Podcast - Ethical and Moral Concerns of Animal Testing

Animal testing has a long historical background, but that doesn't mean it's right or can't change. Regulations for animal testing started in the 19th century, and the first law was made to protect pets. There are now alternative methods available, like human cell cultures, but they have limitations. Some argue that animal testing is necessary for scientific breakthroughs, but others believe we should use fewer animals or find alternative methods. The use of animals in clinical trials is questioned when we consume animals for food. In certain cases, like testing medical devices for traumatic brain injuries, animals like non-human primates are necessary. However, every procedure must be well thought out to ensure it's worth the animals' lives. Hi, my name is Andrew. My name is Nathan. And my name is Maya. And today we will be talking about the ethical and moral concerns of animal testing. For a little bit of historical background, animal testing can be traced as far back as 500 BC in ancient Greece, where physician scientists like Aristotle performed experiments and dissections on living organisms to kind of explore their functions and just the overall biology of these animals. And also Galen, someone that we learned about in our book, who was like the world's greatest physician in his time in Rome, he only experimented on animals because humans were not allowed to be autopsied by the church, the whole thing. But he came up with so many scientific breakthroughs and helped so many people just by studying animals. Right, and Galen was, what, 700 years later than ancient Greece? Yeah. And made a lot of contributions to just human anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, just overall biology in general. Yeah. But the main thing here is just animal testing and experiments have a very long history. And while it is true, I think it's important to recognize that even though it has a long history, it doesn't mean it's right and doesn't mean it can't change because we have gone so advanced in recent times. Going off of the history of animal testing, animal testing continued pretty much unregulated for the next thousand years until about the 19th century. We saw the rise of the anti-dissectionist movement in Europe at the time. There was a group of people backed at the time by Queen Victoria who were against the use or surgery of live animals, but it was completely wrong and were very against it. This practice of animal activism continued throughout the 1920s century and even in the mid to late 1900s, I believe 1960s, we saw the Animal Welfare Act passed in the United States, which was one of the first legal acts to regulate animal testing in the country. I just want to point out that before the Animal Welfare Act, there was the first regulatory act that was passed, the first federal law that was passed to regulate animal research was the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act in 1966. It was interesting because in my research, I found out that that law wasn't made to regulate animal testing because it was unethical or immoral. It was because people were stealing pets and using them in these experiments and that was a problem. So it was interesting to see that the first law made wasn't to protect the animals, it was just to protect pets. And while that is true, I'm not just refuting any sort of historical evidence or the past, but I think it's very important to note that now, in 2023 especially, we have so many other methods of testing toxicology diseases such as human cell cultures or even like the cell lines. The National Research Council in the United States actually says that a not so distant future in which virtually all routine toxicity testing will be conducted in human cells or cell lines. And many science leaders around the world have echoed this opinion. Well, I think that's a good point that, you know, replacing animals in clinical trials and experiments with in vitro cells, but there's definitely, as we learned in class, a lot of limitations to that such as how the cells adapt to the environment. And also I found in my research that sometimes when, in the process of cultivating these cells, you damage the cultivated cells. So that also causes kind of a discrepancy between the in vivo cells and the in vitro cells. One of the articles we read by the National Institute of Health discussed the testing of a new medical device on spinal cord injuries. And in the article they discussed using or attempting to use a cell model to test this medical device but in the end decided that mice were the only way to test it as cell models wouldn't accurately represent a nervous system. They are not complex enough to represent a nervous system and a live animal with a functioning spinal cord is the only way to test this medical device. It ended up being tested and was found to be one of the most effective new technologies fixing a spinal cord injury at the time. Okay, but we have to acknowledge this. I don't want to say, oh, don't you think that it's wrong to hurt an animal because that's a guilt trip and not evidence. So I will say that in my research from the National Institute of Health, they said that only one out of ten animal research that is positive can be translated towards humans. So if you really think about it, if animals do not work, why are we continuing to kill them and hope that it can translate into humans? And I'm not saying that I can say there's a better way, but it's more the fact that we just need to look at the numbers. The numbers are not working. So what next? I think even with the data, I kind of disagree with that statement just because even though the translation rate is so low, it is still translating. And that one out of ten is what we need for those biological and