The Student Room Group

Would a uni's animal testing record affect your decision to apply?

Poll

Would you avoid applying to a uni that carries out a lot of lab tests on animals?

The issue of university research and animal testing has cropped up again this morning.

Various papers are reporting on the publication of a list compiled by the anti-vivisection organisation Cruelty Free International.

Oxford University carries out lab tests on more animals than any other uni, according to the research. It reportedly used 226,739 animals used in experiments in 2014.

Edinburgh (200,861), University College London (176,901), King’s College London (165,068), and Cambridge (160,557) are the other unis in the top five.

Dr Katy Taylor director of science at Cruelty Free International urged unis "to leave this archaic practice behind and move towards developing innovative and humane research methods for the 21st century.”

A spokesman for Oxford University told The Independent: "Research using animals continues to provide important insights, whether into the effects of heart disease or the development of vaccines for major global diseases like malaria."

What's your view on this? Is animal experimentation essential for some research? And would a university's record of experimenting on animals affect your decision to apply to study there?

Scroll to see replies

As long as the research is justified it would not affect my decision.
I don't care enough for it ever to have been a factor in the decision.
Reply 3
Original post by Potally_Tissed
I don't care enough for it ever to have been a factor in the decision.


Same.

Without the animals, what else are they going to test the drugs on? Rocks?

You try injecting a rock with painkiller, then hitting it, and measuring its pulse...
Absolutely not, I think the biggest pro of animal testing is the potential it has to save lives but the research has to be done with proper oversight and follow proper guidelines.

Every drug that is intended for eventual human use must first be put through a series of non-human tests before any human trials can be done. That means that any drug you've taken has been put through an animal testing phase.

Animal testing has helped to develop vaccines against diseases like rabies, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and TB.
Antibiotics, HIV drugs, insulin and cancer treatments rely on animal tests.
Thanks to animal research, cancer survival rates have continued to rise...

I mean, think of the person you love the most. And imagine that person suffering from the pains of cancer and chemo. I would rather have a thousand rats tested or a thousand monkeys dissected before I let cancer ruin a loved one's life.

That being said, there are definitely some cons but I believe that the pros outweigh the cons.
Like I said, if animal testing is for medical research then I'm definitely for it, but if it's intended for something else which holds no purpose, then I'm against it.

But then again, a uni's animal testing record wouldn't affect my decision to apply either way.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 5
Depends on the nature of the research (Pharmaceutical vs Cosmetic for example). But ultimately no it would not affect my decision except in extreme circumstances.
Gene editing research would allow us to grow parts of animals in labs to painlessly conduct drug trials, but we are nowhere near that stage at the moment, thanks mainly to ridiculous over regulation, and violent protesters.
Regardless of my views on animal testing, I want to study history, so this decision will not affect me directly. I believe very strongly in animal rights, and I believe there has to be stringent oversight. But I won't pass up on a fantastic education simply because another school within the university is doing something with which I don't agree. Most schools conduct tests on animals.
As a mathematician, I would not let it bother me. The actions of the Biology, Medicine etc departments should not affect my view on the Maths department which has nothing to do with them. People in other departments to those which perform tests on animals may well disagree with the methods used, but they won't be able to do anything about it, so I wouldn't hold them to account.
I don't think this statistic alone tells us much about how ethical these departments are being. For starters, all this gives us is information about the size and specialism of those universities' medicine and biology departments. Whilst harm to animals obviously needs to be limited as much as possible, if it's carried out for genuinely beneficial research and everything possible within reason is done to minimise harm, I think it's justified. It definitely wouldn't put me off applying...
(edited 8 years ago)
This is too general
It really depends on what the testing on animals is for, personally...
Only if the testing was really horrific and affected the subject I was applying for would really make it influence my decision
:u:
Speaking as someone whose university has just been slandered, to put it bluntly, by the likes of Animal Aid, no it would not. Often these reports are very misinformed and misleading, or at worst, downright untrue. Rarely do they define exactly what is meant by 'animal testing', for example they include studies on pet animals owned by volunteers, which I think is a world away from lab rats in cages. These studies are often meant to improve the welfare of animals, and there are extremely strict regulations in place to ensure absolutely minimal animal suffering. The UK has the strictest system in the world in terms of animal testing. A license has to be granted by the Home Office in order for it to be legally carried out, and the license won't be given unless it can be proven that the research can't be achieved by any other practical method (computer simulations etc), that it's using the species with the least neurophysiological sensitivity possible for the research, that it's going to cause the least pain, suffering and distress possible (including the fewest possible animals to produce a reliable result), and that the tests are likely to produce satisfactory results. The people who carry out this work aren't sadists, and without full understanding, some organisations often paint a very distorted picture of what goes on.
(edited 8 years ago)
Yes I believe that products fro people should be tested on people, why should animals have to suffer to make our lives a little bit better?
Original post by CrazyKittenLady
Yes I believe that products fro people should be tested on people, why should animals have to suffer to make our lives a little bit better?


