this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Would be more apt if animals' physiology was even remotely similar to humans though. Test environments in programming can at least be exact replicas of production environments.
But but it worked on my machine
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4594046/
That's actually really good to hear. It really sucks that the animal component is almost pointless, and it seems to be more unethical to include them in the testing process, but it's good to hear that at least the safety guardrails were working in the past.
Seems we just need to rethink how to ethically test on humans from the start, though I worry about letting the current people in charge execute that plan.
Hopefully it also means animal testing isn't actually that important and can be easily phased out for alternatives.
The good news is that some progress has been made in the US. The semi-recent (2022) FDA modernization act 2.0 removes mandates for animal testing in law and allows other testing methods to be used instead
There's another bill (FDA modernization act 3.0) that was just reintroduced a few days ago to not just allow the FDA to use non-animal testing, but to require that the FDA start actually working to allow it and setup pathways, rules, requirements, etc. And prioritize the review of drugs done via approved non-animal testing
It includes various reporting, safety, etc. requirements laid out so it wouldn't just be handing it blindly to the current admin
The 2.0 act was suprisingly bipartisan, so it's not a given that the 3.0 act would be doomed. Call your house representative and senators to make sure it gets through!
Most test animals have a great deal of similarities to humans, white mice specifically.
If they are so similiar, why is it ok to treat them so much worse?
Because they're small, smaller than short people
Do you think they just grab a random kitten and shove drugs up its bum until it bursts?
There's actual medication that was tested on animals that was completely fine then when it got approved it was given to human women and caused crazy amounts of miscarriages. Different species are not comparable when it comes to medication, testing on animals is almost completely pointless.
Yes they're not the same. Do you think scientist are unaware of that? It is most certainly not almost completely pointless. Are you?
You'd be surprised how stubborn some people can be in keeping with older ways of doing things, even more so in academia and the like.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear
It sometimes feels as if the medical and scientific knowledge of people who are hardline against animal testing at all is exactly that and only that thinking, yes.