Talk:Animal testing/Archive 11

In vivo?
Animal testing is not known as "in vivo". In vivo means the use of an entire (not necessarily fully intact) organism, which could be human or non-human.Desoto10 (talk) 07:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In vivo can apply to humans or animals, thus is a synonym of both. Mokele (talk) 17:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * One can argue it either way, but I think it's OK to continue to say "in vivo" here. The term actually means alive, and includes both human and non-human. In vivo, to which it links, says clearly that it includes both animal testing and clinical trials. It's true, therefore, that there are kinds of in vivo testing that are not animal testing, but the animal testing that is of interest to this page is in vivo testing (ie, as distinguished from animal cells in tissue culture). As I said, this can be argued either way, but I think there is no harm in leaving it as is. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

asking wikipedia a question about animal testing at wikipedia the free encyclopedia
what is the year of edition for the article on anamal testing at wikipedia the free encyclopedia and also what is the library for animal testing andwho is the author and how many pages are there and what is the title of the article. Forany farther notice or help on answering the question for me. PLEASE refer to my email account at elyssd11@gmail.com thank u for the help wikipedia.--67.163.177.247 (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)Elyssa Deaner
 * Elyssa, some of those concepts do not exactly apply here. Obviously, the article is Animal testing. The correct place to ask how that sort of thing works is at Help desk. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Prominent cases?
The lead sentence [All knowledge of muscle physiology is based on work done using frog muscles] seems bizarre and is not supported by the cited ref which claims that more emphasis has been placed on human muscles. I appreciate you going through this, Mokele, but I'd suggest that his be changed to "Much" or even "Most" instead of all. Bob98133 (talk) 12:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The cited ref places emphasis on human muscles for teaching purposes, but the concepts discussed were all discovered in frog muscles. The only reason anyone even uses mammals is that you can get pure fiber-type muscles (mouse EDL for fast and cat soleus for slow) and can genetically modify mice to express disease states.  Even then, it's still all based on work done in frogs.  Still, primary sources would be better, so I'll re-do it. Mokele (talk) 14:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. My main problem is with the word "all" since it's near impossible to prove, like biggest, best, etc. I'm sure that knowledge about muscle physiology must have been acquired using other species as well, even if these studies are not as frequently cited. Bob98133 (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Boothie1, 23 April 2010
Although no accepted in vitro alternatives exist, a modified form of the Draize test called the low volume eye test may reduce suffering and provide more realistic results, but it has not yet replaced the original test.

This needs editing to.

The following was copied from: http://www.drhadwentrust.org/news/rabbit-eye-test-replacement#fn9909468184ab801ac0cd77

Acceptance by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) means that guidance is finally in place on how to conduct the tests without using live rabbits 2. Two test-tube methods for assessing eye irritation have been accepted by the OECD, the BCOP (Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability) test and the ICE (Isolated Chicken Eye) test, both for identifying ocular corrosives and severe irritants.

Whilst the Draize test will continue to be conducted for substances that are not severe eye-irritants, the OECD’s decision does mean that many thousands of rabbits will be spared distressing and painful tests that have been scientifically criticised for many decades for poor reproducibility and species differences between rabbits and humans3. Some 4,500 rabbits are used in eye irritancy tests in the European Union each year4. Global use is likely to be considerably higher.

It has taken at least thirty years for alternative tests to be approved, with research starting in the 1980s, scientific approval by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) coming in 2007 and now OECD acceptance in 2009 meaning that the new tests can be used globally.

Sources 1 Developed in 1944, the Draize rabbit eye irritation test has been the standard method for evaluating the ocular irritation/corrosion potential of a substance for regulatory purposes. Adult albino rabbits are most commonly used for eye irritancy tests because they have eyes with a large surface area. At least three animals are used per test substance. The test involves applying the substance directly into one eye (the other eye acting as a control) and observing effects for up to 21 days. Effects can include swelling, soreness and weeping eyes.

2 The OECD adopted the new methods on 7 September 2009

3 For example Weil & Scala (1971) Toxicol.Appl.Pharmacol. 17,276-360; Freeberg et al. (1986) J. Toxicol.Cut.Ocular Toxicol. 5, 115-123; Koch et al. (1989) J.Toxicol Cut.Ocular Toxicol. 8, 17-22.

4 Latest statistics available from the European Commission are for 2005

5 The Dr Hadwen Trust funded Dr Colin Muir, a research fellow at Leicester Polytechnic. Dr Muir developed the ‘opacitometer’ which shines a light beam through the isolated cornea enabling an objective measurement of changes in its opacity. His publications between 1984 and 1987 are acknowledged as providing the essential groundwork and inspiration for the BCOP test.

Boothie1 (talk) 18:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The BUAV aso welcomed this. Thank you, I've updated the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Another editor, not me, added the tags about merging the animal sources page into here. I'm not sure what I think about it, but I agree that it is worth examining. On the minus side, the material is lengthy enough that it may make sense to keep two separate pages. On the other hand, the other page does bother me a little bit, as a potential POV fork that implies that there is inherently an ethical problem with such sources. Other thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I could go either way on the merge, but the page in question has some serious POV issues, simply due to the sheer quantity of text about an animal source that probably doesn't even exist and is a tiny minority of animals used if it does. Mokele (talk) 23:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not really opposed to a merge, but I think it might be better if the animal sources article were improved and linked to from this article. Bob98133 (talk) 00:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

PETA or PeTA?
SV - I see you made some changes from PETA to PeTA. I think the former is correct. The acronym for the org is PETA. The PeTA is really a stylized version of the acronym that they use as a logo. Except as a logo, they consistently use the all uppercase version on their webiste, in press releases, etc. Bob98133 (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Likewise at PETA. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't mind either way. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If SV does not feel strongly either way, then I would tend to agree with Bob's argument, applied both to this page and to PETA. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Definitions
Just adding here that the only reason I included the Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English is that it was in the original as a footnote. I therefore added in-text attribution, but my preference is to remove it entirely, as we have Carbone, a much better source. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 22:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Technically, it's still wrong - not all animal experiments are vivisection. Purely non-invasive techniques are still considered animal testing, and you still have to apply for an IACUC protocol to do them. Mokele (talk) 12:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Like Mokele, I'm not convinced. What I see here is two versions side-by-side, without really explaining why the new one is better. And the new one seems to be changing in response to this talk. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:45, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Changes to page
I think that there needs to be discussion of some recent changes to this page, including a re-writing of the Definitions section, and modification of the Prominent cases section, the latter replacing the material about muscle physiology with material about "Britches". --Tryptofish (talk) 17:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The definitions section wasn't rewritten; it was just made to say what the sources say&mdash;previously it didn't. And the Britches material has been in the article for a long time. The thing that was removed was something that had nothing to do with the "prominent cases" section (which anyway should be renamed "controversial cases" or something similar). It said:


 * "The fundamental properties of muscle physiology were determined with on work done using frog muscles (including the force generating mechanism of all muscle [161], the length-tension relationship[162], and the force-velocity curve[163]), and frogs are still the preferred model organism due to the long survival of muscles in vitro and the possibility of isolating intact single-fiber preparations (not possible in other organisms[164]). Modern physical therapy and the understanding and treatment of muscular disorders is based on this work and subsequent work in mice (often engineered to express disease states such as muscular dystrophy)[165]."


 * SlimVirgin talk| contribs 17:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to hear from other editors about all of that. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:51, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Some previous talk about this: Talk:Animal testing/Archive 10 and Talk:Animal testing/Archive 10. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:06, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * These are cases that became in some way pivotal precisely because they were regarded as controversial and cruel. They led to a great deal of publicity, lawsuits, judicial review, or changes in legislation. It would be quite wrong to try to water them down in any way. Indeed, it would be original research to compare them to muscle physiology in frogs, unless you can find a secondary source that makes that comparison.


