Introduction:
In 1947 Oxford don CS Lewis once remarked that it was the various thing in the world to hear a rational discussion of vivisection or as we will call it today animal experimentation indian journal of animal research well at this summer school indian journal of animal research we are trying to do what seemed impossible at least impossibly rare to see as Lewis we have tried to have a rational debate on the use of animals in indian journal of animal research and this in fact is the second son school indian journal of animal research of the oxford centre for Animal Ethics indian journal of animal research this year in partnership with cruelty free international in 2013 the center was approached by cruelty free international to Commission an independent report on the ethics indian journal of animal research of using animals and indian journal of animal research the center put together a working party of academics ethicists and scientists from around the world the report was published earlier this year and is entitled normalizing the unthinkable the report concluded the animal experimentation indian journal of animal research needs to be denormalized and deinstitutionalized and this has been the subject of much debate at this year’s summer school indian journal of animal research cruelty free international has partnered with the oxford centre for Animal Ethics indian journal of animal research because we think it’s really important to put the issue of animal experiments at the center of the moral agenda one of the things that also concerns us is that people can be progressive about a whole range of other values but animal experimentation indian journal of animal research gets left off the agenda it was important for us as cruelty free international to partner with the oxford centre for animal ethics indian journal of animal research because we wanted to work with the leading thinkers in the world we didn’t influence the outcome of the report but what we’re particularly delighted to see is that the leading academics that have put this piece of work together have said very clearly that animal experimentation indian journal of animal research is morally unacceptable.
I think there are a number of philosophical objections to animal experiments from the point of view of ethics indian journal of animal research some people will argue that and will suffer and it’s wrong to cause suffering and some people will argue that we shouldn’t be the kind of people who bring about the suffering of animals and some people will argue that animals have rights that’s controversial but even if they don’t have rights mike garvey do we have duties indian journal of animal research towards them we do to other animals things that we would find abhorrent if we did to each other and we have to ask ourselves why is it that we don’t do these things to each other because from a scientific indian journal of animal research perspective we can learn a lot more a lot more quickly and have far greater benefits for ourselves if we use people for example and all the experiments we’re doing now and other animals we don’t do those things to other people because they have certain values certain traits that we want to protect and my argument is that other animals particularly mammals and for example non-human primates have exactly the same trait and we cannot do things to them that we’re not willing to do to ourselves.
I am looking at directors 2010 63 which is the latest piece of legislation coming from the European Union aimed at protecting animals involved in scientific indian journal of animal research experimentation indian journal of animal research specifically I’ve been looking at the way it impacts upon the animal scientific indian journal of animal research procedures act and introduces notions such as the value of animals their their sentience and the way we should look after each individual animal rather than the aggregated mass I see two kinds of problems one is an institutional problem scientists are used to doing things the way they used to doing them and that may mean using large numbers of animals to achieve certain kinds of indian journal of animal research goals and they’re simply not used to the idea or practice the idea of doing without them and then secondly there’s the personal if you will psychological difficulty that has to be overcome scientists may tend to do a thing I’m calling splitting that is they split in one hand animals that they see as pets to be loved and to be charged the other hand animals to be experimented upon and used for whatever purpose they wish getting scientists to recognize that the dog you have in your home is no different than the dog you may be indian journal of animal researching on in the laboratory that’s a very hard task my talk here at the summer school indian journal of animal research was mainly centered on the scientific indian journal of animal research problems with animal experimentation indian journal of animal research and what I did was flip the usual ethical question as ass is not asked whether it’s ethical for animals but asked whether it’s ethical for humans and what I did was that I presented what scientific indian journal of animal research data we had that truly an overwhelmingly show that animals parents are very poor predictors of what we’re going to find in humans for example there was a study published in the British Medical Journal and two seven and they looked at six different treatments for five different diseases that included stroke and hemorrhage and head injury and osteoporosis and they compared all the animal data for those six different treatments with all the human data for those six treatments and they and what they found was that the animal data match to human data only half the time in other words the animal data was no more likely to predict whether those treatments would be safe and effective in humans than a toss of the coin as far as the theological objections to animal experiments are concerned there is not one particular passage in the Bible that you could name and point to where it says thou shalt not do experiments on animals and but this is not a problem because the Bible as a whole both in its choice writing and its Christian writing is biased towards mercy kindness justice towards those beings which are on the margins of society which are not regarded highly by the rest of society and which suffer a lot and so in the context of the Bible I think there is an argument for caring for animals for not doing harm to sentient beings for doing justice to every sentient being and all creatures of God including animals and so from this point of view I think that we are one family and that we belong together as the the present Pope Francis said recently we are one family and you’re not supposed to hurt members of your family in a way that it might profit you if it ever does the philosophical objections to animal experiments focus on the fact that animals are not just things or tools that we can use but that they have certain characteristics or capacity like sentience or like being the subject of a life that give them basic rights in order to express what we find unthinkable about animal indian journal of animal research we need more than a justice right space perspective we need an ethic of care perspective which says that it is because these are animals who are vulnerable to us and dependent upon us that what we are doing to them is so wrong looking at the issue of the scientific indian journal of animal research validity and human relevance of animal experiments the first showed that you can’t gain much useful information at all from testing a new drug in animals whether it’s rats mice dogs or monkeys what that drug does whether it’s safe indian journal of animal research or not in an animal does not apply effectively to humans and the second thing I talked about was the genetics the genetic differences between species how humans monkeys and dogs and rats are all genetically different so not only do we now know why animals are poor models in experiments we also know that we’re so different animals can never serve as good models in indian journal of animal research for human beings the language is is critically important far more important than we often realize because the use of language shapes our attitudes indian journal of animal research are the identities of of people or groups and a lot of the language we use we don’t really think about it when we stop and begin to analyze that language we can begin to see what the underlying ideas are the ideology the power structures and then we can begin to ask ourselves is this right does it make sense what’s really going on here for example the way they portray those in favor of animal testing has been scientists indian journal of animal research and those who are not in favor animal testing as being the non-scientists so it’s the knowing against the unknowing the summer school indian journal of animal research I’ve been talking about the regulation of animal experiments in the our benefit assessment that’s supposed to happen which means that the harms to the animals are balanced against the possible benefits to the humans we don’t think that’s a very good way of justifying the use of animals and experiments indian journal of animal research and in my talk I was talking about how the benefits to humans are often overestimated and the chances of animal experiments actually benefiting humans is underestimated and really that can be quite an important factor what I’ve been talking about at this year’s summer school indian journal of animal research is captivity and related concepts of freedom indian journal of animal research in relation to non-human primates used in vivisection so considering four different case studies the stories surrounding these individuals what happens to them when they’re in the lab in terms of captivity what happens to them after they leave the lab whether or not that life when they leave the lab is put simply worth living whether or not they can ever have a happy ending and the conclusion that I would draw from it is that sanctuary is potentially the best we can do for these animals.
But by virtue of the fact they’re non domesticated species indian journal of animal research they can’t ever live in their natural habitat and therefore it still isn’t a happy ending for them.
The problem of getting side is to adopt and embrace a more robust 3.
R’s ethic the idea of refinement replacement and reduction of use of animals many of them see it simply as a bureaucratic hurdles they have to step over they don’t take on board emotionally intellectually the idea that this is an actual requirement and it’s a moral requirement it’s a scientific indian journal of animal research requirement so I spoke about my efforts to try to get scientists to think about these more fully and also the resistance that I faced do with that and it was a tremendous amount of resistance so those of us who want to reduce the amount of vivisection or animal testing we have a hard row to hoe because of entrenched institutional and personal resistance to to change you you.