Question: do you think it is right to hurt animals while testing experiments?

Simone Sturniolo answered on 19 Jun 2013:

This is a very sensitive topic. Personally, I never had to work with animals, and I don’t think I would like to hurt them. I have friends who do work with small animals (mice, mostly), and they never are especially happy about hurting or killing them. For researchers who work with animals (they are mostly medical researchers or biologists) there are very strict rules about what they can and can’t do: they have to hurt the least amount of animals necessary, hurt them as little as possible, use anaesthetics etcetera. In the UK they even need to have a “license” to do so, proving that they followed courses where they are taught how to deal with animals.

Still, the problem remains. Is it right to experiment on animals? Personally, I think that not all animals are the same. I would have serious problems about experimenting on intelligent animals like monkeys or dolphins. I also think that no lives should be sacrificed for frivolous things like experimenting new makeup products (in fact, European Union already forbids to do that. And honestly, if a makeup product needs to be tested to be sure that it’s not toxic, what did they put into it anyway? It’s not a necessity after all, so I would just do without it entirely to stay on the safe side). But I also know that it’s almost impossible to learn something about living beings without experimenting on some actual living being. And learning stuff about living beings is what allows us today to cure lots of illnesses – not only on humans, but even on animals! So I don’t think it’s wrong to make experiments that may hurt or kill some small animals – like rats or guinea pigs – if it allows us to cure illnesses and save lives. After all we humans, like many other species on the planet, eat meat, and we kill many more animals just to eat them than we do in order to research new cures – but while eating a cow or a pig will be enough to sustain a couple people for some days, the lives of a few laboratory animals can benefit many more humans for a much longer time.
In the end, I think that our respect needs to go to nature and the species as a whole. Lots of carnivorous or omnivorous animals kill their prey to eat them and prolong their lives in nature; what no other animal except man does is driving entire species to extinction, destroy entire ecosystems, and kill just for the sake of it – which is not the case with laboratory animals. I don’t think it’s wrong to worry about animals – in fact, we would not be human if we didn’t feel a bit of remorse even when killing something small as a mice – but if we think about it rationally, there are plenty things that we do that damage nature and species who live in the wild more than using animals for scientific experiments.