Is animal testing ok?
Lots of blogs have focused on ethics in regards to human subjects yet not many have focused on animal testing and the ethics behind this. The blogs I have seen seem to regard it as an outrage and that it should not be allowed.
Many of the studies with animals which are well known or that we know of, such as the puppy version of Milgrams study that Fay talked about, aren’t actually published articles, they are known of but are not part of the scientific realm. The studies themselves hold as much credibility as if someone went out and did it as entertainment. Don’t get me wrong that study is horrific and should not have been done, however it is not actually part of published psychology.
Within psychology the same as human participants there are strong guidelines for working with animals. There are whole documents created by APA, BPS, other ethical societies that give guidelines and rules which must be adhered to. “2.3 Animal experiments must be justified on the basis of prevailing values and interests. Researchers are obliged to demonstrate the need for and tenability of all experiments on animals and to carefully verify their ethical justifiability through ethical balancing.” This is just one point raised. It reflects the whole do the ends justify the means. Which is another debate, but I won’t be getting into that today. Psychologists can’t just pick animals and use them without consideration they need to think carefully about it.
Animals used in experiments both within medical and psychology fields are generally bred for these specific reasons with special labs dedicated to this. Therefore we are not endangering species by using them or playing at all with the natural life cycle. Animals used also must have known origins, whether this be lab bred or occasionally other. This is to help limit the use and going over the top.
The main problem I see with animal testing is the sheer number of animals which are used in tests. In medical and cosmetic fields products are tested on the animals. If a drug kills an animal is there really a need to use the same drug on another animal. In a way this is to improve reliability of results if it kills one animal, this could be down to a fluke and individual differences, kills 5, mmmm still possible isn’t down to the drug. 50, well you can’t deny this is probably due to the drug. Same goes with chemicals in makeup peeling skin. However, if it kills a rat or whatever even once I probably don’t want to use this product! Testing only needs to be done on a few limited numbers however larger unnecessary quantities are being used.
Another point which I am yet undecided on and would like to read your views in the comments is whether it is more, not ethical, but maybe acceptable (?) to do more tests on one animal. By this I mean when testing cosmetics rather than testing foundation on one rabbit, eyeshadow on another etc etc. we should just perform these tests on one animal. Admittedly if reactions occur we would be putting severe agony on one animal but is this better than affecting 10? This is where the moral dilemma comes in of whether it is better to kill/harm few or many. If any of you have done the SONA moral decision making you are faced with questions such as 10 people are naturally going to die, but if you take action only 5 people will die saving the 10. Admittedly this is better in numbers however is this still acceptable.
To be honest my mind is not entirely decided on whether all animal testing can be justified however we do need to consider that there are guidelines in place and published studies have had to abide by this. Below is some further reading on animal guidelines if anyone is interested to read.
Happy Christmas and no more blogs for at least 6 weeks!
http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx
Click to access kohyo-20-k16-2e.pdf
Another good document where I got the 2.3 quote from is the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and Sciences – Ethical Principles and Guidelines for experiments with animals 3rd edition 2005. However, it won’t let me link the document 
psud43 