 * As with all contentious material on Wikipedia, we have to publish what secondary sources have chosen to highlight. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 18:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Both with respect to the "cases" and with respect to the definitions, I'm awaiting what other editors will say. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Regardless of what anyone else says, the article has to be supported by secondary sources. I'm concerned to see that it's still supported by a lot of primary sources, just as it was when I took it off my watchlist a couple of years ago because I wasn't able to fix it up. Contentious material must be supported by secondary sources; otherwise it's Wikipedians alone deciding what ought to be highlighted, which is OR. What we ideally need to find are reliable secondary sources who are experts on animal testing (not who do it themselves necessarily, but who have studied it), and base the article on the material they present, using other sources as adjuncts. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Both with respect to the "cases" and with respect to the definitions, I'm awaiting what other editors will say. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I restored the page temporarily, until this can be discussed, but initially I dislike it. The page already suffers from MASSIVE anti-research bias, and deleting the tiny bit I've been able to add in favor of yet more crap about rare bad cases is a serious case of WP:UNDUE.  Frankly, all of the "cases" should be moved off-page, under a "controversial cases" page.  Also, the term "vivisection" isn't used by anyone but radical anti-science cranks - to pretend it has legitimacy beyond that is silly and outright biased.  Finally, why would secondary sources be preferable to primary?  By definition, they're inferior.  Mokele (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Mokele, please don't revert my efforts to clean this page up. It has been problematic for years because too much of it is based on primary sources and the personal opinions of editors, leading to SYN violations. The page must comply with WP:NOR and WP:V. It is widely accepted on Wikipedia that articles should be based on secondary sources, not primary ones; see WP:PSTS.

Wikipedia articles are meant to offer the overview that reliable secondary sources are offering, not one made up by Wikipedians. We must use sources who specifically write about animal testing, per NOR: "To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the material as presented."

Relying on primary sources means that one editor could publish a list of (in his view) very cruel experiments based entirely on the primary sources that describe them, while another editor could publish a list of (in his view) very successful experiments based entirely on the primary sources that describe them. To avoid that kind of cherry-picking, we need secondary sources who give an overview, and that's the material we regard as worthy of mention. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 21:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The page must also comply with WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV, both of which it currently fails egregiously. The massive over-weighting you've given to abuse cases is NPOV, without question, and should be remedied immediately.Mokele (talk) 21:44, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * These are the cases the reliable secondary sources discuss. There are many, many more, as you may know. The ones we include are a small sample of the ones the sources always come back to. I'm not talking about animal protection sources, but mainstream sources, including sources within the animal-research industry itself. Animal testing is a hugely controversial issue. It can't be portrayed as though it isn't, and it can't rely on the cherry-picking of primary sources and websites long dead. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that Mokele has joined this discussion, and I hope that more editors will, as well. Having discussed the primary/secondary sources issue at, shall we say, great length at Talk:PETA, I'm inclined to accept SV's argument, in general, about secondary sources. For me, that, in general, is not the issue. Rather, I agree with Mokele that there are problems with respect to both the Definitions and the Cases sections, in the ways that sources have been chosen and interpreted in these most recent edits. The stable version of the Definitions section that existed on this page for quite some time reflected the sources accurately, as far as I can tell. There is some validity to SV's concern that the muscle physiology section that Mokele had written was incomplete, but the larger issue, as I see it, is that it is, as Mokele correctly points out, UNDUE to treat the subject of animal testing as though it were some sort of freakish gallery of atypical incidents where animals were dramatically mistreated. Certainly, there are some secondary sources that have anti-research or pro-animal rights POVs that can source such information, but there is also more mainstream scholarship that treats animal research as part of a long tradition of mostly good science. Wikipedia should not be choosing one over the other, except to the extend that WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE might apply.

Keeping in mind that the page has been stable for quite some time, and SV has made significant edits over the past few days, I think that it is the responsibility of the editor adding new material to the page to justify its addition. I hope that there will not be any more reciprocal reverting. Instead, I suggest that SV go to the sections I just created below in this talk, and indicate why you think that your edits improved the page, and why the stable version was deficient, giving specifics that the rest of us can evaluate and react to. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The page as it stood was not policy-compliant, and was badly written in parts (I say that as an editor who wrote a lot of it), and poorly researched, linking to primary sources, dead links etc. I've therefore started to tidy it. Tryptofish, I think you know that I tend to leave articles in better condition than I find them. I'd therefore appreciate it if you'd let me do the work. I took the page off my watchlist two years ago because of this situation, yet when I came back to it yesterday I found it had the same issues&mdash;including the same dead links!  At some point you have to allow people to fix it.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It was another editor, not me, who reverted you. It is your opinion that your edits are an improvement. As I said, it is the responsibility of the editor who adds new material to justify it. If you can make your case, no one will stop you from improving the page. When editors think that you are making errors, you would do well to engage with those concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That the changes I made are improvements is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of policy. I don't understand why we have to keep arguing on pages related to animal testing that we must base the material on secondary sources. It's not a matter of preference. This is accepted all over Wikipedia now, particularly when issues are contentious. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:09, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe you are addressing that to Mokele, but that is not what I said, other than that your opinion of how policy applies to these particular edits is, indeed, your opinion. But thank you for starting to put the comparisons below. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Here are the primary sources and the dead links, and that's after I'd started to clean it up. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you started to clean up dead links. Good for you. That doesn't even remotely address the NPOV issue. Frankly, the current list of "prominent cases" is like having over half the car article made up of famous car accidents. Fix it, or I'm tagging the page NPOV. Mokele (talk) 12:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Just for the record, that was someone else, not me, talking about the POV tag. (I'm saying that humorously, after the comments directed at me at Talk:PETA concerning my own placement of such a tag there.)


