Top Five Reasons to Stop Animal Testing

Animal testers can say whatever they like. Let them ramble on about the science behind their cruel practice. At the end of the day its cruelty. Human slavery was highly beneficial to the economy of the Southern United States. It did not make it right. Abolitionists would not stand for human slavery when it existed just as those of us who do what is right will not stand for the slavery and abuse of other species either. This will end.

Pro-vivisection arguments generally claim that because animals were used for most medical and scientific advancements, these advancements necessarily depended on animal use. If you only try one method you will erroneously assume your work depended on that method. It's like claiming that all humans must smoke to be healthy just because you've never met an unhealthy smoker. It makes no sense, and it obscures the issue. But, the public believes these arguments, and until more people get upset over what goes on in labs-and use their money to influence policy-the animals will continue to suffer for nothing.

as i also realize i have the names of ethical systems backwards. rule deontological is the opposite of what i said, which should be consequentialist.

@Kalama Halamezad - if the rule deontological argument is so easily rebutted and invalid, why is it still taught and applied so often? Now for the point-by-point. 1. Since when do people not categorize plants as creatures? Plants are alive just like an animal. You argue that the animals that deserve rights are those animals with "human-like" nervous systems. What characterizes "human-like"? Molluscs, most notably Aplysia and the giant squid, are regularly studied in neuroscience, yet their nervous systems are far simpler than ours. Do you not care about them? Nematodes *do* have a nervous system, and are aware of their surroundings. Like all animals, they are capable of sensing their environment and acting upon it in meaningful ways. This is part of the definition of an animal. All too often people only seem to care about "cute" animals - but you seem reasonable and i will not assume you are one of these. 2. Of course I can call someone who is against animal research, and is calling for animal research to end, a hypocrite if they are using the products of that research. It comes back to the rule deontological argument - if they do not believe that "the ends justify the means" in animal research, then surely they cannot benefit from those "ends" if they disagree so strongly with the "means" - it means that they do *not* believe what they are saying; they "under-believe" - translate to latin = hypo-crite. Buying products that were once tested on animals but are no longer used on them won't change anything - it's the premarket testing phase that requires the use of animals anyway. Drug companies use many non-animal assays when appropriate, but there are simply some things that can only be tested with a real animal. 3. About those neurons - you're discoursing with a neuroscientist, sorry if I tried to simplify an argument for the laypeople. A GABA-ergic retinal cell is basically the same between all species, a pyramidal motor cell is basically the same between all species. What i am getting at is that though there are many thousands of different kinds of neuron, almost all animals *share the exact same types* and these types are quite uniform between species or even phyla. Of course a neuron in the brain or eye is different from a neuron in a dish - that's actually one of the main reasons we must examine the structure and function of neurons in live or freshly dead animals; in vitro methods simply do not always give you the same information as in situ or in vivo methods. 4. As far as similarity to humans is concerned... If you look at a section of rat retina, or even as far as a section of rat CORTEX, you will see that it is remarkably similar to that of a human. Granted, rats are intelligent mammals and you would of course not see the same macrostructural similarities in, say, a snail brain. That's why some experiments require the use of higher-order animals. On the other hand, if you looked at a single pyramidal cell (a common and easily found type of motor neuron) in a snail vs. a human, the only difference is that the human one is much longer. Once again, animal models are never going to be perfect, differences exist and it cannot be known how systematic these might be. However, they are currently the best models available since large scale human testing is still (and probably always will be) illegal.

@LAPEGUE - to avoid buying any products tested on animals, just don't use any of the following medicinal products: day/ny-quill, aspirin, tylenol, band aids, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, penicillin, insulin, vaccines, topical antiseptics or analgesics. Basically, if you are seriously injured or sick, you will simply die. If you use these products but are against animal research, you are a hypocrite. /n/n@Chelly - plants are living creatures too, why don't you respect them? why don't you respect the nematodes (a type of worm) that you kill by the thousands every time you take a step? if you have a parasite, will you respect it and not kill it? /n/n@Charlotte Khennaf - willingness to expose some creatures to pain or death in order to benefit our own species is not morally reprehensible. It is a commonly held rule-deontological position best demonstrated by the following - would you kill one person to save a hundred? rule deontological morality dictates yes. Brush up on your basic ethics before you call someone a cretin. /n/n@Samuela - of course animal models are not perfect. as I've stated here before, the scientific community would jump at the opportunity to safely, legally, and cost-effectively experiment on humans. As it stands, we use the "closest" animal allowable for the experimental paradigm. animals and humans share many genes, use the same proteins and have the same basic types of cells. Some animals even have the same senses as we do. a neuron is a neuron, regardless of where it came from, and can tell us quite a bit even if it isn't human. If it means so much to you, perhaps you can lobby your congressperson to allow human cloning and lab colonies and see where that takes us.