Is it ethical to use animals for medical research?

Although society views animal research as an ethical dilemma, polls show that a high proportion—84\% in 1999, 90\% in 2002 and 89\% in 2005—is ready to accept the use of animals in medical research if the research is for serious medical purposes, suffering is minimized and/or alternatives are fully considered.

What are ethical issues in animal research?

Experimenting on animals is always unacceptable because:

• it causes suffering to animals.
• the benefits to human beings are not proven.
• any benefits to human beings that animal testing does provide could be produced in other ways.

Why we shouldn’t use animals for psychological research?

All major reasons for failure in clinical trials can be attributed to the use of animal models, which due to inherent genetic differences, do not accurately reflect safety or efficacy endpoints in humans.

Is animal testing a necessary and ethical part of psychological research?

Many psychologists conduct research involving animal subjects. Indeed, the humane and ethical treatment of animal research subjects is a critical aspect of this type of research. Researchers must design their experiments to minimize any pain or distress experienced by animals serving as research subjects.

Why animals should be used for medical research?

Why do medical research with animals? Results from animal studies are crucial for closing knowledge gaps about health and disease in both humans and animals. Understanding cell and organ function—which is similar in all vertebrates—helps researchers design experiments to test new treatments in people.

Why animals should be used for testing?

By studying animals, it is possible to obtain information that cannot be learned in any other way. Instead, the drug or technique is tested in animals to make sure that it is safe and effective. Animals also offer experimental models that would be impossible to replicate using human subjects.

What are the ethical rules applied in research with animals?

Researchers must have respect for animals’ worth, regardless of their utility value, and for animals’ interests as living, sentient creatures. Researchers must be respectful when choosing their topic and methods, and when disseminating their research.

Is it ethical to perform psychological experiments on animals?

APA’s 2002 Ethics Code, which takes effect June 1, mandates that psychologists who use animals in research: Use a procedure subjecting animals to pain, stress or privation only when an alternative procedure is unavailable and the goal is justified by its prospective scientific, educational or applied value.

Should animals be used in psychology research?

Animal research continues to play a vital role in psychology, enabling discoveries of basic psychological and physiological processes that are important for living healthy lives.

Are animal models ethical?

According to current European laws and policies on the use of animals for scientific purposes, animal experimentation is considered ethically acceptable only if it delivers knowledge that weighs up against the suffering of the animals used (EU 2010 [1, 2];).

What are the ethical guidelines for animal research?

Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

• Respect for animals’ dignity.
• Responsibility for considering options (Replace)
• The principle of proportionality: responsibility for considering and balancing suffering and benefit.
• Responsibility for considering reducing the number of animals (Reduce)

Is animal use ethically contested?

“Although animal use is contested in these ways, the ethical orientations that people draw on when evaluating different forms of animal use are not yet well understood.”

What are the four animal ethics orientations?

In your piece you write, “The present paper aims to develop and apply a multidimensional measure of animal ethics orientations consisting of four orientations to the use of animals: ‘animal rights’, ‘anthropocentrism,’ ‘animal protection,’ and ‘lay utilitarianism.'”

Do people with strong animal protection views really consume animal welfare-friendly meat?

“We show in the paper that people with strong animal protection views do not really consume animal welfare-friendly meat although this should be expected given this viewpoint’s focus on giving the animals ‘a decent quality of life’ and avoiding ‘unnecessary pain.'” —Thomas Bøker Lund, Sara Vincentzen Kondrup, and Peter Sandøe