Now that I've given in to the carnivorous ways suggested by my doctor, I seem to be focusing my animal rights attention on a new area - animal testing.
I realize that animal testing is important for mankind to understand medicine but it seems too "top of the food chain" to me. Who are we to (for example) inject monkeys with HIV to learn more about the virus? These monkeys, that are completely healthy and oblivious to their impending doom, are now given a deadly disease so we can learn more about it to save ourselves? Something about that doesn't seem right.
This topic is fairly new to me and I'd love to hear opposing/similar views. What do you think about it?
3 comments:
I am really torn about this sort of thing. On one hand, it's absolutely unethtical to inject humans with HIV, so how do we test certain hypotheses? On the other hand, how is it ethical to kill an innocent animal, no matter how genetically similar they are to us?
I'm against animal cruelty. But I also support medical testing if it will save the life of millions of people one day. So in essence, I have no idea how to reconcile the two. Animals are not sentient the same way that we are, but I know they feel pain. And it sickens me to think about it.
~Lachlan
Actually, most species of monkeys don't develop AIDS from HIV the way humans do. In fact, they don't usually develop any symptoms or illnesses at all. That's part of why they make such viable test subjects; if we can find out what makes them essentially immune to the virus, hopefully we can figure out how to make ourselves immune as well.
In cases like that, animal testing makes sense. Sadly, though, much of the animal testing that is conducted today is on cosmetic products and pharmaceuticals that cause horrific side effects. I'm a major animal person, vegetarian, yada yada, so I take major issue with that. And even in cases where the testing has the potential to save human lives, the animal subjects are treated inhumanely, which is clearly both unethical and unnecessary.
I'm trying hard to eliminate any and all products from my life that are produced by companies who still test on animals. This is difficult, but not impossible (though I'm not all the way there yet.) Here's a link that provides a list of companies that do and do not test on animals:
www.caringconsumer.com/searchcompany.asp
Thank you so much for your comment! Anything on this subject is muchly appreciated.
I'm so relieved to know the HIV virus doesn't affect most monkeys.
As for the other animal testing, I really appreciate the link you gave. As someone who recently started eating meat again due to health reasons, I am eager to help the animal population in any other way possible.
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