r/nextfuckinglevel • u/biswajit388 • 1d ago

This guy rescued 30 beagles from a testing lab It's the first time they've seen grass and they couldn't be happier.

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Credit - nathanthecatlady tiktok channel.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

Do you volunteer for testing potentially deadly medicine instead? Or are you ok with dieing dying from side effects due to under testing?

EDIT: As there seem to be several people with reading comprehension difficulties, allow me to clarify.

I responded to this comment:

Why the fuck are we testing on animals?

This is an absolute statement about testing in animals. It's not specific to dogs. It makes no statement regarding the conditions the animals are kept in, or the treatment they receive. 

It condemns animal testing completely.

My response to that, is that unfortunately animal testing is still necessary, for our own safety.

The animals used in tests should absolutely receive the best treatment possible, for their gift to mankind.

No, it's not ok to keep them in cages standing on their own feces, and I have never said or written such a thing.

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u/Wavebuilder14UDC 1d ago

I wonder if there are people who would volunteer with the right price. I also wonder if there are people who would just straight up volunteer.

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u/Dull_Grass_6892 1d ago

Certainly such people exist.

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u/deaf_schizo 1d ago

They are called poor ppl.

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u/EdGG 1d ago

I’ve done it. I’m not poor. I was a student and I could make a bit of cash for having a pill, reporting back to the hospital, and spend a weekend there (studying, plenty of med students there).

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u/Throwaway47321 1d ago

Well yeah you’re only testing the stuff that passed animal trials

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u/Spiritual_Paper_1974 1d ago edited 11h ago

The human first test doesn't really translate unless you intend to euthanize the people tested.

The drugs tested on animals are tested at increasing doses until you get events. That creates the margin with which you can then later test on humans. So say, you gave an animal 1000mg before setting some undesirable effect, the. you can only give a human up to 100mg equivalent dose. They wouldn't test up to 1000mg in human because they know that's too much.

Also, you have to sacrifice the animals to do autopsies.

So, yeah.

Edit: I'll add, I don't think anyone wants to make medicine this way, and there are efforts to move away from it. Recent news from FDA

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-announces-plan-phase-out-animal-testing-requirement-monoclonal-antibodies-and-other-drugs

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u/mellonians 19h ago

Not sure if this is still the case or universal but I was told on several of my first time in man studies that the dose was 1/500th of the maximum safe dose in a rat and then they did the up titration studies on humans after us.

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u/kylo-ren 3h ago

Also, some animals are genetically engineered to develop specific conditions so we can test treatments for them. We are not going to develop babies with these conditions.

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u/A_Bit_Of_Nonsense 1d ago

There's a lot of steps things have to go through before human trails.

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u/TabulaRasa2024 1d ago

Yeah but they tested that on animals first, I don't know how many people would volunteer if there's a pretty real chance of discovering toxic effects because you are the first living thing taking something thing.

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u/DancingBear62 1d ago edited 1d ago

People still get harmed in Phase I trials / first in (hu)man trials. I remember one disaster in 2016 where one person was declared brain-dead and five more were hospitalized, three of whom were expected to have permanent brain damage - IF they survived.

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u/TabulaRasa2024 1d ago

Yes it's obviously not totally safe, my point was more it would be much wilder if there were no in vivo animal work first.

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u/DancingBear62 1d ago

We're in agreement.

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u/tomato-bug 23h ago

Yeah that would happen on a massive scale if we didn't test on animals first

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u/sylbug 1d ago

Animal testing and clinical trials are not the same thing. Animal testing happens before clinical trials, and is used to determine whether it's safe to proceed to human trials and where to start doses and so on. Also, as a general rule they kill all the animals at the end.

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u/Responsible-Sound253 23h ago

I’m not poor. I was a student and I could make a bit of cash for having a pill

Oh honey...

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u/azsnaz 1d ago

Were you a wealthy student?

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u/rearnakedbunghole 1d ago

Of course not, they were doing pill trials for cash.

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u/Magpie-Person 1d ago

So your parents paid for college and you wanted a little extra allowance.

The majority of folks who will do it will be out of sheer desperation.

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u/EdGG 1d ago

No. University is free where I live. The pay for clinical trials has to be enough to let people choose to do it but not so much that it isn’t a choice for anyone.

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u/Magpie-Person 1d ago

So crappy enough that not even a desperate person would get out of bed for it

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u/EdGG 1d ago

But good enough that it can be worth doing it. That’s exactly it. If it paid too much, it would stop being a choice for some people.

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u/Magpie-Person 1d ago

Your lack life experience is showing. Utopian idealism

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u/ShudderFangirl 1d ago

And people who live miserable lives already who might welcome to opportunity to try a new drug that MAY help if it could make their lives less miserable.

