• Question: do you test things on animals?

    Asked by kacpersa to Claire, Elizabeth, Manolis, Mark, Zach on 7 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Claire Vinten

      Claire Vinten answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      Hi there 🙂

      Personally, I don’t do experiments on animals. I do think, however, that testing on animals can be a good thing and have worked with people that do. Testing on animals has allowed scientists to discover a lot of important things – particularly about human diseases and how to treat them! I don’t think that animals should be used to test less important things, like make up or soaps etc.

      Hope that answers your question!
      Claire 🙂

    • Photo: Zach Dixon

      Zach Dixon answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      I haven’t tested anything on animals, but one day I might need to.

      Scientists only test on animals when they absolutely need to, and the animals are treated with a lot of care by trained handlers.

      Like Claire I don’t think it’s right to use them for testing things that aren’t very important.

      We have a lot to thank animals for, many of our best medicines wouldn’t exist without them!

    • Photo: Mark Wallace

      Mark Wallace answered on 8 Mar 2014:

      Not whole animals, but I do use cells from both bacteria and animals to do a lot my experiments.

      Some of the guys in my lab are trying to build new tools to discover and test medicines, particularly new antibiotics which we really need.

      Even if our ideas work, if they are used to find new medicines, we will need to test them on animals to find out how these medicines work and check they are not harmful. That’s a tough decision, but the body is such a complex place that I think it will be a long time before we are able to really know how new medicines work without testing them first.

      Having said that, if our new methods work, one great plus will be that we can do a lot of the testing using a lot less animals.

      Phew! Big question, big answer!

    • Photo: Elizabeth Ratcliffe

      Elizabeth Ratcliffe answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Hi Kacpersa, no I don’t do tests on animals but like Mark I do use cells, some of the cells I use are from people. For example from umbilical cord blood – the yucky bits that are thrown away after a baby is born. We can actually get stem cells from this that can be used to make new medicines. Like Claire I agree that testing on a small number of animals can be a good thing to make new discoveries and to make sure new medicines are safe before we give them to people or animals. I don’t think animals should be used to test make up or tooth paste etc.

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