Are happy lab animals better for science?
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Advocates are pushing to enrich the lives of rodents and fish in the lab, but critics worry about the impact on research. Learn more: scim.ag/2seeUtP
producer/editor/script/animator
Nguyên Khôi Nguyên
supervising producer/script
Sarah Crespi
original story/interviewee
David Grimm
photo editor
Emily Petersen
photography
REAL program mice, zebra fish, lab
Michigan Photography, Austin Thomason
Cao laboratory mice and enrichments
Nicholas Queen
Hannan laboratory mice and enrichments
Hannan Laboratory, Florey Institute of Neuroscience
and Mental Health, University of Melbourne
REAL program rabbit pair
Amy Puffenberger, University of Michigan
Animal Care & Use Program
graphics
mouse silhouette, conventional and enriched mouse cageV. Altounian/Science
video
Cao laboratory control mice Eugene Choi
mice in enriched cage
Jake Rogers, Hannan Lab,
Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health,
University of Melbourne
stock video
Videoblocks
music
Nguyên Khôi Nguyên
Fantastic. Now let's convince the factory farms who grow our "meat" to try this also! Maybe happy, more natural animals are also healthier for humans (such as in their fat profiles).
Denmark already does this and doesn't even use hormones anymore :) it definitely can be done, and the price for meat here has not skyrocketed as many claimed it would.
I think they where being sarcastic
@@empresshemmalaya1802 Why would you think that?
Was that sarcasm? I hope it was cause that's right, victimized animals can't be made happy due to the inherent cruelty they suffer.
I had a job interview today to be a caretaker for lab animals. Pick up after them. Feed them. That sort of thing. I went into the interview not really knowing what to expect because the listing was very vague. I was shocked with how small the cages that pigs, chickens, and even beagle puppies were being kept in. They never go outside or have anything to do. They are scared of everything because they never see anything new. I am so conflicted. My heart tells me not to take it but my options for gaining experience as an undergrad are limited
If you really want to help the animal... take the job and don't be an assholes to the animals. Treat them right.. make their lives better in the lab. If you won't do it, someone else will (and they could be horrible at the job). It depends on the species also though, so do consider that! These animals are incapable of living outside, and when research on them stops (hopefully sometime in the future), they will not be bred anymore.
I always feel so bad for the wee ones 🐭🐭
If scientists would act more like human beings, and start treating the lab animals with even the slightest sense of humanity, instead as living test dummies, a whole world would be won.
I'm glad that fishes are represented in this video since they are among the most common victims of experimental research, and science has shown that they are sentient, intelligent beings. However, it's no more justifiable to subject nonhuman animals to harmful experimentation that it would be for an alien race to subject non-consenting humans to it.
Without animal experimentation we plain and simply would not have many or most of the life-saving treatments we have today. They deserve good, enriched lives and humane ends but their use is crucial.
@@sjsisjsjks We would have so much more if we instead had experimented on humans. As with nonhuman animals, no matter how good or enriched their lives were made, or how "humane" their ends, or how much others may have benefited, using them as non-consenting victims would be wrong.
@@maryfinelli9390 you'd like humans to die for experiment rather than the other races?
@@nhatminh468 It's as wrong to use non-human animals in experiments as it would be for extraterrestrial beings to use non-consenting humans for experimentation. What if you were their victim?
@@maryfinelli9390 That's easily said than done. Would you donate your time and living body to science experiments? Even if you are very healthy and don't need any medical help?
Perhaps Gene Roddenberry gotcha on this one too?
Cool
Try doing an LD-50 in humans?
Very interesting and great to see that people are actually researching this type of problematics but there's a solution to the concern about cost and resources; stop using animals in non-necessary lab tests. A vast majority of tests on animals are pointless and cruel so simply putting an end to those tests and researching on alternatives would reduce both cost and suffering.
I don't think the majority of tests is pointless and cruel. To be able to do research on an animal model in any research center, it must be approved first by a bioethics committee. The vast majority of tests let humans understand the basic principles of mammal biology or apply them to satisfy our needs. I think the tests that are pointless and cruel are an exception. I recommend you to search for the investigations made on Universities with laboratory animals to be able to confirm it by yourself
how are they pointless?
@@emilioherrera6345 I'm extremely into rats, and own several myself. So I binge read tons of experiments conducted upon rats, it's the best way to learn about their psychology and health care without bias I'd often get from amateur pet owners. I'll be honest with you, 50% or more of the experiments I'd read just made me go "literally, what was the goddamn point? The results were going to be obvious, this was pointless and cruel, and it was wasteful of resources and of a living being". So yes, many experiments made are honestly wasteful and unnecessary. They in no way benefit humans, at all. Or they'll do experiments for which everyone already knows the answer to. And that's just including the failed experiments they thought were useful to publish on medical sites. Even the young 1950s were less wasteful with their furry subjects. Albeit, there genuinely were very beneficial experiments done in the past too, but lately they turn less and less practical.
