Animals Animal testing, your feelings?

("AT stands for "animal tested" or "animal testing").

  • I wouldn?ft take AT (whatever the animal)medicine/treatments even if my life depended on it.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I would take AT (whatever the animal) medicine/treatments if my life depended on it.

    Votes: 10 52.6%
  • I would take AT medicine/treatments if I was in great discomfort but my life wasn?ft at stake.

    Votes: 8 42.1%
  • I would any AT medicines/treatments if I felt I needed them.

    Votes: 10 52.6%
  • I wouldn?ft support a loved one taking AT medicine/treatments even if they needed it badly.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I would support a loved one taking AT medicine/treatments if they needed it badly.

    Votes: 9 47.4%
  • I would support a loved one taking AT medicine/treatments depending on the situation.

    Votes: 10 52.6%
  • I wouldn?ft use AT animal hygiene products whatever they were- would rather live in dirt.

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • I would only use some AT hygiene products but only if I really needed them.

    Votes: 7 36.8%
  • I would use any AT hygiene products If they were good/I needed them.

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • I wouldn?ft support AT for warfare/weapons even if my countries survival depended on them.

    Votes: 6 31.6%
  • I would support some AT for warfare/weapons if they would save loads of my peoples lives in war.

    Votes: 9 47.4%
  • I would support AT for warfare/weapons if it enabled us to kick the enemies ass.

    Votes: 2 10.5%
  • I would support any AT for warfare/weapons.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • All AT is wrong whatever the animal involved.

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • Most of AT is wrong whatever the animal involved.

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • AT is only wrong if the animal is intelligent(like an ape).

    Votes: 1 5.3%
  • Most AT is ok, but sometimes wrong.

    Votes: 7 36.8%
  • AT is generally ok in my opinion.

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • Other?c

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • Total voters
    19
We can't even agree on embryonic stem cell research. Ethics is a tough field...almost entirely semantics.
 
Well, the problem isn't semantics--the problem is some of us honestly see the world in radically different ways.

For example, I'm trying not to get annoyed at Tokis-Phoenix for his continued attacks on my beliefs. I know he doesn't mean it as an attack, that's why I'm trying not to get annoyed--but when someone tells me that I can't know "true" happiness because what makes me happy is different from what makes them happy, I get pretty offended.

So for the record:

Yes, anger can lead to destruction--not everybody sees destruction as a bad thing.

However, anger can also inspire creation--it's not as common, but it does happen. I know an artist who does her best work when she's angry, channeling that passionate emotion into her art and creating award-winning works.

Anger works for some people, for others it doesn't.

Likewise, insisting that people can only find happiness from peace and love and harmony is crap. I tried that, but it didn't work--I am most happy when in conflict, testing myself against others. I first fell away from Christianity because I realized I woud find the vision of heaven that they offered unbearably boring.

No conflict?

No challenges?

No thrill of a hard-won victory?

No pain of defeat to drive me to improve myself?

How can I know happiness without knowing sorrow?

Without one, the other is meaningless.

It's so arrogant and bigoted to assume that your kind of happiness is the only true kind of happiness--it infuriates me.

But I like being angry, feeling the fire and the adrenaline racing through my veins, the sense of power--it's what I like about Dragon Ball Z: I know what it feels like to go "Super Saiyan". To be so filled with rage and passion and the power those emotions bring--it's like erupting in golden fire, transforming into something great and terrible.

I suppose it's similar to the emotional fix horror fans seek--fear triggers the same adrenaine release that anger does.

I can't understand how someone can enjoy being scared, but I've learned that most people can't understand how I enjoy being angry--so through that, I have some idea of what they feel like.

You don't have to understand that some people are simply wired differently, but fighting with you over it has been great fun, Tokis-Phoenix--so I'll continue trying to make you understand untill it ceases to be enjoyable.

I'll get a good conflict out of the deal, and maybe you'll get a better understanding of humanity.
 
Reiku, you have read too much Nietzsche :D

Wasn't this thread about animal testing :p
 
Tsuyoiko said:
Reiku, you have read too much Nietzsche :D
Wasn't this thread about animal testing :p

What does "Nietzsche" mean?
 
Tsuyoiko said:
Reiku, you have read too much Nietzsche :D
Wasn't this thread about animal testing :p

Actually, I've never read Nietzsche--although I have heard his oft-quoted "God is dead, and we killed him" bit.

