Vivisection

Fysh

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Ok, so might I say that the arguement now against my point has been reduced down to me being a hypocrite. Could I take it then, that logic and reason have failed and my hypocrisy is the final arguement.

I don't think that's a fair conclusion, really. The original question asked was:

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

"The only reason stopping me from actually not doing this work, is its convenient for my PhD (ie a selfish reason). Can any here suggest a reason to me why it is morally acceptable?"

It's been discussed that different schools of morality/ethics could indeed find such research to be acceptable, and it then became clear that you were thinking of one specific form of morality. Subsequent examination shows that, in the case of this specific morality, there is no way that the research can be considered acceptable, and therefore it is not possible to both work in this research and claim full adherence to this morality. I don't see this as a failure of logic and reason, rather their implementation. The short answer to your original question is "not for the morality you're talking about".

The point we all seem to have gotten sidetracked on is whether much weight can be given to the indignation this research seems to cause in you, given that you have agreed to work on it.

I wasn't interested in a "lets compare dick sizes" contest when I started this thread(s). So let me thank all who contributed, you have certainly challenged my thinking over the duration of this discussion. All contributions, both poitive and negative, greatly appreciated. I don't feel at this point there is much more to say, beyond the scope of repitition.

I feel the same way, and I think it's a shame this didn't get more people involved as a discussion - it's an interesting topic, but seems to have unfortunately gotten sidetracked. I hope you got something useful out of it; I certainly felt it was an interesting angle to take when discussing ethics. And I would point out that my comments about inconsistency or perceived hypocrisy were not intended as personal criticisms; I intended them to piont out where the logic and reasoning would fail as "thinking tools".

GuanYin

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Ok, so might I say that the arguement now against my point has been reduced down to me being a hypocrite. Could I take it then, that logic and reason have failed and my hypocrisy is the final arguement. If so, then I feel at least I am right in my misgivings, I can't defend my hypocrisy and you both (syke and Fysh) make good points in that regard.

I wasn't interested in a "lets compare dick sizes" contest when I started this thread(s). So let me thank all who contributed, you have certainly challenged my thinking over the duration of this discussion. All contributions, both poitive and negative, greatly appreciated. I don't feel at this point there is much more to say, beyond the scope of repitition.



*edit* actually one more point. My beliefs aren't quite so rigid, or black and white as I made out, they're all clouded by the various pros and cons. However, I did deem it necessary to argue my point as best I could for the benefit of actually trying to reach a conclusion.

*sigh*, if its seems like I was trying to make a contest of this, then my apologies, its not my intention, however, rather than justify your morality or not, I was merely trying to A) show you the flaw in your stance (which is what you asked for, to be shown why it is morally acceptable) Remind you of the contribution such work has provided, and can still provide, for our society, C) highlight the fact that such research is approved by ethics committees (which include veterinary scientists) and D) remind you of the responsability and opportunity to do something of benefit to society, that comes with a medical research PhD.

If I was harsh in any way, it is not because I don't understand your feelings on the matter, its that I find some of your perceptions and ideas about the area as a whole (aside from what I see as an inconsistancy in your moral stance) as slightly "wooly" in nature.

No offence to you. But considering the grant your working under, the people you're working with and the institute you're working in, I would concentrate more on making the most out of your work and realising the potential at your disposal. Its an easy thing to lose in the day to day frustration of a PhD.

Zaph0d

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

phlebas - I don't disagree with anything you've said.

You opend this thread with a request for help with a moral question and Phlebas answers with a considered, constructive and intelligent response. Your answer is unfair. What is it that you disagree with?

RE*AC*TOR

GuanYin

Zaph0d wrote:

You opend this thread with a request for help with a moral question and Phlebas answers with a considered, constructive and intelligent response. Your answer is unfair. What is it that you disagree with?

Did you have to stay back for extra reading lessons?

Capt'n Midnight

What's that occams razor thingy ?

As asked previously can you do any of the testing by other methods ?
eg: tissue culture, can you do more research to confirm that you aren't repeating a previous experiment (though let's not forget that the myth of spinach having a high iron content was a decimal point in the wrong place)

Do the animals need to be sacrificed ?
Could you reuse them ?

Lots of drug work has shown that when the liver gets involved you have to do animal experiments because you can't predict what chemical changes it will cause to any introduced substances. Some medicines can only be used because the liver is so good at detoxifying byproducts.