 * But, very seriously, I think Mokele's car accident analogy is a very apt one. I appreciate SlimVirgin's intent of using secondary sources to make sure the page reflects the thinking of experts and not Wikipedians, but I think that the problem here is that there are multiple secondary sources that exist, and it appears that such sources can be cherry-picked to provide secondary sourcing for an anti-testing POV. The revised cases section takes what might reasonably be a controversies section, and amplifies it to where the page might as well be a POV fork called Controversies about animal testing. SV has argued at Talk:PETA that it would be a bad thing for the page to skew towards issues raised by an organization that is critical of PETA . Here, it seems to me that the list of cases sounds like a very WP:UNDUE list of examples that are promoted by organizations that propagandize against animal testing. Two are from the 1980s, two from the 1990s, and the most recent is from six years ago, but the effect of the presentation is to suggest that these are widespread and continuing problems. A truly NPOV treatment would require, if one is going to expand the list of examples, to do it the way Mokele was starting to do, with examples that reflect a balanced picture of the subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a quick note that my academic responsibilities have been dialed up to 11 at the moment, so I'm unlikely to be able to make any more substantial edits in that vein for a few months, at least. Mokele (talk) 02:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's entirely fair. WP:There is no deadline. My point is that, if SV wants to expand the caselist that way, then it is up to her to do so in a balanced way. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Cases
With no further justifications given here for the recent edits, I'm willing to wait a few more days, but pretty soon we will have to consider partially reverting the more disputed changes. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that there has been more-than-ample time for anyone who wants to, to justify the changes that were made to the page and that have been disputed. Therefore, I'm going to change the disputed things back. I will not revert everything, only the parts that have been questioned and not answered in this talk. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Xenotransplantation request
No idea if this is the place to request an edit, but there are some inaccuracies in the 'Xenotransplantation' section. The Imutran documents weren't leaked to the Guardian in 2003, they were leaked to me and Uncaged Campaigns in 2000. We attempted to publish them (with personal details redacted) on September 21st 2000, and a large article on the issue appeared in the Express at the same time. Imutran then went to court and gained a temporary injunction, which we finally forced them to overturn in an out-of-court settlement ratified by the High Court on April 1st 2003. We had argued that there was an overriding public interest in exposing wrongdoing on the part of the company and Home Office regulators. We then worked with the Observer on their story which was published on 20 April and we simultaneously republished over 1000 pages of leaked documents. Dr Dan Lyons (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The article as a whole already has far too much anti-science NPOV emphasis as is, and frankly the entire section you reference should be trimmed out. Ergo, it's not a real concern. Mokele (talk) 17:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I very much share Mokele's concern regarding WP:NPOV compliance. But I want to say that this is an altogether appropriate place to raise this question, and furthermore, that we always need to be careful that what we say is accurate. Dan, can you provide us with a source, such as a link to a newspaper account, that would document what you say here? If so, we should either correct the section, pending further edits to the page, or delete the section entirely. Temporarily, I'm going to put a tag on the section. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to a website page for a documentary that I appeared in: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/organfarm/interviews/. Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jul/11/research.highereducation . And here's a link to pdf of a New Scientist article published 16 March 2002: http://www.xenodiaries.org/newsci.pdf#page=1 . You can also refer to paragraphs 20-22 of the Annual Report of the Animal Procedures Committee, a statutory advisory body: http://apc.homeoffice.gov.uk/reference/apcanrep00.pdf . Having completed a PhD on this vexed topic, I completely understand the need to be as neutral and objective as possible. But I have to say I don't think it is sound to dismiss ethical or methodological criticism of animal experiments as 'anti-science' (what does that mean anyway?), any more than opposing experiments on human concentration camp victims is indicative of an 'anti-science' stance. I would certainly regard myself as pro-science, but I do think there are sometimes ethical and safety limits to what science should do, as would most scientists themselves, I would imagine. I'm no expert on the refercing policy of Wikipedia (and I don't understand the apparent preference for secondary over primary sources as the later are by definition more reliable) but I've found that the animal research community tends to be very secretive about the details of their work (i.e. the effects on animals and the utility of the results), while critics tend to prefer openness and public debate - I suggest that may be a contributing factor to the perceived emphasis of this article. Furthermore, the Imutran documents represent the largest and most reliable insight into animal experimentation that I'm aware of, so I suggest it is particularly important to reference this as a critical case study. Dr Dan Lyons (talk) 17:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for providing the information, and for your very thoughtful answer. Given the variety of viewpoints, I'm not going to rush to make any edits to the page, but rather wait and see what comments come back here. But please let me say that a lot of the preference for secondary sources is actually born out of the desire to not be overly influenced by just the kinds of in-group biases to which you refer. And I also disagree very much with the suggestion that the research community, as a whole (of course there are individuals who differ from the overall group), is secretive whereas the critics are champions of openness (maybe advocates of teaching the controversy, but that's something else entirely). --Tryptofish (talk) 17:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that *more* focus on a tiny handful of violations are the opposite of what this page needs. As it is, it's a victim of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, because focusing *only* on violations and devoting so much text to them creates the entirely false appearance that such things are common (when, in reality, most experiments have no violations and most violates are paperwork crap). Mokele (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've read the sources, and this is what I think. In a very narrow sense, Dan is correct that the sources show that the documents were leaked to his organization, and then were provided by his organization to the news media, rather than leaked directly to the newspaper as the page says now. However, the sources seem to indicate that there are also multiple other problems with the section as it is currently written. The section makes a big deal of how the experiments were classified as "moderate" instead of "severe". Based on the common dictionary meanings of these words, it does indeed sound disturbing, but the formal definitions in the sources show that these terms actually have more specialized meanings, and that the "severe" classification seems to have hinged upon whether animal deaths had been anticipated in advance. What I think we are left with is a pre-2000 incident in which some of the experimental animal surgeries went very badly and the company conducting the studies appears to have communicated with politicians to make it easier to reduce regulatory requirements that probably should not have been reduced. Per WP:UNDUE, it seems to me that this merits about one sentence on this page, but certainly not the lengthy paragraph it gets now. There is nothing to indicate anything other than that this was a single, unrepresentative incident that does not at all represent xenotransplantation as a subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * 'In a very narrow sense Dan is correct...'. I think basic factual accuracy is a pretty important issue actually and I can't see any reason for the ongoing delay to correct this. On the question of representativeness - the Imutran case is a 'critical' case study of animal research policy/regulation in the UK, so it could go under a section relating to regulation, especially as that, in practice, is the most pivotal aspect of this debate because that's what determines whether animel research takes place and if so under what conditions. I use 'critical' in the technical methodological sense here to refer to a particularly useful case insofar as this project would be the one you would most expect to find evidence for the hypothesis that animal suffering and expected benefits are accurately estimated and fairly weighed against each other. That's because this research project was one of the very few to come before the Animal Procedures Committee (and hence is referred to in public documents) rather than being dealt with solely by the Inspectorate. However, even in the Imutran case, animal suffering was (quite deliberately in my view) underestimated and the expected benefits that formed the justification for licensing were exaggerated (the researchers' claimed in 1994/5 that they were within a year or two of clinical trials of pig hearts and kidneys but were glossing over major immunological and anatomical obstacles in the project licence application). These are not mere technical infringements but central to animal welfare, the scientific quality of the research and its democratic legitimacy. Anyway, this suggests that projects subject to less scrutiny are also, if not more, likely to show a significant implementation gap, biased against the wellbeing of animals and in favour of the goals of the researchers. Of course, to confirm that hypothesis does require additional cases, which returns me to my earlier point about this case providing a historically unprecedented insight into what actually happens in animal research projects and the interactions between regulators and licensees. We do need to see more cases but researchers and the Government are unwilling to publish primary documentation such as study reports, clinical signs records and project licence forms. If you want to look for cases that you think might balance those here then, by all means ask researchers and the Home Office for them - I wish you luck! In terms of time-elapsed - sadly there have been no major policy changes since this episode so it remains representative - if only that wasn't the case. Also, I've no reason to believe that this research programme is unrepresentative of other whole-organ xeno projects in the world which rely on basically the same GM, surgical and immunological techniques and, judging from the glimpses afforded in the literature, provide similar outcomes. I also need to pick up on the question of attitudes to secrecy. I do come across influential animal researchers occasionally making statements advocating greater openness. Unfortunately, if they are sincere, they don't seem to affect the policy actions of research groups, or for that matter Imutran/Novartis who took a very heavy-handed legal approach, including bankruptcy threats against me, to try and prevent me publishing their documents. One only has to be aware of Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which imposes complete secrecy over the entire regulatory process (subject to researchers' discretion) and was a clause for which the research community (at that time bodies like the RDS and ABPI) lobbied hard for, to understand their strong policy preference for preventing information emerging into the public domain. Even papers relating to the operation of the 1876 Cruelty to Animal Act were subject to 100-year restrictions! Of course, secrecy is a general feature of the British state but it is particularly acute in this policy area. Dr Dan Lyons (talk) 15:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously, we could argue about this at great length without really getting anywhere with respect to the business at hand: writing an encyclopedia article. As I see it, this article is about scientific experimentation using animals, as opposed to being about the legal regulation of that experimentation. But I take your point about not leaving the inaccurate information about how the material was made public any longer. I'm going to make an edit to that end shortly. As always here, nothing is final about my edit. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request: spelling error
Can I just point out that 'behavioural' was spelt wrong in the first paragraph! It's meant to be 'behavioral'. Leahcharr (talk) 19:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for catching that! Fixed. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The British invented the language, so we get to decide what's correct. Mokele (talk) 19:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like we had an edit conflict! See also: American Revolution. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