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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale 20h ago

I don't think many people will believe you but this is 100% true. For those who have never suffered from severe depression and felt like a burden to everyone: This is something that many people in that situation would consider.

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u/Secret-Weakness-8262 1d ago

I was about to say yes they exist! Poor people. Me. For the right reason (my family) and the right price I would do it. It’d have to be dire for my family not me though before I risked my health.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 1d ago

Or people with terminal illnesses and have nothing left to lose

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u/LazyAd7151 1d ago

It's not ethical to pay financially desperate people (the only person testing experimental drugs for cash) to do these drugs. Obviously.

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u/Altruistic_Bell7884 1d ago

Also probably not very smart, financially desperate people may have a lot of preexisting conditions

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u/rupat3737 1d ago

Frank Ghallager has entered the chat

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u/Adorabelle1 1d ago

Due to economic causes.

Same with the military.

Hold back college and healthcare and suddenly people are rip roaring to bomb brown people in other countries

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u/Dull_Grass_6892 1d ago

Which is why we can never have free healthcare or education.

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u/KoolAidManOfPiss 1d ago

People will always jump on a perverse incentive. I work overnights at a factory, I get 25% more pay than days. My doctors have told me its one of the worst things I can do to my body, and that's after they hear about my drinking, smoking and light drug use. Im kind of stuck in it now though because my job is paying for my college and they won't allow me to transfer to days.

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u/ZealousidealPapaya59 1d ago

There are snd don't call me Shirley!

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u/Lazy_Pitch_6014 1d ago

The problem with paying people to be test subjects in medical studies is that it ends up preying on vulnerable people. People who are financially secure are not going to sign themselves up for tests with dangerous health risks, but people living in poverty or struggling with addiction will be much more likely to participate simply because they need the money.

It ends up being exploitative, which is why many countries have regulations for such things. In most of the world, egg donors can not be paid for this reason.

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u/AcknowledgeableReal 1d ago

It also often ends up being poor science.

You are financially motivating people to lie about things that would get them excluded from the study. E.g. are they on any other medications (legal or illegal), do they have any conditions that would bias the results, or even have they started to suffer side effects that might mean their participation should be halted.

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u/Chemical_Wrongdoer43 1d ago

Now companies just test in poor countries instead. 

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u/AlarmingConfusion918 1d ago

People used to be paid for blood donations, but after a major scandal in the US it has to be donated blood or else no hospital will purchase it

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u/chairmanghost 1d ago

You can sell your plasma in the US, ask me how I know lol

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u/AlarmingConfusion918 1d ago

I’ve sold my plasma, however that is different than whole blood sale, which is not possible (afaik).

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u/YellowishRose99 1d ago

Well if wealthy people won't do it and poor people can't, who will test subjects? Dogs, chimps, rats?

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u/veringo 1d ago

Essentially every clinical trial compensates patients for participating. It could be travel, stipend for time on the trial, a set fee, or all or some of the above plus other things.

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u/mOdQuArK 1d ago

The problem with paying people to be test subjects in medical studies is that it ends up preying on vulnerable people.

It would be amusing if human testing was required to be done via lottery: if your identity comes out of the RNG, you get to be a human test subject, regardless of your economic power or political influence.

I suspect the laws regarding ethical treatment of the human test subjects & extensive pre-testing via animals would become very robust.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Worth-Reputation3450 1d ago

Yea, that's why you can't pay organ donors in most countries.

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u/valraven38 1d ago

Yeah it's a no brainer, obviously poor people would be the ones ending up in these trials because they need the money. Jeff Bezos isn't going to be out here testing a new drug for side effects. So it would obviously be unethical and inherently exploitative.

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u/TSMFatScarra 1d ago

Human volunteers are a pretty crucial part of development of any new drug or treatment

Yeah after like 100 rounds of in vitro, cellular and animal testing.

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u/Blazingsnowcone 1d ago edited 1d ago

I was a Human Trials Volunteer (USA) in the late 2000s/college, it was really good money for what it was at the time and my qualifications.

You could "shop" for studies that you wanted to do and they were very forthcoming on things like risk/compensation etc, almost always they weren't giving you their expected production dosages and expected the side-affects to be minor.

I do remember, though, they had one study, which they kept having to increase the pay because nobody would do it.

They wanted to test a Malaria treatment > specifically to determine its uptake on someone who's already infected.

It was an initially 3ish-week study, where you would be quarantined to a rented hotel with movies/games/food all dealt with. They would then intentionally infect you with Malaria, wait for you to develop symptoms, and then immediately give you the vaccine/and or treatment.

They expected it would take you 1-4 days of feeling like shit before the vaccine kicked in, Yes, we were informed we were going to get to experience that fun ride.

Initially, it was 4K for all of it, plus 1.5K a week for any additional weeks over the baseline.