Personally, I disagree. I think god is a jerk--and we're just like him. :blush:

[edit] Nietzsche was German? I thought he was Russian for some reason... [/edit]

As for animal testing, what I said has direct bearing on the subject: It is a disscusion which hinges on each person's beleifs of what is and is not "ethical".
Some say animals exist only for our use, others consider the needs of animals more important than the needs of humans--and most people fall somewhere in between.
 
Reiku said:
Actually, I've never read Nietzsche--although I have heard his oft-quoted "God is dead, and we killed him" bit.
Personally, I disagree. I think god is a jerk--and we're just like him. :blush:
[edit] Nietzsche was German? I thought he was Russian for some reason... [/edit]
As for animal testing, what I said has direct bearing on the subject: It is a disscusion which hinges on each person's beleifs of what is and is not "ethical".
Some say animals exist only for our use, others consider the needs of animals more important than the needs of humans--and most people fall somewhere in between.

I think the people who say "animals exist only for our use" are extremely arrogant and narrow minded- plus such a statement doesn't make sense as we are very a recent species evolutionaly wise, and trillions of creatures existed for us etc.
Although it certainly cannot be applied to all living creatures, the vast majority of living creatures above microscopic critters and insects and things we know can feel pain, feel/enjoy happyness and depression and see the world clearly etc. Rats and mice are particually popular subjects with scientists not because they are very disposable creatures(well they are, but thats not the point i'm making here primarily), but because they are very similar to us not just genetically and how their genetics and DNA work, but because they share a huge amount of things in common with us other than that, like emotion.
I think a lot of animal testing is extremely wasteful and often unesarsary, a lot of the pain is only caused due to low budgets and pressure to bring results, and of course demand. But say a scientist is finding a cure for cancer using extremely painful experiments on rats(which i assume you would feel fine about), and he ended up slowly killing 2000 lab rats in a single experiment(which i assume you would also feel fine about because you agree with the cause/aim)...But lets say 1000 of those could have been spared if the scientist had been given a better budget and resources, would you still feel so great about the morality of the situation?
You believe in god though? I'm just curious, as to say we are just like "him" must mean that you believe in some sort of higher being or entertain the concept/idea? As for me, i'm honestly not much of a religeous person, i live for today and tommorrow and so forth. I honestly don't know if there's an afterlife life or not, and i'm not counting on there being one or anything. Ah well.
PS: i am a "she" and not a "he" by the way.
 
Tokis-Phoenix, when you talk of animal tested hygene products, do you mean that they tried shampoo on a dog to see if it washes well before releasing it on the market ? I don't see any problem with that (except if they knew the dog was allergic to one of the ingredient, as lost all its hairs as a results !).
 
Maciamo said:
Tokis-Phoenix, when you talk of animal tested hygene products, do you mean that they tried shampoo on a dog to see if it washes well before releasing it on the market ? I don't see any problem with that (except if they knew the dog was allergic to one of the ingredient, as lost all its hairs as a results !).

Yes that sort of thing, hygene products like shampoo & conditioner, soaps, deodrant, shaving cream etc...It doesn't sound that bad, but its not just a case of dowsing the animal in the product- they'll put it into things like its eyes or in its ears or make it consume it etc...Hygene product testing can have some pretty bad effects on animals, but people need to know the general effects of such things.
You don't want people taking you to court because they were permanently blinded when they got your companys shampoo in their eyes.
When they bring out "tear-free" shampoo for kids you know that its been in a lot of furry animals eyes.
 
One thing we sure have learned through ?ganimal testing?h is: We sure do know how to cause rats to get cancer.

Since we have declared war on cancer we have spent billions of dollars on cancer research and still have not found a cure. I am not saying that we never will or would never be able to (though it is not guaranteed we will) by using animals, but that money could go, or have gone further in preventing more misery from cancer by focusing on prevention rather than cure. More and more we are learning that diet and lifestyle can be or may be the over-riding determinants of cancer forming cells. If those billions of dollars over the last 4 decades were spent on educating and promoting healthier choices in lifestyles, perhaps we would not have the ever increase in cancer rates/deaths.

Strange, isn`t it? -- cancer research on animals and dollars into it keep rising, but so do cancer rates.

