• Question: What are your opinions on animal testing?

    Asked by anon-240668 to Tom, Rebecca, Emily, Elspeth, Ben, Antoine on 13 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Ben Cropper

      Ben Cropper answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      I don’t know, basically. Of course we should avoid it where possible, but where do you draw that line? In medicine, new drugs are necessary and it may be unsafe to go to human trials immediately, so animal testing seems like an ugly necessity of saving lives. Of course there’s a big spectrum of cruelty and necessity in animal tests, which seem to be well regulated https://www.gov.uk/guidance/research-and-testing-using-animals. I don’t think I’m close enough to the testing to say whether these regulations line up well with the right thing to do.

    • Photo: Tom Dally

      Tom Dally answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      It’s a mixed bag. I don’t agree that animal testing is a “good” thing, and I don’t like that it happens. But it is sometimes necessary, at least at the moment. A lot of medicines, including vaccines, need extensive testing before companies or hospitals can begin human trials. So animal testing can save lives, as Ben says. There are scientists, though, who are researching alternatives to animal testing, so that, hopefully, in the future, it’s not something we’ll need to do.

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