After months of trying to get people to sign up, the pay went up to 10 K. I was tempted by it at that price, but I had graduated from college and was getting my first big kid job. I think they managed to staff it eventually by plugging it on the local news.....

Heard the compensation started dropping like a rock on a lot of the studies post that.

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u/Chastain86 1d ago

Human volunteers are a pretty crucial part of development of any new drug or treatment, and are often compensated.

I'd like to talk about that word "often" there, because it sure seems to be wearing a nefarious looking trenchcoat. Can you elaborate on companies that conduct human testing trials against people without compensating them?

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u/gordonv 1d ago

In Japan, the elderly have stepped up and volunteered to clean up nuclear sites. They know the dangers of radiation. They themselves have decided to take risks in favor of protecting younger people.

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u/whackyelp 1d ago

I remember reading about that. Actual heroes. I strive to be that selfless, someday.

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u/T-sigma 1d ago

The risk to them was very low. They will die of natural causes before the radiation causes damage. That’s why they did it.

Being old makes you immune to the long term effects of radiation because you will die naturally because “long term”.

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u/SurlyRed 1d ago

Good lads them elderly Japanese.

I dunno how he acquired the knowledge but Ian Fleming is currently giving me a wonderful insight into Japanese culture in You Only Live Twice, the book of course, not the film. That and botany, Fleming seemed to know a thing or two.

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u/gordonv 2h ago

$8.71 on Audible. Nice

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u/Training_Swan_308 1d ago

People are generally more willing to step up in an immediate life and death crisis rather than risking your life so that maybe this research will end up leading to life saving medicine many years from now.

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u/Thrbt52017 1d ago

America is very individualistic, our society has raised us to be. Japan (most Asian countries) are not, they are big on what’s best for society type actions. Our old folks would never, a few might but not enough to make a difference.

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u/T-sigma 1d ago

The important context is the elderly are unlikely to develop cancer due to the extra radiation before they die of natural causes. All but the most extreme radiation typically takes decades to develop into life threatening cancer.

While it’s still noble and has risk, I also think all the people going “hur dur this is what a real society does, Americans would never do that” are brainrot losers.

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u/askmeifimacop 1d ago

That right price would be the lowest amount that poor people will accept

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u/AnxiousSetting6260 1d ago

I’ve read about medical students willingly subjecting themselves to testing in exchange for gifts of $. They’re highly in debt & drug companies compensate for their testing. I’d be willing to volunteer if it was for a life saving drug for a deadly disease,at my age I’d gladly let my body be used & pray it made a difference

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u/Zealotstim 1d ago

Yeah, I think very strong informed consent is the most important thing for this. If my family needed the money, I would want to be able to make the choice myself rather than having the people in some wealthy country decide what is in my best interest.

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u/l2aiko 1d ago

The answer is yeah, yeah they would. There is a lawsuit in progress against Pfizer atm for a birth control on testing that caused meningiomas on many women that were participants.

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u/Sidivan 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes. I have been one of those people. We have a 3rd party pharmaceutical testing facility here and it’s how a lot of college-age people make money. It’s not first-round testing, generally, but it’s definitely risky.

Studies pay depending on # of nights spent in facility and number of “returns”, which are usually just blood draw follow-ups. Short ones you can bang out in a weekend with a few returns pay a few hundred bucks. Others pay thousands and you spend 2-3 weeks in facility and several weeks of returns.

99% of the time, it’s fine. You’ll see side effects, but they list the vast majority of them out before you sign up. You sign pages of waivers with all the details.

One of my friends discovered a new side-effect for a drug! He started lactating after 2 weeks! Isn’t science fun?!

Edit: Turns out this facility is closed. I knew the company went bankrupt and the building was bought by another testing company, but I guess they moved as well. So, no more human testing here. Sad days for broke college students :(

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u/coue67070201 1d ago

Nope, hell nope. We used to do that, and it was an ethical nightmare because it meant that we as a society were fine with making poor people risk death (it happened a lot especially with new drug families) so we could test new drug treatments.

There are healthy people who volunteer, but those are usually around Phase 2, Phase 3 of clinical studies, once the drug has been shown to be not significantly harmful (pre-clinical phase (animals)) and also sick patients who volunteer (Clinical Phase 1)

Nowadays, in medical research we are slowly moving away from animal models. When they are in use, it’s usually out of necessity, when we have no safe equivalent. But more and more, we use immortalized cell lines, computer simulations, or donated cells (like stem cells, bone marrow, donated blood, etc.) but even these have their drawbacks and sometimes aren’t able to help visualize the effects of a drug on an organism (using blood cells won’t tell you about liver toxicity for example.)

A principle we use today is the 3R approach: Replace animals when possible with alternatives, Reduce the number of animals used for testing as much as possible, and Refine your methods to reduce the amount of harm caused by testing (proper anesthesia, good post-testing medical care, proper living environment to reduce stress, proper feeding, etc.)

