Animal Testing

[wonderwiccan]

Products that were tested on animals are unethical, right? It seems clear to me only in the obvious cases. But I get confused the more obscure the example is. There are companies that don't test on animals, for either individual ingredients or the finished product. However, what if they are using products that they know are safe specifically

Comments

[scraatch]

If it's medicine, I believe testing on animals is fine. We have to test it.. otherwise the medication will not be used, or it will and we'll see the complications in humans. No thanks.

I do believe humans are above animals, in that we are clearly the top of the food chain (and don't say a human thrown in the woods would be eaten by a bear.. thats not the way the food chain works. Bears use their teeth, we use our brains). And so, when necessary using them for our needs is fine. What's not ok is using them for our wants... and so I'd say if it;'s something you don't need (makeup, factory farmed meat, etc), it's not ok to use it. But if it's something you do need, that's different.

[wonderwiccan]

For instance, with the makeup, if it uses ingredients that were tested on animals, even if the testing took place a long time ago, by a different company, is that okay? If you think it is okay, how long ago would the testing have to have taken place?

[turnyourback]

so it is morally justifiable to use retarded children or others who have a limited (or none at all) mental capacity to test medicines on because we can reason and use our brains more efficiently than they? i mean, if you can justify using animals based on their mental capacities, why not justify the use of inept humans as well?

[scraatch]

No, because they are still the dominant species.

[turnyourback]

actually, i'm pretty sure pencillin wasn't tested on animals.

[turnyourback]

Penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, was delayed for more than 10 years by misleading results from experiments in rabbits, and would have been shelved forever had it been tested on guinea pigs, which it kills. Sir Alexander Fleming himself said: ‘How fortunate we didn’t have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never have been granted a licence, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realised.’
http://www.theecologist.org/current_issue/animal_testing.htm

[xchristinax]

ANY medicine that is FDA-approved is tested on animals.

[ushitomo]

Penicillin was discovered before this went into effect, then grandfathered. To many of the animals used in testing these days, it's a deadly poison. Though I guess any new medication that contains penicillin would have to be tested.

[stephenhatesyou]

if a 'vegan' ingredient happened to be tested on animals fifty years ago, i'd consider it done and okay. five years ago, i'd probably not, because there must be other options...whether the FDA approves it or not

[xchristinax]

We're more intelligent. That's not debatable thing. We USE our intelligence for bad things sometimes, but that doesn't make us NOT intelligent. Hitler was a genius. Doesn't mean he used it for good.

I think the concept you're looking for is 'innocent,' which we certainly aren't.

[stephenhatesyou]

oh, i never questioned our innocence. that's not debatable at all.

but i still don't feel we're MORE intelligent than other life forms. if you're going to say we can do math problems and other animals can't, well, then that's certainly true. but i don't measure intellgence by doing math problems.

[xchristinax]

How the hell do you measure intelligence? You can think intelligence doesn't MATTER and that all species are equal regardless, but you can't just say humans aren't more intelligent. Our brains are more advanced.

[ushitomo]

Hmm...you raise a few good points.

The bottom line, for me, is that it's ok as long as further animal testing is not supported in any way. If an ingredient in a product was discovered/approved through animal testing in an unrelated case, it's probably ok, unless an industry grows around using animal testing to develop components that other non-testing companies use in their products. Once that happens, it is no longer ethical (for the animals, and additionally because it's a manner of deception towards animal rights activists

[wonderwiccan]

What about companies that don't do their own testing, but deliberately seek out ingredients that were previously tested on animals by a different company? Would you consider that acceptable? Why or why not?

[ushitomo]

Are they deliberately seeking out ingredients in general, and not caring whether they were animal tested, or are they deliberately seeking out ingredients, and using animal testing as a reason to accept or not accept an ingredient? In the latter case, I would feel it unethical to buy the product. In the former case, it would be a case-by case basis (though based on information that I'd realistically not know. If it was only the company using the ingredients, but without giving an incentive to other companies to use animal testing, then it would be fine. If other companies started to realize that they could indirectly make money by animal testing products (say unique products, and patenting them) that the first company was using, and an industry grew around it, then I'd say it would be unethical.

[invisibleheroes]

So, why should we go vegan at all if we have no responsibility towards other species?

HMM, I SMELL A TROLL.

[invisibleheroes]

Sorry, this was posed towards "scraatch".

[ushitomo]

nah, she's not a troll, just a vegan who happens to have a worldview different from the stereotyipical vegan one (and she's been on veganpeople for a while). People go vegan for all sorts of reasons.