>If you’ve ever taken antibiotics, had a vaccine, a blood transfusion, dialysis, an organ transplant, chemotherapy, bypass surgery or joint replacement, you have benefited from animal testing and research. In fact, practically every drug, treatment, medical device, diagnostic tool or cure we have today was developed with the help of lab animals.
>Many diseases that once killed millions of people every year are now either preventable, treatable or have been eradicated altogether. Immunizations against polio, diphtheria, mumps, rubella and hepatitis save countless lives and the survival rates for many major diseases are at an all-time high thanks to the discovery of new drugs and the design of sophisticated medical devices and surgical procedures.
But the linked video isn't about that at all. It's about the pitfalls of using rodents for testing and trying to extrapolate meaningful conclusions from the results. In other words, an argument that is squarely on topic with regard to the original article. Or in other words further, that using rodents is "a horrible testing method"―to repeat what the original commenter wrote before you derailed the thread.
Your commenting as if this discussion is about the ethics of animal testing and the comments of you and those who've responded (including the one I'm writing now!) have been—and are contributing further—to a massive waste of effort and attention.
For example, say that we have genuinely useful medical information as a result of Unit 731 experiments and similar crimes (which may or may not be the case; I have no idea). There's no contradiction if one person supports using those existing results to save lives while simultaneously opposing further collection of such results.
Another example: I personally eat a lot of meat (keto/LCHF), but even so I might support legislation to ban killing animals for food or sport, because the personal sacrifice would only be worth it to me if it came attached to a systemic change.
This is the reason why. You may prefer the world to be a certain way, but you aren't willing to make any sacrifice to make it be a particular way, so it appears that you don't actually care about an opinion that you are espousing.
People who don't eat meat have a net effect on a reduced demand for meat, reducing the amount of cattle. Becoming a vegetarian doesn't stop everyone eating meat, but it helps.
[I'm not a vegetarian but I have some respect for people who are willing to stand by their beliefs]
For me, I see the greatest impact I can personally make as continuing to work to become successful and then investing a ton of money into lab-grown meat.
Anyway, it's something I'd like to help do something about, but it's not my life's focus. If I had a magic "make everyone stop eating meat" button, I'd be tempted to press it and figure out a way to personally adapt, but ultimately I think that would cause more harm than good without a market-ready drop-in replacement that fits the same macros. That's not the same as not caring or being unwilling to make a sacrifice; it's just caring about multiple things to varying degrees and being realistic.
Says who? OP is willing to make a sacrifice that results in desired effect - just not "any" sacrifice, which in this case does nothing.
If I think taxes should be lower, should I start paying less tax then I am asked to?
Would you like to know whether that scientist is male or female? Does it matter? Go see the video.
On we go: “Everyone knows testing on rodents is practically the same as doing actual human trials”. Actually, no competent researcher thinks that. I’ll grant that it’s a fairly common misconception in the media, and one that’s definitely worth addressing.
But it’s disingenuous and counter-productive to do this by creating other misconceptions — namely about what science is (see above), and that scientists are somehow oblivious to the (very obvious!) deficiencies of animal testing. That doesn’t mean that mouse model research is useless — far from it (unfortunately). It’s a crucial first step in a lot of biological and medical research.
To be sure, Dr Raza — as an expert — makes excellent points! But so does the FDA when it mandates animal trials before human trials: Adam points to an example where a drug went to human trials and almost killed the patients even though it was safe in mice. OK. Now imagine how often that would happen if we didn’t have preliminary mouse studies.
That said, all (!) animal research scientists I know support stronger regulations on mouse research. And, although I can’t speak for the US, the regulations are already a lot stricter in the UK and Germany than claimed in Adam’s video.
So.. it really doesn't matter who teaches and who listens, because ultimately they're both actors reading from a script. How does that play in favor of your argument?
Not to mention the woman he's explaining to is a scientist researcher, and at the end of the video, they have Dr. Azra Raza as a guest (who is also a woman) to further solidify the arguments.
If you think you're defending anything by calling it "mansplaining" and complaining that women aren't treated fairly, you're wrong and you're not helping anyone.
woman: "<erroneously> science says X"
man : "<correcting her> actually the truth is Y"
The jerk also talks-down to us the audience. It's terrible science-education and it's not "humor"
"mansplain" is a gender-biased criticism of behavior. It implies that the gender of the participants is the problem, rather than the attitudes or behavior.
But apparently the mice in the study react to the gender, so maybe it's germane...