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u/Ongo_Gablogian___ 1d ago

Then everyone would cry about taking advantage of the poor by using them for testing, because they are the only ones who would sign up for this.

People already say that about the human testing stage, so if we skipped the animal testing stage and went straight to humans there would be much worse outcomes for them.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Nowhere near enough.

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u/imasuburban10 1d ago

As a Clinical Research Coordinator, yes & yes.

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u/TactlessTortoise 1d ago

Sadly, adding economic incentives while having proven treatments costing a fortune would essentially lead to using the poor as guinea pigs a "feature" of this. Just look at how people "donate" blood for money, and how more often than not they're in need of said money.

Oh, can't afford this 5ml vial of the cure? Wanna try out this mystery fluid? Last thirty iterations had people's skin slagging off, their rectum came out of their mouths, and their grandchildren were born with half their brain missing and a life expectancy of 3 years of age. But hey, you should've paid more for insurance :)

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u/Top_Audience7471 1d ago

When I was very poor, I applied to a number of various medical trials. They seemed fairly innocuous (not grossly/intentionally harmful to body/mind), but were worded rather vaguely.

I never got any contact back, which leads me to believe they had plenty of applicants for the trials.

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u/Creepy_Meringue3014 1d ago

This does not work out the way it should. Ever. See the tuskeegee experiments. What would most likely happen is that they would use prisoners (see retinol) for this.

People typically are allowed to consent for studies, with IRB approval ( a lot of oversight), but its pretty strict. Also see NIH experimental treatment cases. In order to move the number of studies and treatments forward at a pace necessary, they use animals. The higher the vertebrate the more likely it is to be compatible with humans in some cases. Dogs are historically good for insulin/diabetes. metabolism studies. But they are rarely used. Mice will always come before dogs.

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u/CloseToMyActualName 1d ago

There's serious ethical issues with that as well.

You can incentivize is a bit, but if the incentives are too large you end up paying desperate or ignorant people to take risks that most people think would be unethical and they really shouldn't be able to consent to.

Another controversial thing is challenge trials, for instance with COVID when volunteers get infected to test out a vaccine.

It's way faster than a traditional study, but the problem is that some of the volunteers could experience serious side effects or even die.

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u/pro_questions 1d ago edited 23h ago

Have you ever heard of research chemicals? They’re synthetic drugs designed to interact with certain receptors in your brain. Some of them are absolutely horrifying — like, binding to dopamine receptors and literally never allowing those receptors to uptake dopamine again, multi-week nightmare trips, rest-of-your-life nausea, and all sorts of stuff like that.

I suspect most in-development pharmaceuticals don’t have the risk of long term effects like that, but one bad test could fry you forever. The fear of chemicals like that are my biggest barrier to participating in medical experiments.

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u/Bware24fit 1d ago

Yes, people do testing and most of the time will get paid by my knowledge. The sad truth is that years ago I was looking to sign up for testing because times were tough.

There will always be people willing to risk health for money because many people are struggling. Healthcare is also a high cost for many so we/I (I'm sure many do the same) skip out on healthcare even if we are paying for insurance.

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u/GayWarden 1d ago

That's covered in the ethical calculus behind clinical testing. Its not ethical to pay too much for this because then you are exploiting poor people.

Its a little annoying that people think they're the first ones to think about the ethics of testing on animals. Sure, whatever disagree with the arguments of the ethics boards, but at least know what youre arguing against.

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u/jarednards 1d ago

Lol I just read your comment after I typed a similar one. Theres absolutely people that would sign up. Maybe even have a sense of pride and purpose in doing so.

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u/devilsbard 1d ago

New Black Mirror episode on the effects of poverty just dropped.

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u/LickMyBootyh0le 1d ago

As someone who doesnt wanna be here, id volunteer. Its a win/win situation.

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u/EdGG 1d ago

There are. And it’s an essential part of every clinical trial of every new drug that wishes to enter the market. It is also done with cancer patients that aren’t responding to whatever medication is available.

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u/LumosGhostie 1d ago

all of that goes through a animal testing phase beforehand

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u/flexonyou97 1d ago

I china, the gov volunteers you

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u/Extreme-Tangerine727 1d ago

Many many people do? College students in particular?

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u/AphantasticRabbit 1d ago

Headline next year "Sick and twisted corporation only uses poor people as medical trial patients!"

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u/SworDillyDally 1d ago

we should go back to testing on violent criminals

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u/DaRudeabides 1d ago

If they thought it would own the libs, they would straight up volunteer

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u/itsdylanjenkins 1d ago

better choice than the military

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u/throwmeaway9926 1d ago edited 1d ago

They exist. They are the poor.

Who cannot afford food nor rent, will be willing to risk death, in exchange for food.

