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Posted by Devilfish under blog's category : Schools education
The RSPCA's latest foray into schools education is a smart new web resource for GCSE science with a substantial chunk dedicated to exploring the ethics of animal research.
There are polls, quick quizzes, factoids and news items to keep things lively but at the heart of the resource are two complex, sophisticated learning activities, The Ethics court and The value of life.
The Ethics court is the most ambitious and involved of these and is the one that deals directly with the issue of animals in medical research. Of the seven 'controversial' statements that students can choose to explore within the Ethics court, two deal explicitly with the use of animals for medical research purposes – either veterinary or human.
The activity aims to be neutral and balanced allowing students to make up their own minds based on a fair representation of views for and against, and it does a pretty good job on the whole. The facts about animal research seem to be about right and the familiar arguments pro and con are given equal time and space.
But, perhaps unsurprisingly, a certain bias does creep in. It may be fair to comment that the RSPCA considers progress in replacement of animal procedures with non-animal ones to be too slow, for example, but to attribute that lack of progress only to difficulties in changing regulations, the resistance of researchers or the lack of information, resources or commitment does seem a little tendentious. Is it not at least possible that finding replacements is just very, very hard? That the animal model is, in many cases, currently the only way to get results?
Elsewhere it is clearly stated that testing for cosmetic purposes is illegal in the UK, so why immediately afterwards bring up botulinum toxin which is tested on animals and which, we are told, is 'used in the cosmetic procedure that temporarily removes wrinkles and frown lines from the skin'? It feels like someone is putting their thumb on the scale to me. Of course botulinum does have a cosmetic application, but that is not why animal tests are permitted, as the activity developers are surely aware.
In fact, after bringing up wrinkles and frown lines, RSPCA does acknowledge that botulinum is also used to 'treat some painful conditions', but the context makes this appear a secondary consideration (the opposite of the truth) and it seems like a grudging way to refer to a raft of medical applications that include treatments for Parkinson's disease, hemifacial spasm and cervical dystonia.
Still, even with these grumbles (and several other examples that could be offered up if we really wanted to be picky), it should be said that these new activities are – on the whole – attractive, well designed, well constructed, clearly thought through and substantially educational. They could make a real contribution to science teaching at GCSE.
In case you were wondering, when I last looked over half the users were still agreeing with the statement that 'we should keep using animals in research and testing so we can improve drugs for people' .
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Get in-depth information on the contribution of animal research to medicine
Comments
Gaspode: 'Surely all of that used for cosmetic purposes was tested 'for medical purposes' otherwise it could not have been tested.'
Sure, all botulinum toxin batches will have been safety tested, whatever they are ultimately used for, but the point is NOT IN THE UK if for cosmetic purposes. Sorry, I thought we were discussing UK animal tests - I should have been clearer in my previous comment.
Let's by all means stop talking about cosmetics, but please just one final attempt to settle the point on botulinum toxin, As I said earlier, I don't know how much is used for cosmetic purposes. My suggestion was based purely on the huge growth of the market; I find it hard to believe it does not outweigh the medical use. But we don't know. When Zeb says 'it is even possible that loopholes mean that some tested for medical purposes may be used for cosmetic purposes' I am amazed. Surely all of that used for cosmetic purposes was tested 'for medical purposes' otherwise it could not have been tested.
Anyway, to get back to the original point, the ethical discussion point was how views on animal research differ between serious medical research and more trivial purposes. We seem to agree on that!
Gaspode asserts re botulinum toxin 'But some of it (I suggest the vast majority) is actually being used for cosmetic purposes'. Some of it perhaps; it is even possible that loopholes mean that some tested for medical purposes may be used for cosmetic purposes. But the vast majority? Where is the evidence for this sweeping statement?
One of the most interesting things about this discussion is that whenever the issue of cosmetics testing on animals is raised, it dominates. The view of Understanding Animal Research and its predecessors is that we do not support the use of animals to test cosmetics, because new beauty products are trivial and unnecessary.
The Research Defence Society, a forerunner of Understanding Animal Research, actually helped the UK government bring cosmetics testing on animals to an end in the 1990s. It was already a vanishingly small part of the use of animals in research and testing.
A pleasing outcome of the ban was that dialogue on animal research could then focus on serious research to advance science and medicine. Surely this is more important to most people, but discussions such as this make one wonder.
I don't understand Devilfish's position on this. The animal testing of botulinum toxin is indeed only allowed only because it is ostensibly intended only for serious medical purposes. But some of it (I suggest the vast majority) is actually being used for cosmetic purposes. The more of the toxin used, the more batches are needed, and the more animals are used. Animal testing for cosmetic purposes is banned, for ethical reasons, so a proportion of the testing of the toxin is 'wrong'. This part of the testing can be diminished if people decline botulinum toxin treatment; it is an ethical choice.
Devilfish is right, but it's clear that cosmetic Botox is currently available in the UK, even if cosmetic testing is banned here.
Which reinforces Medawar's point, but from a different direction, that to ban cosmetic testing the government has to ban cosmetic botox, or we are just transferring the moral issue to another country, such as France.
If people travel to another country to get cosmetic treatment, it's hopefully impossible for them to sue the British taxpayer for any unpleasant consequences, sudden death, for example.
The problem is that Botox 'treatment' for cosmetic purposes is not safe unless the batch has been tested.
So, under current laws, to ban botox tests for cosmetic purposes, means a ban on botox sale and use for cosmetic purposes.
Given the fuss and resistance that David Nutt and his allies are putting up to a ban on a 'legal high' substance believed to have killed 25 people in the UK in a few months, those making a profit out of Botox would probably force the government to produce a huge body of evidence to support a Botox ban, and how would that evidence be obtained?
Perhaps the best way to reduce the amount of animal testing would be to take a hard look at legal liability laws - and to ban classes of chemical from public sale unless a genuine use is first demonstrated.
At the moment, HMG is expected to produce a volume of scientific evidence that an amphetamine substitute is not a 'plant food' before it's allowed to ban it. Medawar wouldn't waste the life of a daffodil on this, much less a rat.
Essentially, about half of the testing is for scientific purposes and the other half happens because one absurd legal trap or another forces it to happen for no practical purpose.
If reformed liability laws allowed it, celebrities could popularise untested Botox, in much the same way as they have attempted to make undyed cotton fashionable. At the very least, this would elevate the importance of understudies in the theatre and make this post an attractive career option for the young and ambitious.
I completely agree with you, Gaspode, that we should not reflexively defend every use of animals (far from it!), but it is important to remember that testing of botulinum toxin (or anything else) for cosmetic purposes is illegal in the UK. Any botulinum toxin that is tested on animals in the UK must be intended for a serious medical application or it will not get a licence. That is the law. The RSPCA site gives a rather different impression.
Far from representing bias, I think mentioning Botulinum toxin testing raises a very interesting ethical discussion point. I don't know (can anybody tell me?) what proportion of the toxin goes to medical uses, and how much to beauty treatment - ie how many more batches are tested because of the cosmetic use - but I suspect that substantial numbers of animals suffer for 'beauty' . This highlights neatly the tension between public attitudes to animal use for serious medical purposes and their use for other, arguably trivial purposes. It does scientists no favours to defend every use of animals, regardless of the ethical issues involved, and to imply that all animal tests and experiments are for serious medical purposes.