• Question: are you bound by animal rights laws that stop you doing some experiments?

    Asked by lizziebee to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi Lizziebee,

      Absolutely- we work under VERY strict laws and regulations, they are some of the strictest in the world here in the UK. Every reseracher has a license that has very specific details about what they can do, and they cant do anything that isnt on their license. Above all the animals have to be treated with the upmost respect and everything that can be done to make them comfortable must be. We also have to justify the use of every single animal we use for every single experiment.

      What are your thought on animals in research?

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi Liziziebee,
      Yes, people who do animal experiments have to work under certain laws and regulations to protect the animals. We are really lucky in the UK to have these laws as not all countries do.
      It’s the same with human embryos, we need to abide by the law in all the things we do! This does not stop us from doing experiments, it just makes sure we think carefully about what we do before we do it.

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi lizziebee – I don’t do experiments in the lab but I know that everybody who does experiments on animals has to have a license from the Home Office (HO). The HO inspects labs to make sure that they are keeping the animals in appropriate conditions and they also do not allow experiments which they think are unnecessary – so they would not allow you to test on 200 mice when you only need the data from 50 for example.
      The other scientists here can probably give you a better answer!

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi Lizzie,
      Yes, we are bound by the Home Office of the government, so if we do not do what they say, we can get banned or even thrown into jail!!
      For my research where we look into making broken bones heal quicker, I operate on mice.
      In fact, I had some concerns about doing this, especially when I first started out, because I thought this was a little cruel. But what I think persuaded me is that you have to remember why we are doing this. We are hoping to help the thousands and millions of people around the world to be able to walk or work again. There are many people whose bones do not heal properly and may need to have the limbs chopped off or have limbs that are forever painful. So I think it’s a worthwhile project. the reason we test this on animals is because we need to try out our drugs and chemicals otherwise we’d be giving them to real people without really knowing what they’d do! They may be make the patient sicker, for all we know! The reason we use mice is because their genetic makeup is very similar to ours and so if our drugs work in them, we can be pretty confident they’d work in humans too.

      Also, we make every effort to make sure the mice do NOT suffer! They do not actually feel any pain when I do the operation. I put them to sleep first, like I would to a normal person undergoing an operation, so that they wouldn’t feel a thing. Then I do the operation. I actually fix the broken bones so this takes away a lot of the pain, and then I give them a really strong pain killer in the nerve so that when they wake up, they do not feel any pain at all, and I can tell this because I can do different tests to make sure they are comfortable and in fact, they run around straight away when they wake up. If they were in pain, they normally just sit around and not want to disturb the broken leg. so we are not that cruel. The government has a whole load of rules to make sure we are kind to the animals otherwise we could be thrown into jail! So we have to make sure we treat them with respect. I know it may still seem cruel, but I think it’s important that we know what we’re doing before we do things on humans! I wouldn’t like my relatives, for instance, to have untested drugs used on them… what do you reckon?

Comments

  • Photo: lizziebee

    lizziebee commented on :

    i’ll be honest – i dont like animal testing but i supose if they don’t get hurt it is alright :/ i don’t like the idae of testing on humans either though :/

  • Photo: James

    James commented on :

    yes Lizzie, I think it’s a very tough one, but you know, at the moment, we don’t really have an alternative. If we didn’t have animal testing, many of the medications people take would not be around, and lots of people’d be much worse off…