REM-deprivation method
Hi, the mechanism to deprivate the mouse from REM-sleep was used in the former KGB prison for exactly the same purpose: Deprivating humans from sleep. Since there it was called torture, I thought it would be nice to point out the parallel and enhance the explanation of the picture with the mouse. Unfortunately the only source I've got is the museum itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Genocide_Victims). Anyone can get there and have a look, but I don't know any books or magazines having a picture or quote. sincerecly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.192.108.166 (talk) 10:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Good, you can be the one who tells all the humans suffering the same conditions due to sleep disorders that they're shit out of luck because folks are squeamish about an animal which, let's be honest, is the ecological equivalent of popcorn, with about the same survival rate. Mokele (talk) 15:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Approaching this as, actually, a reply to both the original comment and to the reply, Wikipedia is not interested in how editors choose to interpret things. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Broken links
link 126 is broken — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.214.97 (talk • contribs) 22:47, 22 November 2010
 * Thanks for telling us. I fixed it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Darn it, Tryptofish, so did I. At the same time, apparently. ;) Bob98133 (talk) 23:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

link 1 is broken... wikipedia seems to have problems like this a lot. Update: @Darth Sidius 2: please do not undo this unless you are going to fix the problem. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.214.97 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 3 December 2010
 * Changed to cite needed for now. Probably happened because lead was written a long time ago. And we might not want to source to critics of testing anyway. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Opening image
Another editor would like to replace the lead image of "Enos the space chimp" with File:Cut Rat.jpg (caution: graphic and disturbing image!). It seems to me that the proposed image does not actually show animal testing at all, and is simply intended to push an anti-testing POV. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur. The image of the rat is unnecessarily graphic for the needs of the article, and its use could be interpreted as pushing a POV. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi all. It was me the one who changed the image. I have never meant to insert a POV message (by the way, I pratice animal testing and I am pro-animal testing, but my only aim here is to improve Wikipedia); it's hard, I can figure, but you should assume good faith. For the reasons previously discussed here by other contributors I found a rat image more adapt than a chimp image. For trasparency, I report here a previous talk I had with Tryptofish. --Mparu ∞ (msg) 17:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a particularly good representative lead image. In some places, such as the UK, dissecting a dead rat would not actually count as a regulated animal testing procedure (in the legal sense, under Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986). Much better to illustrate an actual example of a live animal being used for a scientific purpose. Rockpock  e  t  17:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * My personal answers to your statements are:
 * 1) The image is unnecessarily graphic or disturbing -> Many practices included in animal testing are potentially disturbing, if we do not have non disturbing images we should not reject explicit images, as Wikipedia is uncensored.


 * 2) Its use could be interpreted as pushing a POV -> I agree, but I find the current image even more pushing (as you know, chimps are very rarely used in research).


 * 3) This is a not representative -> I agree.


 * 4) Cutting a rat could not count as a regulated animal testing procedure in legal sence -> I am not competent in legal issues.


 * To summarize, I just suggest that the current picture is worse than the image I propose, but I agree we could find a better one. --Mparu ∞ (msg) 18:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I do not think the current one is worse, but I do think you have a valid point regarding the rarity of chimps used in testing procedures. Surely we could find an image of rats or rabbits in cages in a research lab. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I found : what do you think about it? I didn't search for animal simply lying in cages because here, in my opinion, we should display an animal being somehow tested (not necessary in an impressive manner). Eventually, there is also image: it seems to portray a mouse in a sort of behavioural - non cruel - test, but there is no description below, so I am not sure about it. What do you think about it? Any other suggestions? --Mparu ∞ (msg) 20:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi all. I want to apologize to Mparu for jumping to the conclusion that the image was intended as POV-pushing. If one looks at the history of this and related pages one can find, well, a bit of evidence of the applicability of Pavlov's dog experiments to my own behavior.


 * Anyway, I'd like to make a case that my original gut reaction was not wrong with respect to whether or not we should use a lead image that can be construed by the general public as disgusting, and, by extension, lead to the belief that the subject of this page is disgusting. Also, with respect to the issue of whether ape research is unrepresentative, it certainly hasn't been unrepresentative of pages that have been created on Wikipedia. By the way, some of the images that might have met what editors are looking for here were just deleted a couple of days ago over licensing issues.


 * That said, let me suggest swapping the positions of the "space chimp" image, and the image of a Wistar rat that is currently at the start of the "Vertebrates" section of the page. I think that may satisfy all of the concerns that have been raised in this discussion thread. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Which I just did. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I like it, but personally, I'd like some more diversity, including invertebrates (after all, there's probably 100,000 Drosophila used per mouse, even if they're not regulated). Maybe something like on vertebrate, with pictures of a mouse, zebrafish, Drosophila, and C. elegans.  But that's just personal bias, and the problem is that there's no really perfect choice. Mokele (talk) 04:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, Tryptofish :). For what concerns the image, I would have preferred the displaying of some kind of test (crude or not), as simply depicting a lab animal, even if in the hands of a scientist or in a cage, could be seen as a way to hide what really happens. Other than that, I am glad of this swapping: I find the current solution much better than the previous.


 * Mokele, what you state about Drosophila et al. is true, but personally I would like to use a picture of an animal somewhat involved in the controversial topic of animal rights. In my opinion the puzzle image could be good too.


 * In summary, my opinion is that the current choice represents an improvement, and could be a good consensus. If we want to go on I suggest a puzzle picture of model animals being tested. --Mparu ∞ (msg) 13:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

POV issues
I don't really have a side in the general debate on animal testing, so please take what I say as good faith effort at improving the page. I understand the issue is emotional and important to many people on both sides of the debate. However, Wiki is not a forum for POV pushing from any faction. As a casual reader, this article gives me a very distinct POV impression of being written primarily from an anti-testing influence. Again I can understand and empathize with this position, but it doesn't make it right to push it. The references give undue weight to one side (especially regarding the sub-issue of vivisection). I didn't want to come in from the outside and slap a POV tag on this, but this really needs to be addressed. The references in general seem to have formatting issues, and really needed to be weeded out. Discussion of the arguments for and against should be restricted to the "historical debate" and ethics section, not sprinkled liberally throughout (e.g. in discussing how many cats are used, a quote regarding cruelty of the experiments is added. The section is discussing numbers, not the ethics. There is far too much bleed over of opinion into factual sections. If there is too much additional info, daughter pages are in order.

