it’s not mine.

      I do appreciate the concept, that has parallels in every field. I try to do computer models and approximate my system the best I can, but it happened a lot of times that the actual experiment contradicted the model, because there was more stuff hidden inside and the computer was not enough.
      In comparison with a living body the material I work with are incredibly simple, and yet it happens! That’s why I understand the necessity.

    • Photo: Flavia de Almeida Dias

      Flavia de Almeida Dias answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      I love animals!

      However, I love humans too, and sometimes for scientific progress to be made, which can cure a disease, or improve a lot the way humans live, we need to use animal as our test. The alternative would be having humans dying of a given disease, or testing things in humans. Sometimes a little mouse is cute, and we can argue what give us the right to think that a human life is more valuable than a mouse life? But if I have to choose between a human life and some hundreds or thousands of mouse lives, I would still choose the human life.

      But, I am completely against testing beauty products in animals. Using animals to improve health and science development is one thing. Using animals to test if a given shampoo is going to make your eyes hurt more if you drop it in yours, or to test creams and moisturisers, is something different entirely. I am against the use of animals for non essential things, like cosmetics testing, or fur clothing.

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