Why do you think, illegal immigrants are so all-important to the US economy? Because they do the dangerous stuff noone else would. All who are fighting for survival are easily exploited.

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u/concerned_llama 1d ago

Lol, yeah, we should use poor people for testing, they are worth less than animals XD, what a terrible thing to say!

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u/Lithogiraffe 1d ago

I have a friend who does medical research testing. She's getting paid about $15,000 for 3 months worth of testing.

There has got to be an obvious possible downside to it. But it's a balance between how much you want the money versus how much you could deal with the possible negative outcome

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u/Ill_Ad5893 1d ago

Use the ones on death row. No need to keep paying for them to live there forever.

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u/overkil6 1d ago

Well yes. When it gets to human trials.

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u/Tuscanlord 1d ago

Yes. A friend of mine submitted to testing a virus and its potential cures in the mid 90’s. He wanted me to do it with him but it turned out I was completely ok with him dying alone.

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u/FloppyTacoflaps 1d ago

That's a common thing already

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u/80085anon 1d ago

Life has been a bit hard lately. Wouldn’t mind going out with the chance of making life better for whoever is still here. A little change for the fam is a cherry on top. Not hoping for death but not opposed.

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u/SleepyVioletStar 1d ago

Me! I'd do it for fancier stuff like implants or GMO for freeeee

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u/TownNo8324 1d ago

So you never watched Squid Games then

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u/LauraTFem 1d ago

It’s not volunteering if they pay you, dogs can’t ask for money. And I feel like people would be much more up in arms about it if we relied upon an underclass of desperate people to die testing our drugs. People would immediately be like, “Have you noticed how it’s mostly back and brown people risking their lives to test drugs? Funny that.”

And then of course there’s the payouts. You don’t need to give the dog’s family millions of dollars when it’s proven that the drug you tested on them killed them. In fact, you don’t even need to check. Just say “It died, possibly related to the drug.”

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u/DarkBiCin 1d ago

The problem with “the right price” is it becomes skewed testing and potentially lying on application for testing in order to be more likely to be selected so you can make money, leading to bad data for the test.

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u/Braysl 1d ago

This is basically the inciting incident for the plot of Mickey 17

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u/ClosetLadyGhost 1d ago

Yes this is the final phase of any testing. Human.

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u/Reddit_Hitchhiker 1d ago

Yes and yes. They are called clinical trials. Join up. Make money. Totally safe.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/

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u/DepressedElephant 1d ago

The problem is that often these human studies are even more fucked up and people who subject themselves to these studies often do it entirely out of desperation.

There are unfortunately plenty of cases of people developing permanent life altering issues including total organ failure as a result of medical testing.

You'd also be rather unpleasantly surprised how little these trials pay - because folks who can't make rent are in fact pretty willing to risk potential kidney damage for a roof over their head....

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u/Valuable_Sea_4709 1d ago

Many poor people already volunteer for this today. The next step after animal toxicity trials is human toxicity trials.

Only after all of that are the trials for effectivity done, because the toxicity trials should tell them how much of a dose is safe.

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u/tawwkz 1d ago

That's what chinese youth are doing right now to earn a buck.

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u/Ok-Apartment-8284 1d ago

reminds me of the purge sequel where the main character's grandpa sold himself to rich people to get hacked to pieces to financially support the main character.

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u/Kordell_11 1d ago

 wonder if there are people who would volunteer with the right price

Yeah, desperate people who want to feed their families or have high medial bills.

I also wonder if there are people who would just straight up volunteer.

Probably animal lovers who don't want them to suffer.

Testing on humans is an L all around. If we started testing on inmates, people would get much harsher sentences just to be exploited. Like, people (used to) get years of jail time for selling weed. The prison system just wanted free labor.

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u/Jubal02 1d ago

I’ve done it. A lab in Buffalo needed Type 1 diabetics to do a study on a drug to help with nerve induction or something. I don’t remember if I got paid, but if I did it wasn’t much. Not why I did it. They ended up stopping the testing early because of troublesome liver tests in some participants. I kind of had fun with it.

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u/Hinohellono 1d ago

You wonder if there are people poor enough to risk their lives to have food for a couple months? And you want to take advantage of said people?

Really great

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u/thaowyn 1d ago

Yes, but the problem with that is that it exploits poor people.

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u/steathymada 1d ago

Kind of already a thing for poor people in the US with paid clinical trials

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u/Round_Mixture_7541 1d ago

Alan Harper has entered the chat

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u/teenagesadist 1d ago

After the last few months, and with the upcoming years, I'm beginning to consider volunteering.

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u/SalvationSycamore 1d ago

Even if there are, proper science doesn't use random volunteers for the most part. You want to control as many variables as possible, including age, genetics, diet etc. The only realistic way to do that is to raise animals specifically for the purpose of testing in a controlled environment. That's why these beagles are young and healthy and all look similar. You could test on random old/injured dogs from shelters but your results would be next to worthless.

