Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Percentages of areas of animal testing on chimps


This is a breakdown of the areas of testing on the chimps described in the previous post.


"The Poor Contribution Of Chimpanzee Experiments To Biomedical Progress." Journal Of Applied Animal Welfare Science 10.4 (2007): 281-308. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2013

Additional Sources


My third source that I am using was found through Academic Search Premier.  The article is called “The Poor Contribution of Chimpanzee Experiments to Biomedical Progress.” The author of the article, Andrew Knight, examined over 749 published medical papers and experiments.   Basically, after detailed examination of these medical papers and experiments that were published in medical journals, he found that only 27 of these showed that there were developed methods for combatting human diseases, but not one of them made an “essential contribution, or in most cases, a significant contribution of any kind, to the development of the medical method described.”   

The researchers used Chimpanzees in their experiments because they are closely related to humans.  Types of testing included Hepatitis C, HIV, viruses, pharmacology testing, surgical and prosthesis, anesthesia and toxicology. Experimenting on chimps is very costly because they have to find the animals and then feed and maintain the animals. Knight says that the knowledge and benefits gained from the experimentation on the chimps is not worth the ethical or financial costs that were incurred. The reasoning of why the experiments failed was because of the small differences in the DNA between the two species. Other factors may include the way that the chimps were housed, isolated, immobilized and the stress and pain the animals endured. 

I believe that this source will be useful in the argument against animal testing. I believe it is a reliable source because it was found through Academic Search Premier.

Knight, Andrew. "The Poor Contribution Of Chimpanzee Experiments To Biomedical Progress." Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 10.4 (2007): 281-308. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

My fourth source was found through the Points of View database.  I continued to look there because I was having a hard time finding pro testing in the Science or Academic databases.  I am using another source that is against animal testing.  This article is called “Animal Testing is Cruel and Immoral Regardless of the Benefits Associated With It.”

This article discusses the immoral practices and the ethical issues of using animals in scientific and medical research.  The author say humans think that they are more dominant than other species and so this is one of the reasons that this practice is justified.  There have been many cases of humans taking advantage of animals.  This can be seen as capturing them and holding them in tiny cages, performing unnecessary experiments such as the artificial whiplash in baboons, and cruelty of animals in general. It goes on to say that there are between 50 to 100 million animals killed every year from experiments and drug research.  Most of this research is testing the toxicity, brain research, dental research, and surgical experiments.  The researchers defend their experiments by saying that the animals feel less pain than humans.  The sad thing is that a lot of these tests are conducted behind closed doors so the public doesn’t know about them.  If the tests are being done “humanely” then why not be open and show the public the types of experiments that are being done?  He brings up the point “should we seriously consider breeding humans for the purpose of medical experiments?”  He says they could be raised just like lab animals are raised.  The testing would be more effective.  He also says that human testing is already being done on prisoners for medical research.  Overall, the question that he wants answered is in regards to the 4% difference in the genome of the DNA sequence and what separates the humans from chimps/animals.  Why is it unacceptable or immoral to perform the same tests on humans?

Wright, George, Hoagland, Steve. "Counterpoint: Animal Testing Is Cruel And Immoral Regardless Of The Benefits Associated With It." Points Of View: Animal Experimentation (2013): 3. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.

My fifth source is from the New England Anti-Vivisection Society.  This organization not only discusses what vivisection is and the history behind it, but it discusses Biomedical Research as well as other types of research.  It also talks about the use of animals in education at the middle and high school levels as well as in college and medical schools.  It discusses different alternatives instead of using animal for testing and the reasons to use these other alternatives.  I decided to use this website because it is one of the leading organizations in protecting animals and advancing science by using alternative methods.  This website also has a.org extension, so I think that it should be a pretty credible source. 

New England Anti-Vivisection Society. http://www.neavs.org/.(2013).Web. 4 November 2013.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Baboon Whiplash


This is video footage from the University of Pennsylvania back in 1983.  The research program would receive one million dollars every year from taxpayers for thirteen years to study head injuries.  The video shows how the researchers experimented with 150 baboons by subjecting them to whiplash over and over again and in result suffered brain damage.  These experiments were done to simulate a car accident or a sports injury.  This is just one of many types of experiments that have been done at the university in order to see what will happen.  There are four parts to this video.  This is the second part.  It was hard for me to watch these videos!

"Unnecessary Fuss." PETA.1984.Web. 4 Nov. 2013.