Hi Steph98, no, we do not do experiments on animals first. We try not to do experiments on animals at all unless we have to. For my work, I would look at how to make adhesives (think of the sticky stuff on your tape or Post-It notes) work the way I want it to work for the skin, evaluate if the ingredients I am using is safe for the skin then go make it. After making it, I would then test it on objects (like how strong does it stick to plastic, to metals) to see if it is safe to use (you don’t want to strip skin off people). After I am satisfied that my experiment should not harm people (there is no guarantees because everybody’s skin is different), I would arrange for a clinical study (with people) then it would be tested (after it gets reviewed by the ethics internal review board). This testing would look at if you get itchy from using it or if it sticks or not.
Where animals come in for testing is from the US’s FDA (probably same for Australian’s TGA) regulations for making the statement ‘Hypoallergenic’ (to cause less allergic reactions) – you have to test it on animals (it switched between testing on animals to people and now it is back to animals). These testing is to see if there is skin irritation when it is placed on the animal’s skin. The only risk to the animal is that it triggers an allergic response but that can be treated right away. Minor risks is that they get itchy and skin goes red (but it goes away). As we would have done testing with a clinical panel, we would already roughly know if it will be a problem on the animal (and if it would, we don’t bother at all). We mostly don’t make many hypoallergenic statement unless we have to (so we can avoid animal testing).
We don’t do experiments on animals first, but we DO work with animals eventually. For cancer research, we usually start with human cells and work in tissue culture–these are well-controlled environments where you can grow and study different cancer cells. If these experiments show something interesting then we may study the system in mice. To do that, we have to go through a very thorough approval/ethics process where we write up a complete application stating exactly what we will do and how many mice we need. These are mice bred specifically for research and we are not allowed to do any studies that will cause them unneccesary harm or pain.
For my work, doing experiments on animals is essential. There is no other way that we can model the diseases that we are trying to cure (in my case leukemia). We don’t like to do it, and we try as hard as we can to minimise the number of experiments that we do on animals, but they are necessary. I justify it to myself by remembering what benefits animal experimentation has had to human society already (just about all modern medicines, vaccines and surgeries were trialled on animals and wouldn’t be possible without them), and I hope that my work will lead to similar benefits. Also, remember that everything we do using animals is approved by a very tough ethics committee, who ensure that the animals have excellent living conditions and that the experiments are as painless and stress-free as possible.
Hi Steph98, no, we do not do experiments on animals first. We try not to do experiments on animals at all unless we have to. For my work, I would look at how to make adhesives (think of the sticky stuff on your tape or Post-It notes) work the way I want it to work for the skin, evaluate if the ingredients I am using is safe for the skin then go make it. After making it, I would then test it on objects (like how strong does it stick to plastic, to metals) to see if it is safe to use (you don’t want to strip skin off people). After I am satisfied that my experiment should not harm people (there is no guarantees because everybody’s skin is different), I would arrange for a clinical study (with people) then it would be tested (after it gets reviewed by the ethics internal review board). This testing would look at if you get itchy from using it or if it sticks or not.
Where animals come in for testing is from the US’s FDA (probably same for Australian’s TGA) regulations for making the statement ‘Hypoallergenic’ (to cause less allergic reactions) – you have to test it on animals (it switched between testing on animals to people and now it is back to animals). These testing is to see if there is skin irritation when it is placed on the animal’s skin. The only risk to the animal is that it triggers an allergic response but that can be treated right away. Minor risks is that they get itchy and skin goes red (but it goes away). As we would have done testing with a clinical panel, we would already roughly know if it will be a problem on the animal (and if it would, we don’t bother at all). We mostly don’t make many hypoallergenic statement unless we have to (so we can avoid animal testing).
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We don’t do experiments on animals first, but we DO work with animals eventually. For cancer research, we usually start with human cells and work in tissue culture–these are well-controlled environments where you can grow and study different cancer cells. If these experiments show something interesting then we may study the system in mice. To do that, we have to go through a very thorough approval/ethics process where we write up a complete application stating exactly what we will do and how many mice we need. These are mice bred specifically for research and we are not allowed to do any studies that will cause them unneccesary harm or pain.
0
For my work, doing experiments on animals is essential. There is no other way that we can model the diseases that we are trying to cure (in my case leukemia). We don’t like to do it, and we try as hard as we can to minimise the number of experiments that we do on animals, but they are necessary. I justify it to myself by remembering what benefits animal experimentation has had to human society already (just about all modern medicines, vaccines and surgeries were trialled on animals and wouldn’t be possible without them), and I hope that my work will lead to similar benefits. Also, remember that everything we do using animals is approved by a very tough ethics committee, who ensure that the animals have excellent living conditions and that the experiments are as painless and stress-free as possible.
0