Please address these issues (source weeding, reduction in POV, restriction of ethics arguemnts to the aforementioned sections). Otherwise (and this is not intended as an ultimatum) a POV tag is probably in order. I'd much rather the active editors give the page a go over. Thanks!204.65.34.186 (talk) 21:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I've been editing pages that deal with this and related subjects for a couple of years now, and I have frequently had the same concerns as you do. There are many such pages, where there are editors who see these issues in different ways, and some of these editors feel very strongly that there should be more prominent animal rights views, and some of those have expressed strong anger when I have tried to express concerns similar to yours. This page here has a long history of getting to where it is now. Frankly, my opinion is that there are a lot of other pages that deserve NPOV tags more than this one does. If I may suggest, it doesn't accomplish much just to tag a page. Perhaps you would like to get involved seriously with editing content here, and work with other editors to provide well-sourced and balanced content to pages that interest you. Working with other editors can be hard work, but WP:CONSENSUS is the way to go. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this article is highly biased from a content viewpoint and should be a POV rather than a debate or more general information piece. Maybe include some of the massively beneficial transplant, surgical procedures, avaccines and medications that have come about due to both pure scence and practical science research — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.77.43 (talk) 09:22, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right: we really need to expand the coverage of beneficial testing. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I had some critical comments about that, but they hardly seem relevant now I've read the article. Ethical considerations, doubts about the usefulness of animal testing, cases of abuse and neglect, these are all legitimate aspects that the article must address, but not inserted in every paragraph. There should be no lack of topics that have similar strong opposition, nuclear power for example. Maybe find a suitable good quality article to use as a guide for the main structure? Or if there's some good reference work about animal testing, maybe a report about animal testing for the European commision or whatever could be used. But the way it is now.. DS Belgium (talk) 09:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It's also dubious to claim - as is done in the first paragraph or so - that there are any significant number of biological/medical scientists (as opposed to, say, social sciences or physical sciences people) who think that there's any problem with (most) animal research. I may add a "dubious" tag. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allens (talk • contribs) 15:05, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, not sure if the frog muscle bit is highly relevant, I think in most cases the frogs had to be killed and dissected before the experiments could be performed. Not absolutely sure though. DS Belgium (talk) 09:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * All of our understanding of muscle physiology comes from frogs. That the animals died before rather than after is an artificial distinction at best, especially considering that the tissue itself remains alive for several hours after being extracted. Mokele (talk) 14:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I wasn't questioning the importance of the research, I just wasn't sure it met the definition of animal testing. But killing animals for the purpose of testing should be included (in contrast to for example studies on roadkill or material obtained from abbatoirs.), so you're right. DS Belgium (talk) 11:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * About the excessive criticisms in every paragraph, they are probably the remnant of the history of how the article was written. WP:CCC. Let me suggest that editors name specific examples here in talk, and we can look at deleting them, where there is consensus to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed it's listed under WP:GA and the version at the moment of nomination has the same structure (and some of the same problems), so it seems futile for me to suggest major changes. Besides, having read the (unrelated) talk at Conspiracy Theory over the first documented use of that term, with arguments about WP:OR and the resulting debate in the discussion on WP:RS, I'm reluctant to get involved in what would likely become a mind-numbingly tedious process. No offence DS Belgium (talk) 12:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * None taken, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Animals in Space Section?
I think animals sent to space, such as in the Soviet space dogs or American space monkeys programs may deserve a section. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElCordobes123 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess the only counter-argument would be that they represent only a tiny and atypical fraction of all animals used, but I think that is largely negated by their notability resulting from the extensive coverage in sources. Please feel free to WP:BE BOLD and go ahead and add it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe it should be a separate page? It's definitely worthy of inclusion on WP, but the current page is getting a bit unwieldy, IMHO. Mokele (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Split ethics section to own article
I suggest splitting the ethics section to a new article, for example titled Animal welfare and ethics in research, leaving a shorter introduction and a Main article:Animal welfare and ethics in research link. I find mainly two reasons: Mikael Häggström (talk) 09:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This article is too long and really needs splitting
 * The subject of the target article is just as much a fork from the section Animal welfare as it is from this section, justifying a Main article:Animal welfare and ethics in research in that article as well, and probably in Animal rights too.


 * Leaning oppose. I would be concerned that such an article would end up being a POV fork along the lines of "why animal research is bad". You have to consider the edit history of this page, and indeed of the pages about animal rights broadly. It has been such a POV battlefield that I would hate to see the battle opened up again. It would be better to address your concern about the length of this page by pruning much of the anti-research POV (1 sided examples) from this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Expand tag
My removal of the expand tag was reverted (and moved to include all cases) with reference to this talk page. I scanned some of the archives, but am not sure exactly what is wanted. I have some interested, and possibly knowledge, on this topic and may be willing to improve it. However, my main interest in this article is its Good status, and if there are major points missing then it has likely failed the broadness criteria. AIR corn (talk) 00:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was me, and I ought to explain. There was discussion some time back about the fact that the "notable cases" section probably fails WP:NPOV because all of the cases (before the editor, not me, who originally added the muscle physiology material, raised the issue) had been selected to illustrate abuses of animals during testing, even though such cases are highly unrepresentative of animal testing as a whole. (Historically, this page has been a locus of POV disputes about animal testing versus animal rights, but thankfully those disputes have quieted down. The selection of those cases dates from that period in the editing history. Those talk page discussions go on through much of Archive 11.) In fact, there are numerous cases, in addition to muscle physiology, of animal testing leading to good outcomes, to improvements in medical scientific knowledge. So, the idea of that tag has been to encourage editors to add more content according to due weight. I have to admit that I have never gotten around to adding such material myself. But I really hope that someone will. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, so it is probably more a neutrality issue than a broadness one as far as the Good article criteria go. I am not so sure that is an easy fix, but I will have a look around and see what I can come up with. A reassessment may be in order though. AIR corn (talk) 04:49, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with all of that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is an easy solution. It is basically a laundry list of cases that for whatever reason have attracted media attention, the title doesn't help that aspect. The positive results from tests don't receive any real media attention. The best and quickest solution I can think of is to drastically reduce that section. Also if we add more detail into this article it will then start to fall foul of the focus and summary style criteria. I don't follow this page, but I imagine their would be some backlash if I started condensing the information. AIR corn (talk) 05:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * +1 to the lack of an easy solution. Although the beneficial results of testing do not necessarily get news media coverage, they get plenty of attention in reliable sources. As someone who has been following the page, the amount of drama seems to vary as a function of who is watchlisting it at a given moment, but I'm loathe to kick the hornets' nest. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If this article is to be expanded or the title changed, could I suggest it includes a section which emphasises non-invasive research. The article claims in the lead sentence that 'Animal testing' includes 'Animal research'; there is plenty of non-invasive animal research being done which has considerably less ethical concerns than the article currently contains.__DrChrissy (talk) 16:29, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should rename this page, but you have noticed something quite true, that probably got buried in past debates. I think the thing to do is to make a change to the lead section, to indicate that not all animal research is invasive testing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of reviews showing the use of animal models as disease models, but this is covered throughout other sections. Any addition that properly balances that section is going to push this well into the "not focused" territory. I might prod the nest a bit as I think that removing the prominent cases section and turning it into one ore two paragraphs under viewpoints is the best solution. It should be an overview article, and every other section follows WP:summary style quite well. If that doesn't work I will open a reassessment. AIR corn (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Tryptofish regarding the change that not all animal research is invasive testing. Do you think it might be worth giving an example, e.g. Animal behaviour field-studies? __DrChrissy (talk) 17:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, not in the lead, but maybe elsewhere. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Condense the prominent cases section
I propose that the best way to deal with the neutrality issues noted above with the prominent cases section is to reduce it's size. It can either be combined with the viewpoints section and simply exist under the current "Ethics" heading or get its own subheading (I don't know what that would be). The links to the individual cases will remain, but they will be intext links as opposed to main templates. This should be in line with the WP:summary style formatting and alleviate most of the WP:undue issues. AIR corn (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with what you say here, and also what you said just above. I suggest that you just go ahead and do it. The worst that will happen is that someone else will come along and revert you (possibly much later, instead of right away), and if that happens, we can all discuss it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, had a go at condensing it into two paragraphs and combined it with the viewpoints section. AIR corn (talk) 05:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think that it's a big improvement. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

"Wanton" taking of animal life?
The Euthenasia section violates WP:NOR due to the unsubstantiated assertion that "There is general agreement that animal life should not be taken wantonly." References are required stating who "generally agrees" and under what circumstances. Further, "wanton" implies "done maliciously or unjustifiably, deliberately and without motive, without regard for what is right, just, or humane, and carelessly or recklessly." Competent research scientists conducting legitimate lines of research rarely act maliciously or unjustifably, without motive, without regard for what is right or humane, or carelessly or recklesslessly. David F (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Good edit by User:HCA. Thanks for helping resolve the problem. David F (talk) 23:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Summary of an article by Robert J. White
Hi,

I try to fix the link to the summary of an article Robert J. White wrote for the Readers's Digest in 1988. The link is working when you cut and paste it but it fails when you use the Wikipedia direct access. Does somebody have a clue about it ?