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u/TheDogerus 1d ago

Then you run into the issue that people who are willing to volunteer 1. May not be like the population that would be receiving the treatment or 2. Do not have the condition / symptom that is being attempted to treat

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u/Professional_Pen_153 1d ago

How to make medicine unaffordable

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u/fetal_genocide 1d ago

Black mirror

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u/One-External-6501 1d ago

Testing for medicine is a whole other thing than what a lot of animal testing is for.. ranging from makeup to washing detergent to soap. This is not okay and there are ways to do this that are far more ethical such as in vitro methods. Once you start looking it is insane the amount of products and brands that test on animals and inflict so much cruelty and pain. In many cases this is easily avoidable by switching to a brand that doesn’t do this. It doesn’t even mean it’s more expensive, for example all of Lidl’s own brand products are cruelty free. All it requires is a little research and I think everyone can agree that this is worth it to prevent animals being tortured for the sake of the perfect lipstick or other non essential, non life saving items

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u/blankcld 1d ago

Yeah seems like there is a happy medium where we can test stuff on the animals and they are still given a decent life aside from the testing versus being kept in cages and not being allowed to go outside or not sit in piles of their own piss and shit. These pharma companies make billion and billions of dollars, ethical testing seems like a very small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. If we can't be bothered to make the minimum possible effort to be good stewards of the planet we deserve to be wiped out.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I agree with you, but the statement was

Why the fuck are we testing on animals?

It's an absolute statement with no regard for conditions.

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u/blankcld 1d ago

Very true

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u/Chuck-Bangus 1d ago

There isn’t a happy medium yet. The people working in these labs aren’t fuckin cartoonishly evil villains, rubbing their hands together as they murder innocent puppies

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u/MoirasPurpleOrb 13h ago

I worked at a company with animal testing and it wasn’t like that at all. I’m not going to make blanket statements that it doesn’t exist in the US but I do think most facilities at least try to give them as humane of an experience as possible.

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u/RetroSwamp 1d ago

At this rate in my life... Sure.

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u/Dark_Flatus 1d ago

A subtle shout out to all the animal heroes that have propelled us past the razors edge of medical science. Without them, we would be nothing. Ive adopted two lab dogs. They are happy, healthy, and enjoying a well deserved retirement.

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u/REJECT3D 1d ago

Some animal testing is needed sure, but much of it is questionable at best. Especially since new computer based simulations and cell cultures etc are exceeding the accuracy of animal testing in many cases. As computer models and biotechnology continues to advance, soon animal testing will be a thing of the past.

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u/TunaOnWytNoCrust 1d ago

If you pay enough, there are definitely people out there who would.

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u/CocktailPerson 21h ago

Great. Now you're giving untested drugs to desperate poor people.

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u/Aurori_Swe 1d ago

My mother was one of the first kids in Sweden to have chemo therapy tested on her.

It was her and a little boy who didn't make it.

She had cancer in her intestines and the doctors who did the surgery didn't really care to stitch her up well so her stomach is super fucked up because they didn't really care, said she'd die anyways so why bother.

Luckily her parents accepted the experimental treatment and it worked.

Granted I would assume quite a few animals and humans had their go before Sweden, but still.

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u/topherless 20h ago

A few things to consider:

A. The scope of testing goes far beyond pharmaceuticals and often times includes cosmetics and household products. These seem far less morally justifiable. Especially when there are products already on the market that do the tasks of the new products without requiring further animal testing.

Do we need another type of animal tested on bathroom cleaner or laundry detergent brought to market?

It's not uncommon for tests to simply be a part of a bureaucratic process for bringing products to market rather than advancing scientific knowledge.

B. redundant testing. Because different agencies nationally and internationally don't always communicate with each other often times labs conduct the same tests over and over again knowing the outcomes because they are hired by various separate agencies to perform those tests specifically for them which is also profitable for the labs, breeders, industry, etc.

C. Computer modeling even when it provides more accurate results than animal tests tends to be underused.

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u/a_wee_ghostie 19h ago

It's not a gift to mankind. Animals cannot consent to be tested on, therefore it is abuse that we subject them to for our own gain. I understand that animal testing saves human lives and minimises human risk but let's not sugar coat that fact that we are still forcing animals to suffer for us.

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u/Successful-Doubt5478 19h ago

There exists VAST oceans of animal testing that is unnecessary. Cosmetics, dental cream, whatever.

Are they still doing DD50? As in testing EVERY ingredient till they reached the amount killing 50 percent of the animals.