Congratulations, you have significantly stalled medical advances.
Reply 14
Philosophically, I'm against experimentation on nonhuman animals but no, it wouldn't affect my decision to apply: the fact that I'm not applying will not change their practices.

And, no, animal experiments are not necessary: 92% of drugs tested on animals fail in human trials, and some drugs which don't appear to be safe or effective in animals are actually safe and effective in humans. We have different biochemical pathways, so this is unsurprising. This means that millions of animals are being experimented on with no gain coming as a result of it. Where do we draw the line? Would it still be justifiable to conduct these torturous experiments on 1 billion animals even if it was just to alleviate the suffering of 1 human? The costs clearly outweigh the benefits if people abandon their irrational speciesist attitudes and equally consider the interests of all sentient beings.

There are many alternatives to animal experimentation, up to and including experimentation on humans, which would yield much more useful results and save many more lives. If we can experiment on animals for the greater good (and, again, this greater good is dubious), I see no reason why we can't experiment on humans (many more lives would be saved as a result).

Original post by Jammy Duel
Congratulations, you have significantly stalled medical advances.


Actually, experimentation on humans would yield far more useful results than experimentation on nonhuman animals. 92% of drugs tested on animals fail in humans, and, as Dr. Andrew Knight's review of 20 systematic reviews of the evidence found, only 2 of these reviews found that animal experimentation produced useful results for human clinical practice.

If nonhuman animals can be experimented on for the greater good, why not save even more lives by experimenting on humans? Obviously, such a proposal would be extremely controversial, even if the experiments were conducted on prisoners, but, logically, the case for the proposal is watertight.
(edited 8 years ago)
I feel deeply about harming animals, so much that id risk my future not going to a uni that does this, even if it is a top one :smile:
Depends what testing they do. If it's really unethical then my decision would be affected. Currently, I've not considered it when applying to uni.
Reply 17
Yes it would affect my decision. Animal testing is not necessary. There are perfectly safe and cruelty free alternatives to vivisection.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Not at all... animal testing in econ... well that'd be a first.
Original post by shooks
The issue of university research and animal testing has cropped up again this morning.

Various papers are reporting on the publication of a list compiled by the anti-vivisection organisation Cruelty Free International.

Oxford University carries out lab tests on more animals than any other uni, according to the research. It reportedly used 226,739 animals used in experiments in 2014.

Edinburgh (200,861), University College London (176,901), King’s College London (165,068), and Cambridge (160,557) are the other unis in the top five.

Dr Katy Taylor director of science at Cruelty Free International urged unis "to leave this archaic practice behind and move towards developing innovative and humane research methods for the 21st century.”

A spokesman for Oxford University told The Independent: "Research using animals continues to provide important insights, whether into the effects of heart disease or the development of vaccines for major global diseases like malaria."

What's your view on this? Is animal experimentation essential for some research? And would a university's record of experimenting on animals affect your decision to apply to study there?


Essentially, this list is just the largest biomedical research unis and honestly its unfair to criticize a uni just because its large.

Quick Reply

Latest