Talk:History of animal testing

Untitled
If the page is going to list "advances" it must also list "setbacks". Please allow both sets of information to remain OR remove both sets. Including only "advances" is not portraying the entire history of the subject. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Planetprods (talk • contribs) 20:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

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History of Medical Advances
"On November 3, 1957, a Russian space dog named Laika became the first of many animals to orbit the earth, including many monkeys and apes." This isn't a medical advancement, and "many" monkeys and apes didn't orbit Earth. There weren't many, if any monkeys, and only one chimpanzee. "Many" animals were aboard rockets shot into the lower reaches of space, but not into orbit. I'm not too sure what do do with this since the space stuff isn't a medical advance. Rbogle 21:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, would someone please try to provide a citation for the claim that: "In the 1970s, leprosy multi-drug antibiotic treatments were developed first in armadillos, then in humans." Thanks. Rbogle 23:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that is strictly true. Armadillos were primarily used to harvest Mycobacterium leprae in the 70s. Though some drugs were tested in armadillos (AM. Dhople, Armadillo as a model for studying chemotherapy of leprosy. Indian J Lepr 58 (1986), pp. 19–28.), most of the early drug testing was done in the mouse foot-pad model system. Rockpock  e  t  01:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The claim that insulin therapy for diabetes was dependent on research with dogs is problematic. An excellent discussion of this, and an equally interesting look into the history of the development of penicillin can be found here: Rbogle 00:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That any research breakthrough "was dependent on research with [animals]" is debatable. What is true is that the dogs were used in the development of insulin therapy. Whether they were a help, hinderance, essential or inconsequential to the ultimate result differs depending on whom you ask (and their POV). We should probably stick to the facts, rather than speculate on dependancy. Rockpock  e  t  01:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi RP, you're right. However, the problem with including a list of successful studies that used animals is that, in so doing, we strongly imply that the use of animals contributed to the success, when in fact animals are used in all or most biomedical studies, including the ones that are a waste of time (which common sense alone suggests is the majority). For any such list to be NPOV, we'd have to include what percentage of experiments that use animals end up in any form of success, and of course that's impossible, not only because of the numbers involved, but because we have no definition of "success."


 * For example, if animals are used to develop a treatment for X, and researchers come up with drug Y, which does indeed treat X but which in the process causes even-worse-disease Z, was that a successful animal study, or a disastrous one?


 * So the question is how do we inform our readers about the history of animal testing without introducing the subtle and indirect POV that using animals was a good or a necessary thing? SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 01:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Like everything in science, one finding builds upon another and another and another. So judging the success of any study, in isolation, is somewhat pointless. Are cell-free culture systems successful without the use of animals? Sure they are, but only because of the accumulated knowledge, including both animal and non animal studies in the past, that permitted these experiments to go ahead. Likewise the same can be said for any animal experiments today. Progress doesn't parse out animal from non-animal experiments. Even those scientists absolutely committed to non-animal based methods, do not go through the literature and ignore any data that was generated using an animal (for the same reasons activists justify taking drugs tested on animals).
 * Well, the fact is pretty much every single biological finding today used animals somewhere along the line. Whether 100 unsuccessful experiments were carried out for every successful one is irrelevent in terms of scientific method, because they all add to our knowledge. Equally irrelevent is the argument that the answer would have been found using other, non-animal methods. Because the equivalent experiments without animals never happened, and crucially, can not happen now because the information using animals is already out there, irrespective of how "wrong" or flawed the process was. Animal tests happened. Whether it is good bad or ugly that it did is beyond the scope of a history article.
 * So how should we reflect this in our article. Well first of all any talk of success should probably go. Success is relative and only attributable in hindsight. As SV says, how can we know how successful anything is compared to an alternative that never happened? Any claims of success should be attributed directly (because there are likely those that would argue that it was not successful by other standards) This article should not be about hailing the successes of animal experimentation, anyway, but documenting their use. However the most well documented examples of animal experimentation in history tends to be one the ones that were involved in some dramatic discoveries, thereby giving the appearance of POV. Its very difficult to counter this, because by the very nature of science, scientific failures tend not to get reported and therefore are not verifiable.
 * I think because animal testing is ubiquitous in medical research, it is near impossible to avoid the implication that "using animals was a good or a necessary thing" to get to where we are today. Its like arguing that it was a good or a necessary thing for our world today that the Allies won WWII. Who knows? But its very difficult for anyone to read our coverage of that subject without getting that distinct feeling, right? Because the alternative is unknown and unknowable.
 * I think the only way we can counter this is be very careful with out language so not to indicate causality explicitly. Other than that there is little we can do, apart from to also include examples of documented animal testing that have been seen as scientifically unjustified or unnecessary, again in retrospect. Rockpock  e  t  02:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Latest Planetprods' edits
I have reverted all these edits because I believe we need reliable secondary sources putting the items into perspective. We would need a reliable scholarly source, if possible, telling us about the history of animal testing and explaining how these issues tie in. We can't just pick a bunch of apparent failures and list them. It's possible each such "failure" has other explanations, and we would need to include that also, for NPOV purposes. It also seems like the collection is based on primary sources, which we try to avoid in these contentious articles. Crum375 (talk) 00:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

ANSWER TO CRUM375
If I'm not mistaken, Wikipedia is a source that anyone can contribute to. Why are you acting as "Wikipedia Police" and holding my additions to higher standards than those already on the page. You wanted references, you got them. The current page is severly biased/slanted. I only seek to balance the page out, like any journalist might. I stayed within the format: you have "advances", then there needs to be a "setbacks" section as well. Otherwise the page is weighted to only one side of the issue. All the cited sources I supplied were from medical journals such as Lancet, and British Medical Journal etc. Is Lancet and the British Medical Journal being called into question?