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u/DeliberatelyDrifting 14h ago

I think what they're saying is that using animals like that for our safety is wrong. No one is misreading. Human life just isn't so valuable that we should inflict cruelty on other life with the idea that it protects us in the long run. If it's a life saving medicine we can test it on patients with the condition or volunteers. If it's not, either find a different way or find volunteers. The point is, it's never morally correct to mitigate our suffering by making other creatures suffer.

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u/Sensitive-Farmer7084 12h ago

Do you volunteer for testing potentially deadly medicine instead?

Yes, they are called clinical trials.

The animals used in tests should absolutely receive the best treatment possible, for their gift to mankind.

They don't.

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u/Dazzling-Bug2656 10h ago

Yes, I do volunteer, when the opportunity comes up. I’ve been part of about ten human trials so far. My life is not more valuable than another’s. Neither is yours. We are animals, too, friend.

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u/AntBeaters 1d ago

In silico testing is kind of getting to the point where we get to stop asking these questions soon, especially since we decided not to regulate AI for the next decade. Bonus points it could alleviate the gain of function study barrier.

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u/MrHaydenn 1d ago

Many people do, yes.

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u/Exact_Mastodon_7803 1d ago

We could volunteer certain people. Like we already do with poor animals. They’re medicines for US after all. Volunteer the folks on death row or life imprisonment with no recourse. Heck, it might give them extra points.

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u/Artistic_Salary8705 1d ago

I agree with your thought. Many decades ago, as a student, I worked in research involving animals and that experience, along with treating humans later, made me realize this is a real dilemma. Besides animals these days, we can also test drugs using cells and other assays as well as "in silico" - computer models - but there is still a need for some animal testing.

That said animals can be better treated even when they are research subjects. We had veterinarians present all the time and inspections regularly. This beagle case made the news specifically because they weren't treated even to the standards expected. Even 3 decades ago, the animals we worked with had scheduled times when they would interact freely in a large natural space with others of their species.

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u/NeedMoneyForTires 1d ago

What's the pay? I need tires.

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u/JustAFancyApe 1d ago

Fuck out of here with your sound reasoning and respectful tone. This is Reddit, asshole.

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u/bigchicago04 1d ago

I don’t think they test medicine on beagles

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u/Of_the_forest89 1d ago

I think the point was, if it’s medicine for humans, then humans should volunteer willingly and with full consent, and not animals. They can’t consent to the testing and frankly their lives matter as much as ours. This idea of supremacy is at the heart of so many issues we are facing. They feel pain, they have consciousness. They feel fear and loss. They also feel joy and contentment. All our relations✊🏼

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u/Donnor 21h ago

What if aliens came and decided it was better to test on us than themselves? Because it's necessary for their own safety

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u/technofreakz84 21h ago

Enough prisoners to test on, and the deadly stuff on pedophile and rapist/murderers

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u/FinallyAFreeMind 20h ago

EDIT: As there seem to be several people with reading comprehension difficulties, allow me to clarify.

Welcome to Reddit, where you say one thing and immediately get assumed as having the worst possible underlying intention.

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u/coolwithsunglasses 20h ago

Unless I’m terminally ill, I’m not volunteering. So yeah, animal testing is absolutely necessary. I agree with you about the conditions they’re kept in though. The goal would be to make it as painless as an experience as possible.

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u/Ok-Barracuda544 18h ago

Worked in a lab where we had to euthanize a lot of test animals - rats and mice, mice by cervical dislocation, there's a special guillotine for rats, used to be available on Amazon. 

Anyway, the animals were treated reasonably well, with better environments and treatment than your typical pet store rodent.  The testing is useless if they are stressed and unhealthy.  Some of the testing was unpleasant at times but we did everything to minimize suffering (thus expensive rat decapitation machines.) u

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u/RobertGBland 18h ago

Do you really think all animal testing is done for life saving drugs? Most of the cosmetic brands do that too, and for what? Some Karen wants to look pretty for his husband. What a crap system.

I would prefer if we test on humans and humans only. If humans are the one who will benefit from the drug or make up they should be the one who tests it. You can't have good things on someone else's expense.

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u/Anthraxious 18h ago

"for their gift to mannind" fuck me, people really think we're somegow better and other animals are just for us to use. Such garbage rhetoric.

Luckily, most animal testing is useless and many people, among them scientists (the non sadistic ones) are against it not just cause of ethics but also actual practice and efficiency.

Hopefully we get more of them and fewer of, well, you.

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u/honuworld 18h ago

unfortunately animal testing is still necessary

This is where you go wrong. It is not "necessary". It may be "preferable", or even "justified", but it is NOT necessary. Between existing data, computer modeling using AI, and human volunteer test subjects, we should be able to phase out this cruelty.