http://www.hennet.org/apis/summary.php?id[0]=6146&id[1]=1495&id[2]=3438&id[3]=890&id[4]=1562&id[5]=2877&id[6]=1792&id[7]=626&id[8]=2031&id[9]=4063

--Flying Tiger (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Step 1: get it from a website that isn't purely agenda-driven and which doesn't violate WP:RS. If it even exists elsewhere (as opposed to being entirely fabricated, which is certainly possible), consider whether including quotes cherry-picked to be as inflammatory as possible is a violation of WP:NPOV.  Then deal with the technical issues. HCA (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is it for YOU to decide what is «agenda driven» ? You deleted ALL my sources on the Robert J. White article, even the NY Times and Dichotomistic !! Those citations are surely more neutral than all the silly stuff about White being «a devout catholic and attending mass regularly and prayed before performing surgeries.» which is already on the article !! In this case, the quotes are from White himself from a summary which is clearly NOT a violation of WP:NPOV. You are the one who is in violation of neutrality with your recurrent vandalism. --Flying Tiger (talk) 21:52, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * How about the fact that the site, hennet.org, has outright lies on the main page and their FAQ? Openly lying to people = not a reliable source, period, end of discussion.  The other sources just got caught in the revert.
 * Furthermore, the quote you are using does not actually come from The Reader's Digest - if you read your own link (which I *finally* got to work) more carefully, you'd see it comes from something called "The Angel Fund For Animals, "The White File," by Gloria Bamberger and Olga Lee.", which I can find no trace of actually existing. So even when the link works, the quote is still unsourced and possibly fabricated.
 * Show me the original source of the quote. If you cannot do that, there's no point in even continuing, since it's a clear violation of WP:RS and WP:VERIFY regardless of content if there no source beyond 3rd-hand repetition. Those are the rules.  He could be quoted as saying "2+2=4", but if that quote is reported third-hand and the original source is unavailable, it can't be added no matter how true.
 * Go read WP:RS and WP:VERIFY before making any more edits on this content. HCA (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Opinion piece by Hartung (2009)
Hi,

Concerning the paragraph "Toxicology testing". There is a reference (Hartung 2009, Ref. 163) about the limits of animal testing in toxicology.

I would like to propose to cite an article published on the web site of Pro-Test Italia organization. There, they analysed the literature cited in Hartung's article, and they found many errors (some of them striking) that would compromise Hartung's conclusions. Given that Hartung's article is very influential, I think it would be important to report its eventual limits.

AL458 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I made an edit that restored it as a source, but that wrote about it differently. My concern had been about the way it was written about, as indicated in my edit summary at the time. I'm not sure if other editors have concerns about it being a reliable source, and we can still discuss that, if they do. But thank you for explaining in talk. Does my edit address what was concerning you? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have some concerns about the article . For example, the author takes issue with the correlation coefficients cited in a paper.  There are 2 ways of reporting a correlation coefficient, which depends on the journal in which it is published.  One way is to report r and the other is r2.  The opinion article indicates there is a problem with the reporting of the coefficients, but these two values reported in the article are the same - neither is wrong.  There are also concerns that the article does not mention significance levels in relation to the correlation coefficients - this would be much more informative and critical to the concerns of the author.  I am not editing this article yet as I need to look at the original papers, however, I am not yet convinced this is a reliable source.__DrChrissy (talk) 01:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I hear you about the suckiness (that's a technical term) of statistics, and I remain very receptive to any kind of reconsideration of my edit, but I think we are on OK grounds simply to note that there are some issues with false positives, and some arguments that false positives aren't too big a problem, without getting down in the muck of it. Just two sides, very WP:NPOV. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:42, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I had my overly-picky head on last night. There are faults in the paper, but these do not mean the general edit you made is incorrect.  It offers a balance to the possibility of false positives being found and should be included.__DrChrissy (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with your edit too. Thanks -AL458 (talk) 23:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

First line and definition
So I figure it's time to discuss the very first line of this article, and how to improve it. It's been through numerous iterations, by myself and others, but lacks a strong consensus definition (mostly pertaining to scope) and often has awkward wording. The central questions are how to define "animal testing" and how broad that definition is. I've tended to define it very broadly, often with the function viewpoint that if I have to fill out an IACUC form to do it, it's "animal testing", which, based on my experience, includes field experiments, purely observational work, specimen collection, exploratory research, and the more "strict" definition of hypothesis-driven manipulative experiments. Perhaps move the page to "Animal research"? I don't know, I just think the current first sentence or two has been rather clumsy for a while, and could benefit from some sustained consideration. HCA (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This section was previously not a move request: it was converted to a move request upon my "relist". Steel1943  (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Please could you remove the postings in this thread relating to a move request. My comments in this thread were never intended to be part of a formal move process.  If you wish, open up a new thread with a formal move request, or let HCA move it. DrChrissy (talk) 19:57, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * At this point, I'm going to let you sort this out. I've removed the move request tags from this section. HCA, since changing the title of the article effectively change the intended scope of the article, this move is not uncontroversial and requires a move request to be posted here to establish community consensus. Steel1943  (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. We both agree the move is best, so what's controversial? HCA (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That was exactly my thought too. The posts were up for a week as well, which I think is the recommended time for a formal move request. DrChrissy (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The issue is that this move request was not advertised through WP:RM or WP:RFC, or other similar noticeboards that have "watchers". Creating an "official" requests gives others who may not watch this page, but watch some of the noticeboards, time to provide input. Steel1943  (talk) 20:40, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree it needs looking at. I also agree that the problem is probably related to the intended scope.  Like HCA, I agree that to many animal scientists, "animal testing" can mean anything from LD50 tests to over-the-fence observations of what happens when we provide wild squirrels with more food. Having said this, I suspect most non-specialist readers would come to the article looking for content on tests conducted in the laboratory.  Having looked through the article again, much of it is Biomedical research.  Perhaps we should move it to Biomedical research using animals with a redirect from Animal testing.  We would need to drop a couple of sections (e.g. Education).  I am also a little concerned that government data might become more difficult to interpret - in the UK, a "procedure" is not necessarily biomedical research. DrChrissy (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Biomed is definitely the big driver of all these numbers and the likely area of interest, but I'm a bit skeptical that we should narrow the page's focus. I'd favor something stating the unevenness in the lede, though, like "While animals are used in a variety of research settings, the vast majority are used in biomedical sciences (some reference somewhere)". We could also expand sections on fieldwork and basic research so biomed doesn't dominate the page so much. HCA (talk) 00:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