On the subject of causing pain to small rodents, rat poison causes the animal to die of internal bleeding, slow and painfull, the idea being to get the animal to get very thirsty and leave the house to find water, so it's less likely to die under the floorboards and make a smell. This is going on, on an industrial scale and in the grand scheme of things the experimental animals are only in small numbers.

Another moral dilema is that most of us could save real lives by donating more to thirdworld charities and many times more lives by making third world trade an election issue. We are spending near enough €2Bn a year on roads in this country but aren't meeting our aid commitments. And yet very, very few of us live simply so others can simply live.

If you are doing a phd then is considerable investment in your education and part of a a phd is new knowledge that no one has had before. By definition this part of your thesis means you have to push the boundries of science. So it's very different to kids disecting rats in secondary school

GuanYin

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

What's that occams razor thingy ?

As asked previously can you do any of the testing by other methods ?
eg: tissue culture, can you do more research to confirm that you aren't repeating a previous experiment (though let's not forget that the myth of spinach having a high iron content was a decimal point in the wrong place)

Do the animals need to be sacrificed ?
Could you reuse them ?

Wha? What the hell are you on about occams razor for? We covered most of this in general over the two threads, specifically tissue culture is a reductionist model, its used to look at certain physiological transporters on the apical membranes, certain gene expression profiles and paracellular flux of small compounds. So basically you see bioavailability, toxicity and absorption, but still, these don't correlate very well with in vivo work, especially with oral dosage forms because you have factors such as intestinal motility, the unstirred water layer, the mucus gel, and the fact that the model ignores 90% of the mucosa. (connective tissue, immune cells, fat etc etc).

This generally helps you classify a therapeutic (if you do a study designed at looking at a new drug form) but tells you nothing about biological interaction, metabolism abd break down, absorption and distribution past the initial epithelial cell layer and so forth.

Thats why we need animal models, we need tissue and we need living breathing creatures. In silico (computer aided models) have become more popular, but they are limited to work that we already know thoroughly and classes of compounds that we have extensive knowledge on.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Lots of drug work has shown that when the liver gets involved you have to do animal experiments because you can't predict what chemical changes it will cause to any introduced substances. Some medicines can only be used because the liver is so good at detoxifying byproducts.

What on earth are you on about? How many absorbed drugs do you know where the liver isn't involved, just out of interest?

RE*AC*TOR

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

What's that occams razor thingy ?<snip>secondary school

funniest reply evar!

impr0v

syke wrote:

Wha? What the hell are you on about occams razor for? We covered most of this in general over the two threads, specifically tissue culture is a reductionist model, its used to look at certain physiological transporters on the apical membranes, certain gene expression profiles and paracellular flux of small compounds. So basically you see bioavailability, toxicity and absorption, but still, these don't correlate very well with in vivo work, especially with oral dosage forms because you have factors such as intestinal motility, the unstirred water layer, the mucus gel, and the fact that the model ignores 90% of the mucosa. (connective tissue, immune cells, fat etc etc).

This generally helps you classify a therapeutic (if you do a study designed at looking at a new drug form) but tells you nothing about biological interaction, metabolism abd break down, absorption and distribution past the initial epithelial cell layer and so forth.

Oops, I seem to have wandered into the wrong forum. I could have sworn it said 'philosophy' on the door, rather than 'watch Syke mow them down with the scientific syllable gun'.

ecksor

'philosophy' doesn't mean that you have a license to talk rubbish. Science has a nice advantage in that it tends to have a body of empirical evidence to back it up. Philosophy doesn't get to ignore that just because it feels like it.

Capt'n Midnight

syke wrote:

Wha? What the hell are you on about occams razor for?

Propose several alternatives and choose the simplist that meets all the desired results. - one of which in this case is avoidance of animal testing (if possible). If you can't do the expirement without animal testing then you have either to modify the thesis or do the testing.

Also the testing must be done properly, eg: if the sample size is too small the expirement may be valid may be repeated elsewhere later on.

What on earth are you on about? How many absorbed drugs do you know where the liver isn't involved, just out of interest?

By "when" I meant "time" rather than "if". ie. All substances introduced into the bloodstream end up going through the liver. As stated before some medicines are to toxic to use , except that the liver detox's them. Unfortunatly it sometimes does the opposite, making a substance that seems safe in other tests in to something nastier.

(I love the bit where people say that animal testing would have ment that we'd never use penicillin because guinea pigs are allergic to it. A lot of humans have bad reactions to penicillin too.)

In general you can use alternatives up to a point, but before a drug goes live it MUST be tested on animals. However, some essential properties could be deduced before hand..

In this case since you are most likely dealing with hormones you would almost certainly need the full organism.