"How do these issues tie in?", you ask. How do so-called "advances" tie in if "setbacks" do not? Think logically. "Advances" and "Setbacks" are both sides of a topic. Why include only one side? Please answer this basic question.

If Wikipedia is going to be an open source forum, all voices must be included. You got the references you wanted and probably, if counted, outnumbered the references already named in the document. In some instances, my added facts were supported with THREE separate references. Why is this not enough? The existing page would not hold up under such scrutiny. Why the extra tough standards? Hold the existing document to the same criteria you demand of the content I'm adding. Prove the "advances" with more than one source. Content must be subject to the SAME criteria, not differing criteria.

Please note that references #1-31 for the so-called "advances", include WEBSITES and BLOGS. They are not all articles. Again, you must hold the existing content to the same criteria you are now demanding. If not, let it go. Lancet, British Journal, National Institute of Health, etc. should be good enough. I certainly didn't refernce any BLOGS for god's sake.

I will add back the changes so this topic is BALANCED. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Planetprods (talk • contribs) 18:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Planet, I agree with you that article is currently unbalanced, because the pro-testing side is also heavily based on primary sources. But by adding primary sourcing for the anti-testing side, you'll just make things worse &mdash; two wrongs don't make a right. We need to ensure two important things here: that the information we include comes from a scholarly secondary source, and that the source includes the information in a historical perspective. As long as you can find that kind of cited information, it will be fine. Crum375 (talk) 18:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I will be going through the list, over time. It was copied from the AFMA website, which does not speak to its quality or lack thereof, of course. But, for example, it misrepresents and/or was inaccurate on the first two claims I checked - tobacco and glass fiber. Glass fiber actually is not currently considered possibly carcinogenic, on the basis of animal AND human studies. For tobacco, there was reasonable evidence that was well accepted in the medical community on cancer and tobacco from the 1940s. This was the subject of multiple popular press articles dating from the 1950s. These correlations did lead to animal tests, because everyone knew that smokers got cancer at much higher rates than non-smokers. To argue that smoking was in some sense considered by some non-carcinogenic in the 1990s is silly when a broad consensus of medical opinions were that it was cancerous even 40 years earlier. Everyone who performs animal experiments knows it is no panacea - generalization of effects to humans is always a potential problem, and research is inherently inefficient, because you cannot know what WILL work until you try a bunch of different things. I am actually not opposed to a list of actual substantial errors from science, if WP:UNDUE is followed with respect to the prominence of the incidents relative to the list of other historical incidents. In other words, if issues that have reliable third party sources that support these errors being as significant as the scientific "success" stories, of course they should be sourced and included. But any history article has to avoid the problem of UNDUE - things that are more prominent and sourced need to be included, things that are less so (on both sides - scientific successes and errors) may get cut due to space considerations. For example, roquinimex might get cut, thalidomide might get expanded, in the hypothetical. But the inaccuracy of the research in the current list will rapidly become problematic as I round up third party reliable sources on each item to check the veracity of the claim against the evidence. --Animalresearcher (talk) 14:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The other question I see coming up as I read through these statements is WP:NOR. Do the statements accurately reflect what is stated in the third party references? Or do they take a fact in the third party reference and soapbox around the point? The entries should refer directly and accurately to the text of the source. --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Irrespective, most of the material was a cut and paste from here so I removed it. The history of animal testing should not be divided into pro- and anti- material. Like any biomedical technique, there were advances and set-backs, these should be discussed in an integrated manner. Rockpock  e  t  18:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree with RP. I also think each cited example should rely on reliable secondary sources for its historical perspective and interpretation. Crum375 (talk) 18:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Strong anti-testing bias
Firstly the repeated use of the word "vivisection", and describing various researchers as "the X of vivisection" is already setting the wrong tone. Vivisection is a word used exclusively by the anti-testing lobby, primarily because many animal tests don't involve cutting living tissue.

It kicks off with quotes on the barbarity of animal testing, which sets the tone despite being a condemnation of such methods in the 1600 - we would call normal surgery on humans in the 1600 torture by today's standards.

The 100,000 monkeys for polio estimate is completely unsubstaniated

The early debate on animal testing should be below the actual history of the science not above it 86.26.7.12 (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You know, this is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, you are welcome to address the issues yourself. On the issues of "vivisection", you are missing the historical aspect. "Vivisection" does not equal modern animal testing, true, but the context it is used here is entirely accurate. Galen and Bernard were vivisectors - thats what they did. We should not be afraid of using the term correctly just because certain advocacy groups like to use it incorrectly. That is their problem, not ours. Rockpock  e  t  19:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The 100,000 monkeys for polio is in citation 27. I added that material. The use of the term vivisection is generally in quotes or it would be removed, because it is strongly POV. I view its use on Wikipedia akin to the use of the term terrorist (it needs to be an accurate quotation or strongly justified because it is POV by default). In a quotation, it is accurately referring to the subject matter. The term antivivisectionist is self-labelled. There is both a history of opposition to animal testing, and a history of animal testing, and nothing wrong with showing both imho. As to the order of the history and the history of opposition, well, it is an encyclopaedia anyone can edit. --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

animal testing in nazi germany
Animal welfare in Nazi Germany {{quotation|An absolute and permanent ban on vivisection is not only a necessary law to protect animals and to show sympathy with their pain, but it is also a law for humanity itself.... I have therefore announced the immediate prohibition of vivisection and have made the practice a punishable offense in Prussia. Until such time as punishment is pronounced the culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp. quote form Hermann Göring

{{reflist-talk}}

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Petro-chemical by-products
I note that animal experiments relating to the testing of petro-chemical by products is missing on this article. Why?