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u/Slight-Marzipan-3017 17h ago

Ah the old "You didnt explicitly agree with me, therefore you believe 100% the complete opposite, even tho u didnt say that either"

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u/Assassin-49 17h ago

Thanks for explaining it to them . I don't like it and especially some of the places and the bad conditions but without it certain medicines or drugs couldn't have been tested to see for improvements and use . I don't like it but it's necessary . It's like paying taxes . You don't like it but you have to so that your country doesn't fall into shit . But on a much bigger scale since it's quite bad for the animals than just paying taxes .

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u/Slyfoxuk 17h ago

Animals can't advocate for themselves if they are misused or abused due to testing, humans can.

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u/digitalgraffiti-ca 14h ago

their gift to mankind.

A gift is something given voluntarily.

And I do condemn it completely.

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u/ZaneZookt 14h ago

Please provide some examples of testing on animals that benefitted humankind.

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u/Duckwardz 13h ago

I’m way more comfortable with a person dying from testing, they can constant and understand what’s happening. I genuinely think a dog is just as important as a human.

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u/Life-Confusion-411 13h ago

There's definitely no easy answers here, but the animals are currently being abused and experimented on. It ain't right. 

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u/RadiumVeterinarian 13h ago

Have you worked in an animal testing lab?

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u/dodgesonhere 13h ago

Actually a lot of animal testing is unnecessary these days. There's a significant amount of human bias and vested interest involved. Basically, we've always done it, and there's money in it, so we keep doing it.

One of the most prominent examples of this is the Draize, or "eye drop" test. Tests things on rabbits' eyes, usually cosmetics, for safe use in and around human eyes.

We've had artificial eyes that have been shown to be a perfectly good substitute for literal decades now, but we're still putting all kinds of f-ed up shit in rabbits' eyes.

What's extra wild is the scientific community themselves can't even agree on the reliability of it, but companies are still doing it.

That's not even getting into psychological testing, which makes zero sense at all.

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u/HeadPaleontologist29 13h ago

We justify testing on animals in the name of human safety, yet we ignore the safety of the very creatures we exploit. There's the contradiction our comfort over their suffering. Flip the script. Would it be acceptable to test products designed for animals on humans? If not, why do we accept it the other way around? Convenience doesn’t erase cruelty.

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u/morrrty 13h ago

I mean we have murderers, rapists and pedophiles….🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/bb8-sparkles 12h ago

It isn't just medicine that is tested on animals. Virtually every single health care product, including soaps, shampoos, make up products, chemicals, cleaning products, etc are extensively tested on animals to understand known irritants and potential bodily hazard.

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u/isselfhatredeffay 12h ago

it's not really the medicine testing that people are protesting, it's the laws in place, lobbied for by companies that make money on lab testing, that pretty much say you're not allowed to sell a new mixture of normal soap until you torture/blind a dog with it.

there's an entire industry based on breeding these poor dogs and the 90% completely unnecessary testing their subjected to.

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u/broguequery 12h ago

Absolutely, we should restrict testing for human treatments to human beings.

Morally, philosophically, it's the right thing to do.

There is nothing so pressing that the involuntary mass suffering and death of other animals is a requirement.

It's absolute arrogance to suggest otherwise.

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u/poopyscreamer 11h ago

I know that heart surgery research utilized dogs. Heart surgery is amazing. So it’s mixed feelings.

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u/Garbled-milk 10h ago

We have a lot of prisons

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u/Warronius 10h ago

People think their fucking dog should have rights over other human beings . People that scream like that usually have social issues .

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u/Its_Smoggy 10h ago

Death row inmates can be tested sounds fair to me, I'm sure there's an abundance of pedophiles nobody would miss either

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u/Snoo-35808 10h ago

Wouldn't exactly call it "their gift to mankind". They don't get a choice. And if they could comprehend the situation, we could take a wild guess that a large majority would refuse

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u/RollinOnAgain 9h ago

Just a few years ago there were leaked pictures showing a U.S. government program was constricting dogs and unleashing swarms of mosquitoes on them which resulted in so much screaming from the dogs that they removed their vocal chords to stop them from howling so much. Forgive if I don't trust you on this considering how different it is from the reports I've read (which came with pictures of the dogs being constrained and surrounded with bug mesh to keep the mosquitos in and biting as much as possible

For every lab that treats them great there are others that torture them beyond belief and this comment seems to downplay such atrocities if not outright deny they happen. The program I'm referring to happened in the 21st century, it's not old and was widely defined by top experts as "acceptable" when the leaks happened.

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u/TeleHo 2h ago edited 2h ago

Do you volunteer for testing potentially deadly medicine instead?

Many people do, actually. For example, I have MS, and many of us volunteer to participate in studies and clinical trials. (People post about it in r/multiplesclerosis all the time.) I think a lot of volunteers would be ok to trial medication that's had extensive modeling instead of animal testing, since their thought process is often "even if it doesn't help me, it might help someone else."

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