I take it you can't use/develop little dialysis machines ??
I've heard it said that mice when poisined by carbon monoxide can adsorb enough oxygen through their skin into the blood stream to survive without functioning haemoglobin for a while.

impr0v

ecksor wrote:

'philosophy' doesn't mean that you have a license to talk rubbish. Science has a nice advantage in that it tends to have a body of empirical evidence to back it up. Philosophy doesn't get to ignore that just because it feels like it.

Sure, but since we're not in the science forum, perhaps the empirical evidence being presented could be translated for the lay people in the audience. The two paragraphs which I quoted read like biology lecture notes, when I'm sure the essential points could have been more easily conveyed in english. Maybe it was the reproving tone in which the lecture was delivered which made the syllables so jagged.

I just feel that there may be a danger of someone perhaps without cleanly formed thoughts, but wanting to float an idea rather than talk rubbish, not doing so because they fear they'll be instantly bludgeoned with the cold hard scientific facts by the white coat brigade. Though it's effectively none of my business, surely philosophic discussion should be more about exploring ideas through reasoning rather than the aggressive presentation of empirical evidence (though i don't dispute that this particular thread does owe it's very genesis to the field of science).

GuanYin

Ok, what this means is:

syke wrote:

Wha? What the hell are you on about occams razor for? We covered most of this in general over the two threads, specifically tissue culture is a reductionist model, its used to look at certain physiological transporters on the apical membranes, certain gene expression profiles and paracellular flux of small compounds. So basically you see bioavailability, toxicity and absorption, but still, these don't correlate very well with in vivo work, especially with oral dosage forms because you have factors such as intestinal motility, the unstirred water layer, the mucus gel, and the fact that the model ignores 90% of the mucosa. (connective tissue, immune cells, fat etc etc).

Tissue culture is a simplistic model of the outermost layer of the stomach - the gut wall. Its generally usedt o look at how certain drugs and bacteria react when they meet the gut wall, how they pass through the gut wall and what effects they have on the genes in our gut. With Tissue culture you have a layer of cells of one type in the body the outer layer of the gut is made of several types of cells. With Tissue culture you also lose out on alot of physiological actibity like the motion of the gut and the mucus layer that lines the gut wall (which acts as a barrier to bacteria and large poisons). Above all, you are only looking at a single layer of cells, the lining of the gut. In the body, you have many layers of different types of cells and tissue, all of which have different functions. You can't reproduce this with a single layer of cells on a plastic plate.

This generally helps you classify a therapeutic (if you do a study designed at looking at a new drug form) but tells you nothing about biological interaction, metabolism abd break down, absorption and distribution past the initial epithelial cell layer and so forth.

So with this single layer, you can say a few things about it: does it damage the outer cell wall? Does it caue the cells to act in certain ways (like allow salt and water thoughr, which causes diarrhea) but doesn't tell you anything about how the drug braks down in the blood stream after several hours in the body, or where in the bosy the drug passes through cells best and where it goes.

Thats why we need animal models, we need tissue and we need living breathing creatures. In silico (computer aided models) have become more popular, but they are limited to work that we already know thoroughly and classes of compounds that we have extensive knowledge on.

So tissue culture tells us very little about what a drug does after it first meets the cells of our body. The only way to do that is with live animals. Some people are now using computers but they can only models stuff that is very very similar to what we've already tested, because if its a new structure, we don't have a record of how it acts when its meets cells of the body.



Is that clear for ya?

impr0v

Crystal!

ecksor

impr0v wrote:

Sure, but since we're not in the science forum, perhaps the empirical evidence being presented could be translated for the lay people in the audience. The two paragraphs which I quoted read like biology lecture notes, when I'm sure the essential points could have been more easily conveyed in english. Maybe it was the reproving tone in which the lecture was delivered which made the syllables so jagged.

Ok, I didn't realise you were making that point in the original post. Fair enough, but syke does explain his gibberish when asked

I just feel that there may be a danger of someone perhaps without cleanly formed thoughts, but wanting to float an idea rather than talk rubbish, not doing so because they fear they'll be instantly bludgeoned with the cold hard scientific facts by the white coat brigade. Though it's effectively none of my business, surely philosophic discussion should be more about exploring ideas through reasoning rather than the aggressive presentation of empirical evidence (though i don't dispute that this particular thread does owe it's very genesis to the field of science).

I agree to an extent, but not in situations like this where humans have effectively created different branches of philosophy with their own rules for reaching conclusions (natural sciences for example). Discussion of this point deserves a thread of its own I think.