What if we moved the page to "animal research"? This gives us a more expansive definition (since technically all the stats included both Biomed and non-biomed, even if the former predominates), and also avoids the various connotations of "testing". Thinking about it, I can see people viewing the "testing" part of "animal testing" as just being product testing (e.g. cosmetics), or expanded to drug development, or more expansively to "strongly hypothesis-driven lab work" all the way up to "anything with animals from drug development to behavioral studies, from simple quantifications like LD-50 to exploratory research." But if you mentally hold the narrowest definition vs the broadest, the reported numbers of animals used look very different. Thoughts? HCA (talk) 15:44, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Editors tend to fall in one of two camps - splitters or lumpers. I tend to be a splitter, and I get the feeling that you might be a lumper.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that because neither is right, and neither is wrong.  They are simply different approaches.  My own feeling is that "Animal research" is just so broad it would cover (in terms of invasiveness) LD50 tests to counting whales from a helicopter.  ...U-turn!  I've just had a complete re-think on this.  If we can have large "conceptual" articles such as Science and Biology, then we can have Animal research.  You can do your lumping by moving the current article, and I can do my splitting within the article - hopefully with your help.  How does that sound? DrChrissy (talk) 18:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, I can do the move now, but unfortunately, the academic job season is in full swing, so I won't be able to really put in substantial work until maybe March or April (I'll add it to my calendar so I don't forget), sorry. HCA (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I am an academic myself, but perhaps with different responsibilities. DrChrissy (talk) 20:25, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 1 January 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not Moved Mike Cline (talk) 03:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Animal testing → Animal research – consensus of editors, given sufficient time. HCA (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: Please refer to the section above for further information regarding this move request. Steel1943  (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Support move "Animal testing" is a clumsy and misleading title.  It does not cover the scope of the current content or obvious expansions. DrChrissy (talk) 21:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Support move Scope concerns, as Dr.Chrissy said. HCA (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose in-vivo whole animal testing only comprises a small section of animal research. "Animal research" is misleading and indeed "animal testing" comprises more than that covered in this article as well. Animal research such as found by using camera traps in the wild has nothing to do with this article's entire topic zone. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 09:40, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment dead animal parts are also used for testing, as is cell cultures, so the current title is already more expansive than whole animal in0vivo testing that is covered in the article. -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't oppose the move, but I note that "animal research" is an even broader topic than that currently covered here. It would, for example, have to include non-invasive studies of animals in the wild for conservation purposes, ethological research, and so forth. My concern then would be that that's probably a broad enough topic that we might need to break off individual articles from it, and we might end up right back here again. Albeit, perhaps, with some different (and hopefully more focussed) title. Anaxial (talk) 10:38, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment – not sure what the fuss is here. Just create a long overdue article called Animal research in its own right, and move the relevant parts of Animal testing there. Leave "Animal testing" as an associated article, since it is a useful place to offload things like toxicological and cosmetic testing, which can be more like routine procedures than genuine research. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:40, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose — As a field biologist, I can certainly say that not all animal research is about testing done for human benefit. Quite a lot of it is done to learn more about the animals themselves. Calling this article "animal research" without adding a significant amount of new material would be misleading in the extreme. MeegsC (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * MeegsC. It is for this very reason that I support the move.  I work on animal welfare  - nothing to do with human benefit (other than us feeling good about ourselves) and so I completely see the need for a distinction between the types of animal research.  However, there is a need for an over-arching article, something like Science or Biology. We can then have more focused articles on the various aspects of animal research e.g. Field biology. DrChrissy (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * But you're not talking about an overarching article. You're talking about moving this very specific human-centered article to a new title. Why not leave this one where it is, and write a new "overarching" article about animal research? That makes far more sense to me. MeegsC (talk) 19:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok. We might be coming at this from slightly different angles.  I am thinking of an article which is very broad - Research involving animals.  Perhaps you are thinking of Research about animals? DrChrissy (talk) 20:06, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * First Step To a Broader Article – The whole point is the right now, this is the only article about any sort of research involving animals. Left as is, all non-biomed research is basically erased by omission.  My proposal is to move this page to Animal research an expand it to include non-biomed, with subpages for specific sub-types. However, we need a central page in part because the collected statistics are for all animal use, not just biomed (even though biomed predominates), and some of the issues (history, regulation, opposition) apply to all of it too.  Basically, I'm proposing the first step into a broader, more inclusive article (and sub-articles). HCA (talk) 00:46, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The move will create an article unfit to its title, while its expansion is not guaranteed. Go on and create an ample Animal research article if you have energy to do so, see Epipelagic above. Materialscientist (talk) 00:54, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Animal testing is only one form of animal research.  Also note this is a GA-class article and stands alone just fine.  Nothing is stopping anyone from creating a broader article or an overview article on research, but let's not screw up this one to get there.   Montanabw (talk)  02:50, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is largely a semantic issue that should be addressed with editorial decisions and a clear introductory style that defines and delimits the scope of this article (i.e. biomedical/laboratory research), not making a needlessly broader topic, which is apparently what the move proponents want. The scope of this article, and its title, is a fairly well-defined and well-covered concept, even if known by slightly different names. Of course, research on animals (living, dead, tissues, etc.) occurs entails a variety of levels: we collectively call that zoology. True there are intelligence "tests" administered to animals: those can be discussed at Animal cognition. I don't think any new broader article is needed that encompasses all forms of data collection involving animals. If someone thinks Field studies on animals is a topic deserving an article, a single hatnote at the top of this article would be the best way to direct any confused readers, not a title change and/or scope change. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

More Images
I have uploaded some recent photos of animal research facilities involving different animals that could be used if helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Animalevidence (talk • contribs) 17:05, November 26, 2012‎
 * File:Beagle_Dogs_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Guinea_Pigs_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Macaque_Monkeys_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Mice_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Mouse_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Rabbit_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Rat_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg
 * File:Zebrafish_in_research_labs_for_Animal_Testing.jpg

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Critiquing an Article
I believe that the topic is strong with over represented view points so the author gets their point across in an assertive manner. Some information could be missing on more recent studies but overall I do not think any of the current information is out dated as animal testing has always been something we've done for things like cosmetic products. The article seems to be quite truthful in the idea of animal testing is wrong and that more people should advocate against it. I think more and more people now a days are advocating against this practice because more and more people are becoming aware of what is going on behind the seen. Essientally you could say that this article is heavily biased just because it favors being against animal testing more than it favors being for it. (Masonabbie (talk) 12:56, 26 September 2016 (UTC))

Biased article
This article heavily represents the viewpoints of the "ethics of animal testing" and "the opposition to animal testing." But it provides about 1-3 sentences in the whole article that presents the other side. This seems incredibly biased.

I am unable to find many scientific viewpoints on animal testing in this wikipedia article. Would you mind if someone adds some real scientists involved in animal testing? I can do it too if I may. &mdash; talk § _Arsenic99_  19:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

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Tone
I am concerned about the way this article reads. It does not feel like I am reading a factual, informative entry like I would on any other subject; as pointed out above it seems biased. It has a lot of assumptions and speculations thrown in for no apparent reason, and random statements like 'from zebrafish to non-human primates'. What relevance does the zebrafish have to make it the bottom-tier experimental animal?

The whole thing, to me, reads like a preachy 7th-grade oral report. There's a section entitled 'pain and suffering' that seems to be worded that way for shock value. A normal article would title that something like 'Welfare of Subject Animals'. At the same time, there is no section regarding the results of animal testing - what technologies and insight have come from it.

I think this whole article needs to be reviewed for tone and completeness.

2601:543:C001:FE13:B904:6BD1:6C35:C316 (talk) 07:17, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

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Video
Should be link this video in the article body? . I would appreciate feedback.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Considering it's nothing but propaganda with zero factual content, no. HCA (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Pain and suffering
Incomplete phrase: ... where an anesthetized and killed without recovering consciousness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.202.91.11 (talk) 12:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Fixed! Thanks! HCA (talk) 19:52, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