Food for thought. ;)
 
strongvoicesforward said:
One thing we sure have learned through ?ganimal testing?h is: We sure do know how to cause rats to get cancer.
Since we have declared war on cancer we have spent billions of dollars on cancer research and still have not found a cure. I am not saying that we never will or would never be able to (though it is not guaranteed we will) by using animals, but that money could go, or have gone further in preventing more misery from cancer by focusing on prevention rather than cure. More and more we are learning that diet and lifestyle can be or may be the over-riding determinants of cancer forming cells. If those billions of dollars over the last 4 decades were spent on educating and promoting healthier choices in lifestyles, perhaps we would not have the ever increase in cancer rates/deaths.
Strange, isn`t it? -- cancer research on animals and dollars into it keep rising, but so do cancer rates.
Food for thought. ;)

So are you implying that you believe the cancer research people are doing is essentially useless? You can only prevent cancer to a certain extent, even if you are the healthiest person on earth you may still get genetic cancer or cancer from an accident/injury. Diet, although it does sound promising at times, is not the solution to everything cancer-related.
Even food products are animal tested.
 
Hi Tokis-Phoenix. It`s been a while. Have you missed me?

Oh well, to the point of the matter...

Tokis-Phoenix said:
So are you implying that you believe the cancer research people are doing is essentially useless?

I thought I quite clearly implied that the billions of dollars could be used more efficiently and that more efficiency would mean less suffering. I am all for decreasing suffering as much as possible as efficiently as possible with all the scarce funds that are available.

You can only prevent cancer to a certain extent,...

Well...when we have people smoking and dying from lung cancer or cancer induced through high animal fat products, I would say we haven`t reached that "certain extent" yet. Do you think we have?

...even if you are the healthiest person on earth you may still get genetic cancer

Sure. But then focusing on the lesser possibility of contracting cancer is not being efficient in the funds available to prevent as many cases as possible. To me "efficiency" is important because it will mean more lives saved and less suffering.

... or cancer from an accident/injury.

What cancers are normally caused by normal accidents or injuries?

I can imagine x-ray technicians not being careful or exposure to nuclear plant meltdown of some kind -- but to spend large funds on anomalies is not being efficient.

Diet, although it does sound promising at times, is not the solution to everything cancer-related.

I doubt if there will ever be a "solution" to every-thing "cancer-related." Rather than expect that, we should expect and demand efficiency.

Even food products are animal tested.

You mean my brocali is repeatedly being tested?!!!
 
strongvoicesforward said:
I thought I quite clearly implied that the billions of dollars could be used more efficiently and that more efficiency would mean less suffering. I am all for decreasing suffering as much as possible as efficiently as possible with all the scarce funds that are available.
Well...when we have people smoking and dying from lung cancer or cancer induced through high animal fat products, I would say we haven`t reached that "certain extent" yet. Do you think we have?

So you disagree with people finding a cure for cancer because you think the money could be spent elsewhere? I can think of nothing wrong with finding a cure for cancer. I do not disagree with people working on preventation for cancer either, but then again a lot of our knowledge of cancer came abou via animal testing anyway.
We may not have found a complete cure for cancer, but we have vastly improved out knowledge of cancer and treating it via animal testing- many millions of people would be dead if it weren't for such research and the knowledge it has given us.

strongvoicesforward said:
Sure. But then focusing on the lesser possibility of contracting cancer is not being efficient in the funds available to prevent as many cases as possible. To me "efficiency" is important because it will mean more lives saved and less suffering.
What cancers are normally caused by normal accidents or injuries?

I knew a guy once- really healthy guy, ate sensibly, didn't smoke, drink or take drugs, went jogging every other day etc...
One day he was playing cricket and the ball hit him really badly in the knee.
A massive bruise developed. A month or so later it still wasn't going away so he saw a doctor about it.
A month or so after that the bruise actually started getting larger, so the doctor took some scans and found out that the bruise had gone cancerous.

Anyway, long story short, he ended up dying 'cos the cancer spread to the rest of the body- i think this owuld be a good example of cancer coming about via injury.


strongvoicesforward said:
I doubt if there will ever be a "solution" to every-thing "cancer-related." Rather than expect that, we should expect and demand efficiency.

