Should significant resources be expended in order to phase out the use of animals in preclinical testing?
Topic
Preclinical animal testing is an outdated research method which is inaccurate, unethical, and extremely costly; sponsor companies should expend the necessary resources to begin adopting non-animal testing models as they become available in order to progressively reduce, and ultimately discontinue their use of animals. The contents of this paper will discuss supporting ethical, scientific, and economic evidence, in addition to evaluating possible opposing arguments, and proposing a relevant plan of action.
Background
Preclinical animal testing has been a boiler plate topic for nearly a century. In 1947, the Nuremberg Code was developed …show more content…
This suffering has been deemed ethically permissible, provided that researchers express confidence in their ability to achieve predictable benefits to humans (Doke & Dhawale, 2015; Ferdowsian & Beck, 2011, p.2). Modern scientific knowledge paired with tragic historical instances of human drug toxicity has raised questions and concerns regarding the ethics of preclinical animal testing for both humans and animals. If humans are not benefitting from the suffering of animal testing models, then the permissibility parameters for their suffering are not being fulfilled. If preclinical animal data cannot be accurately translated to real-life human scenarios, then human trials are being conducted unethically, as risks may no longer be outweighed by benefits, and study participants do not consent to the possibility of unknown risks or the fact that the trial in which they are deciding to participate, has been designed based on inaccurate assumptions (Greek, Hansen & Pippus, 2012; Green, …show more content…
We have since come to understand that according to evolutionary biology, all mammals have essentially the same genes however; it is the regulation and expression of these genes that differs greatly from species to species (Greek, Hansen & Pippus, 2012, p. 4). Evolutionary biology has also brought to light the fact that different enzymes are able to metabolize different compounds at varying rates. In terms of Research and Development, this tells us that while one species may have the ability to safely metabolize a drug, another species could potentially experience life-threatening adverse
Topic
Preclinical animal testing is an outdated research method which is inaccurate, unethical, and extremely costly; sponsor companies should expend the necessary resources to begin adopting non-animal testing models as they become available in order to progressively reduce, and ultimately discontinue their use of animals. The contents of this paper will discuss supporting ethical, scientific, and economic evidence, in addition to evaluating possible opposing arguments, and proposing a relevant plan of action.
Background
Preclinical animal testing has been a boiler plate topic for nearly a century. In 1947, the Nuremberg Code was developed …show more content…
This suffering has been deemed ethically permissible, provided that researchers express confidence in their ability to achieve predictable benefits to humans (Doke & Dhawale, 2015; Ferdowsian & Beck, 2011, p.2). Modern scientific knowledge paired with tragic historical instances of human drug toxicity has raised questions and concerns regarding the ethics of preclinical animal testing for both humans and animals. If humans are not benefitting from the suffering of animal testing models, then the permissibility parameters for their suffering are not being fulfilled. If preclinical animal data cannot be accurately translated to real-life human scenarios, then human trials are being conducted unethically, as risks may no longer be outweighed by benefits, and study participants do not consent to the possibility of unknown risks or the fact that the trial in which they are deciding to participate, has been designed based on inaccurate assumptions (Greek, Hansen & Pippus, 2012; Green, …show more content…
We have since come to understand that according to evolutionary biology, all mammals have essentially the same genes however; it is the regulation and expression of these genes that differs greatly from species to species (Greek, Hansen & Pippus, 2012, p. 4). Evolutionary biology has also brought to light the fact that different enzymes are able to metabolize different compounds at varying rates. In terms of Research and Development, this tells us that while one species may have the ability to safely metabolize a drug, another species could potentially experience life-threatening adverse