So nice
*Name the trait:*
What trait present in animals justifies the experiments we conduct on them, that if this trait were also present in a Human would also justify the same experiments being conducted on them?
IndigoXYZ18 "Lack of being human", for many folks, unfortunately.
But also, there's a general belief, even though not often articulated, that mice and other simpler-intelligence animals have less feeling -- less experience, and therefore less capacity to suffer.
I personally subscribe to the second, to a large extent, but also believe that the utmost care should be taken to minimize potential suffering.
extropian314 As for the first trait you cite as justification "lack of being Human" (although I know you mentioned you don't personally see this as justification), just plug in the variables and do the thought experiment. Say we have have a person who as it turns out isn't Human, this is geneticslly confirmed and explains why they cannot procreate, does this "lack of being Human" trait then justify being experimented on against their will?
As for the justification you personally cite, first I would like to point out there is no reason to intuitively assume that there is any correlation between intelligence and sentience. If did actually think there was some actual link between intelligence and sentience we'd naturally expect children to suffer less than adults, given that they are far less intellectually and emotionally complex beings. However complexity says nothing about intensity, the range of colours does not indicate how bright they are. Limited a range of emotion though we experience as children, our experience of that range is felt with far more intensity. When you think about the evolutionary role that pain serves, it teaches us avoid noxious stimuli. Would it not make sense that the reason why we experience more pain as children is that we need stronger negative feedback mechanisms to help us avoid danger because we are slower learners? People with severe cognitive disabilities (like Down's Syndrome) seem to react more strongly to painful stimuli than their more intelligent equally aged peers, in much the same way children do. With that in mind I see no reason to assume that animals animals suffer less than we do, if anything it's quite possible they suffer more.
But as for how the trait you cite relates to the question I originally asked, would those traits if present in Humans justify us experimenting on Humans? If it were found out that mice (and all creature less intelligent than ourselves) suffered more than Humans, surely you would it then justify involuntary drug testing on Humans? Say it were genetically determined that us Black men suffered the least of any demographic, explaining our suicide rate being the lowest (not to play the race card, but the stat fits my example, but it could hypothetically be any race), would that then justify involuntary medical experiments being preformed on us?
I don't know if there is one "trait" ,but scientists tend to use animal models such as mice because they are cheap, easy to maintain and to modify genetically to mimic human diseases. Granted they are only one of many models used in studies before they meet human trials. For instance, labs can use a combination of mice and human cell lines to attempt to solve whatever disease they are trying to treat. We don't use humans only for research because honestly humans won't volunteer themselves unless they are too poor and need the money. Likewise, cell models aren't only used because there needs to be some trail of how a particular treatment will act in a physiological system.
@@shannonmccombs789 There doesn't need to be one trait, list as many as you like. I'm not asking why we experiment on mice, rather I'm asking what justifies it. Mice don't volunteer, and neither do Humans have to. What I'm asking is for a logically consistent trait (or set of traits or really anything that can be said about mice) that is true of mice, *that if also true of a Human* would also justify involuntary experiments being carried out on them.
Different species with similar biology
Short life-span
Easy to house
Reproduce faster
Easily replicable
Place in the food chain
Easy to manipulate
Sounds heartless... but being a researcher working with rodents, I can safely say this: I would JUMP at any chance to do my experiments on humans. If I had volunteers and no one would stop me legally... I would a 100% work on humans, makes my work easier. Although, would be nice to have shorter life spans, so we can observe multiple generations.
It is heartbreaking how they treat lab animals and then kill them when they are very young to study the effect of all these drugs.
Crazy idea, but how about not using lab animals at all? Yeah I know... too crazy...
Sadly, we do not have a substitute for lab mice right now, since we need to test drugs/procedures to animals that are as close to humans as possible. Right now, we do not have the technology to create robotic humans that react to everything as close as possible as a human would. Sadly...
There's nothing crazy about it.
@@harukinoobie5966 That doesn't make it morally justifiable to use nonhuman animals, any more than it would be for an alien organism to use non-consenting humans.
@@maryfinelli9390 Scientists can only use lab animals for urgent experiments and the substances etc. must be tested beforehand to minimize animal suffering. Do you wanna die from Tetanus or something else? Okay
@@harukinoobie5966 Try to not be so naive. Animals are tortured and killed in laboratories for all manner of trivial, pointless purposes. Substances are not tested beforehand to minimize their suffering. If I contract tetanus or any other disease I don't want other sentient beings to suffer because of it. Causing them to do so would be unethical and immoral. Take responsibility for your own health and don't make others suffer for it.