Well then you can stop expecting people to do such a thing, in the mean time, i will continue to expect a cure for cancer. I doubt people will ever stop animal testing, do you stop fighting against it?


strongvoicesforward said:
You mean my brocali is repeatedly being tested?!!!

No, i am not talking about vegetables that have been eaten for yonks.
A lot of new recipes that come every year that contain new ingredients are animal tested, like when people first invented hydronated vegetable oil, that would have had to have been animal tested to make sure it was safe for human consumption. The same goes for a lot of preservatives, flavorings, e-numbers etc.
 
Since 1971, the year President Nixon declared war on cancer, in the U.S. alone 400 billion dollars has been spent on cancer research. However, since then and despite those billions of dollars, there has been a 73% increase in the death rate of cancer.

That is telling us that causing rats to get cancer has not been a very efficent means of warring against cancer.

But, we read stories like Lance Armstrong`s or other high profile people and we are duped into thinking we are winning the war. We are not winning and the numbers show that and animal testing as it has risen has not reversed the overall rate.

And very interesting:

...simple behavioral changes such as quitting smoking have helped lower the incidence of deadly lung cancer. More important, with the help of breast self-exams and mammography, PSA tests for prostate cancer, and other testing, we're catching more tumors earlier. Ruth Etzioni, a biostatistician at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, points out that when you break down the Big Four cancers (lung, colon and rectal, breast, and prostate) by stage?\that is, how far the malignant cells have spread?\long-term survival for advanced cancer has barely budged since the 1970s. -- Why We are Losing the War on Cancer, Clifton Leaf, Fortune Magazine

Full story here: Why We're Losing the War on Cancer?\and How to Win It
 
Researchers know how to get money from government grants and foundations. Use lots of mice with conclusions that read, ?gmore research needed?h -- of course after giving some ray of hope for future treatment built on this innitial research. Get published in a scientific journal and get that reputation machine in gassed up. The system is built on that and mice are the fuel.

From the same source above in Fortune Magazine:

...the cancer community has published an extraordinary 150,855 experimental studies on mice, according to a search of the PubMed database. Guess how many of them have led to treatments for cancer? Very, very few. In fact, if you want to understand where the War on Cancer has gone wrong, the mouse is a pretty good place to start.
 
Tokis-Phoenix said:
Do you have anything to say directly to my last post though?

Sure. You caught me between posts again. You should learn to give people some time before assuming they are avoiding your posts. I would say 20 to 30 mins is quite acceptable.
-------------------------------------------

I have nothing wrong with people finding a cure for cancer -- so long as the funds are used as efficiently as possible and do not violate the integrity of unwilling beings which suffer and feel pain.

As for your personal anecdote about your friend -- personally I doubt it is or was as you described. Of course I have no access to his personal records and I don`t think you can provide them -- so I can`t give it credence. Sorry.

The other parts of your post are touched on/addressed in my #75 and #77.
 
strongvoicesforward said:
Sure. You caught me between posts again. You should learn to give people some time before assuming they are avoiding your posts. I would say 20 to 30 mins is quite acceptable.
-------------------------------------------
I have nothing wrong with people finding a cure for cancer -- so long as the funds are used as efficiently as possible and do not violate the integrity of unwilling beings which suffer and feel pain.
As for your personal anecdote about your friend -- personally I doubt it is or was as you described. Of course I have no access to his personal records and I don`t think you can provide them -- so I can`t give it credence. Sorry.
The other parts of your post are touched on/addressed in my #75 and #77.

So you are against animal testing for cancer research, despite it providing the large bulk or the medicines and knowledge we have today to treat cancer. So you basically value animal life over human life when one could be saved with the other.

"A lot of new recipes that come every year that contain new ingredients are animal tested, like when people first invented hydronated vegetable oil, that would have had to have been animal tested to make sure it was safe for human consumption. The same goes for a lot of preservatives, flavorings, e-numbers etc."

So thats my answer to your ignorance of animal testing on food products. Yes it does happen, even on vegetarian foods. Not everything vegetarian, or even vegan, is animal friendly u'know.
And i don't have time to wait 20 to 30mins for you to answer, otherwise i'd be here night and day to wait upon you, which like most people, i see as unesarsary.

Hey SVF, if you were dying of cancer, would you accept animal tested cancer treatments to cure you if they were you only chance of getting rid of the desease?
 

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