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Adding "Cruelty to animals" category in Animal Testing article
I added category "Cruelty to animals" to the article Animal testing. However, it was reverted for some reason. Can anyone clarify as to why it should not be added here? I felt it was one of the primary categories in the article given the fact that animal testing is one of the chief manifestations of speciesism and cruelty is an inseparable factor in animal testing despite our tagging it with "ethical," "humane," and other euphemistic adjectives. Rasnaboy (talk) 13:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * It is a clear and obvious violation of WP:NPOV and an attempt to categorize only based on your viewpoint for purely prejudicial purposes. Look at all the other categories; nothing so clearly biased as your attempted addition appears. HCA (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The article is already in the parent category Category:Animal welfare, so if it is added to Category:Cruelty to animals it should be removed from the parent category per WP:CAT. The problem with such a move is that, ironically, in the USA animal testing is typically explicitly exempted from state and local animal anti-cruelty laws. This means that the animal cruelty that occurs in animal testing laboratories goes unprosecuted in the USA. I don't know anything about the status of animal testing in relation to animal anti-cruelty laws in other countries. But certainly in the USA, animal testing per se is not considered animal cruelty in most state and local laws. Biogeographist (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * That (the part about US law) is spectacularly untrue. Animal research labs in the US are intensely regulated, by law. It's just that testing per se is not considered a criminal activity. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * You called my comment "spectacularly untrue" and then you repeated the point of my comment. My earlier comment said: "animal testing per se is not considered animal cruelty" in most criminal codes in the USA. Your comment said: "testing per se is not considered a criminal activity". We were making exactly the same point. Perhaps it was not clear that when I said "testing is typically explicitly exempted from state and local animal anti-cruelty laws" I meant in criminal codes (which was implied by my reference to prosecution in the subsequent sentence). If a person were to treat an animal in public the way some animals are treated in laboratories, that person would be liable to prosecution for animal cruelty in many jurisdictions. But the same treatment would not be considered animal cruelty in laboratories. Biogeographist (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying your position. It sounded like you were taking the position that animal testing should be subject to prosecution, that you thought existing laws are lamentable. As for a person "treat[ing] an animal in public" that way, I cannot imagine anyone doing animal testing out on the street, and without proper training in the correct manner of handling animals in a humane way. And if what you think goes on in US research laboratories (at least since roughly the turn of the century) is in any way like what reasonable persons consider to be animal cruelty, you should familiarize yourself with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, as well as the documentation required by the National Institutes of Health and other scientific agencies. There are very, very detailed requirements than US scientists must follow, that are designed to eliminate or minimize animal pain or discomfort. The false narrative of animals being tormented in labs (at least since roughly the turn of the century) is one that is pushed by some animal rights groups, but it is false nevertheless. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


 * No, I wasn't implying that animal testing should be subject to prosecution; I was just presenting a reason why this article doesn't belong in Category:Cruelty to animals (not the only possible reason nor even an especially strong reason). People have been prosecuted for animal cruelty for causing much less harm to animals than the harm that necessarily occurs in some animal experimentation, so (although it is not relevant to the current discussion) I do take the position that there is something "lamentable" and contradictory about existing laws, but not in a way that would be remedied by criminalizing animal testing. Biogeographist (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, please just chalk it up to a misunderstanding, thanks. And I do agree with you about the category. About the existing laws, I guess WP:RGW. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks User:Biogeographist, for the clarification. It's indeed ironical that our civilization is yet to comprehend the meaning of cruelty. Rasnaboy (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing your opinion, User:HCA.Rasnaboy (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Adding such a category is so obviously a violation of WP:NPOV (and WP:RGW) as to border on disruption. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, this and related issues have been discussed extensively in the past: see the talk page archives. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's reasonable. Categories are for navigation, not definition:  You put something in a category if you think that readers looking at that category would be interested in reading that article.  You do not put something in a category just because it happens to objectively be part of a particular subset.  It might be useful for the reader.
 * Also, User:SlimVirgin is probably a good editor to ask about this kind of question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:01, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Tryptofish is also a good editor to ask about this kind of question. { There is a lot more history underlying what you said than you realize. (If what I say needs clarification, please take it to my user talk, not here.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * would agree with WAID, on this point--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I also tend to like the idea of using categories to be helpful to readers, but there are some important guideline considerations that must be attended to. WP:CATV says: Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view. Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. In addition, WP:NONDEF says: A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having... Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is simply not the case that reliable sources call testing "cruel" commonly and consistently, but it's absolutely true that applying this category would imply a controversial position. Anyway, Category:Animal welfare should be sufficient to help readers. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * @ User:WhatamIdoing. Exactly my point. There's no POV involved in adding the category as doubted by some fellow editors. Not adding the category will only hide the article from the view of readers of animal rights topics. However, I agree with whatever other editors feel unanimously. Rasnaboy (talk) 05:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Horseshit. If I put Category:Psychopathology on the page for the page Republican Party (United States), you don't think that violates WP:NPOV?  Categories, like every other byte of information on any page, are subject to NPOV, however strongly opinionated editors may feel they are "objectively true". HCA (talk) 16:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Your analogy is extremely weak (see, e.g., ). Animal testing is already in Category:Animal welfare, which is the parent category of Category:Cruelty to animals. For your analogy to be strong, Republican Party (United States) would have to already be in one of the parent categories of Category:Psychopathology, namely Category:Abnormal psychology or Category:Psychiatry, but it is not. The analogy is not even close, and does not support your position. Biogeographist (talk) 17:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * And you completely missed the point. The point had nothing to do with what subcats and parent cats something is in, that's irrelevant - it's that WP:NPOV applies to Categories. HCA (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't miss the point; I understand your point perfectly. The point of my comment, in case you missed it, is that your unsuitable analogy "Animal testing is to Category:Cruelty to animals as Republican Party (United States) is to Category:Psychopathology" did not support your position that "Animal testing does not belong in Category:Cruelty to animals due to violation of WP:NPOV". Whether or not the placing of Republican Party (United States) into Category:Psychopathology violates WP:NPOV tells us absolutely nothing about whether the placing of Animal testing into Category:Cruelty to animals violates WP:NPOV, because the categorization schemes being compared are not analogous. Biogeographist (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That you persistently fixate on a red herring says everything necessary about the quality of your contribution to this discussion. HCA (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I claim to be a fish, so I certainly don't want to see cruelty to red herrings. And I also insist that we adhere to WP:NPOV in settling on categorization. But I'd like to suggest that editors lower the temperature of this disagreement, OK? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears to me that we already had consensus before waved the red herring of "Horseshit. If I put Category:Psychopathology on the page for the page Republican Party (United States), you don't think that violates WP:NPOV?" I do thank  for prefixing the correct label to that question. Biogeographist (talk) 23:53, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:LASTWORD. So, do we have consensus not to apply the category to this page? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * "This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 'Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.'
 * "'But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices asked." (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) Biogeographist (talk) 00:32, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a valid point. So let me make a better analogy by staying within the parent category. Category:Animal welfare also contains the subcategory Category:Veterinary medicine and other categories of being kind to animals. But veterinary medicine is not typically considered to be animal cruelty. That's because, although they share a parent category, the subcategories represent different branches of the category tree. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a much better analysis. Biogeographist (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'm glad we are seeing some common ground. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that the category is problematic for this article. Cats are not a vehicle for advocacy. Jytdog (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The reason I added this category was animal testing is one of the primary topics in the animal rights/cruelty domains. Every scholarly work on animal rights/cruelty speaks about scientific experiments (e.g., Peter Singer's Animal Liberation talks about in detail before moving on to other issues such as animal farming or religious cruelties). Such views of a spectrum of academic scholars are not generally brushed aside as POV for they only make it all the more worthy of critical analysis. Articles on the other similar issues, such as ritual slaughter and animal farming, come under this category. Even an article as this one discusses (or supposed to discuss) these welfare/right issues under sections like ethics, welfare concerns, etc. One can find "animal testing" in all animal rights/cruelty-related templates. Hence I thought this category should be included. There wasn't any hidden agenda from my side otherwise nor am I trying to use it as a vehicle for advocacy. Understanding the term "animal cruelty" is a sore spot for the researchers, I leave it to the fellow editors. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your good faith participation in this discussion. I want to point out that Singer's book was written in 1975, and a lot of time has passed since then, with a great deal of tightening of the laws and regulations for research, at least in the US. There were things going on in Singer's time that would never be tolerated today. It's true that many works on animal cruelty discuss animal testing, but the reverse, whether works on animal testing tend to characterize it as cruelty, is an entirely different matter. That goes to what I said earlier about WP:DEFINING. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 16 January 2018 (UTC)