scientific breakthroughs. If you don't use animals in testing, you're not even going to get that 10%. You might get even lower or just none at all. So I think that is why, for me at least, I feel like it's very important. I think that is just something that cannot be replaced. So with this lack of translation from some animal research to its eventual outcome, couldn't we argue that we could just use less sentient animals to do this testing on so that it wouldn't be as terrible or as detrimental to our ethics or our society? But every animal is sentient. Everyone has feelings. Every animal feels something. We shouldn't be hurting them at all or causing them physical or mental stress if it's not really needed. I'm glad you brought up the point that all animals are sentient because that opens the door to another argument, which is if all animals are sentient, why are you only arguing against animals being used in clinical trials? What about the animals that we consume every day? I know you like bacon, right? I mean, I do too. So does Nathan. And we eat a lot of meat in our diet. And I actually got a stat from the PETA website that says 110 million animals are killed or tortured, or just kind of harmed every year in the U.S. in animal testing. However, I also looked up that 10 billion animals is consumed per year in the U.S. And I know the conditions that livestock is raised, it's not any better than animal testing. So how would you respond to that? And that is a good point. And I will admit that on my side is trying to save the animals. That is a flaw in my argument because I do like to eat meat, and I do know that when the cattle is raised for slaughter, the conditions that they're in, the mental stress that they're in, and the fact that they will all die just because I want food and not for a medical breakthrough that will save millions, that's a flaw in my argument. I can understand that. But at the same time, it's like we have found other ways of research for diseases besides using animals. Like I said earlier, we do have human cell lines and cell cultures. And I feel that, yes, it might not be perfect, but we can definitely lean away from animals and invest our time and money into things that aren't going to harm anyone or anything. So are you saying that we consume animals, that's more okay, quote-unquote okay, because it's necessary, and we shouldn't use animals in clinical trials because there are alternatives? Not that eating animals is necessary, because obviously we have nowadays fake pork, fake meat, fake everything. So I'm saying that I can see it being easier on humans for research purposes to look into alternative methods. So I know you've discussed alternative methods about animal testing, different ways to do it, but would you be okay with animal testing on certain methods that there are no other ways to do it when animals are the only possible way to test these new medical devices like the ones I discussed earlier? Can you give me a specific example? Well, okay. One example would be traumatic brain injuries. They have to use, not just any animal, they have to use non-human primates like chimpanzees that resemble humans a lot more than any other animal, just the way their brain structure, their biological function, their genetic makeup, all of that resembles humans a lot more and better, and that's why they have to use non-human primates in these very gruesome experiments like the one that they did at UPenn that was very controversial. That would be the example. Okay. Well, that honestly brings to, not the final point, but my final decision on animal testing is that I would not prefer to use animals, but in scenarios like that where we have to use animals for the greater good of humans, then I do think it's necessary. But I think that if we're going to do this, every procedure needs to be very well thought out. I don't believe in the idea of, let's get a monkey head on the head, see what happens. I think if we're going to use something as close to humans as primates, then we need to make sure that we know what we're doing to a certain extent and making sure that their life was worth it. It's like, you guys have heard on the train method, kill 1% you know, or save, or... The trolley problem. Yeah, the trolley problem. So that's how I view this. Kill 10 monkeys, or... But then you will save 10 million lives. Yeah, I agree. And I think one interesting thing from that case, the UPenn experiment, is that the regulations that they violated wasn't that the fact that they were hitting monkeys. It wasn't that it was unethical. It was that they were smoking in the area, they didn't use sterilized equipment, and also they were simulating the injuries using a helmet, but then when they're breaking apart the helmet, I think they used a hammer to break it, which defeats the purpose of having a helmet as a control variable. So it was the fact that they did not have a good design for the experiment rather than the fact that it's bad to hit monkeys. Yeah, I think I agree with both of you guys on this point, that while there are other methods, animals should be the last resort. Any other way to test these methods, or to test these different research should be used before animals, but if it comes down to it, I think animals are definitely necessary to save the lives of humans. We've seen how effective they can be in the past, like how far our research has gone, how much we've advanced all through the use of animal testing, and I guess now we have other ways to do it. Those should definitely be utilized before animals, but if it comes down to it, I think animal testing is definitely still necessary. This was a very fruitful conversation, and I'm glad that we had it. I hope that all of you guys also learned something and are able to form your own opinions. Yeah. Thank you! Bye!