The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals 235
An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"
humane testing (Score:4, Informative)
especially when it's for something shallow like cosmetic testing.
Re:They forgot one (Score:5, Informative)
This list is terrible. I'm a molecular biologist, and one glaring omission is C. Elegans [wikipedia.org] , a tiny little worm that is heavily used in fields such as developmental biology and genetics research. Also missing is the zebrafish [wikipedia.org], which is also really popular for genetics and developmental biology. While I've seen occasional tanks of frogs around the school, I don't think anyone researches caterpillars. I imagine if I told our (quite reputable) immunology department that they should switch to moths, they'd laugh me out of the school. How can the insect immune system be so similar considering they have an open circulatory system?
Re:Ok, new plan... (Score:3, Informative)
Nah. You'd need at least JavaScript and CSS3 (which in practice probably means an HTML-4-compliant browser) to do the transitions and stuff.
Re:They forgot one (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. C. Elegans is one organism that should never ever be forgotten in terms of medical research. Sea urchins also deserve some mention as they are very important to our understanding of developmental biology.
Re:Rabbits and contacts.... (Score:4, Informative)
I would think it would be obvious why they put contacts on rabbits. They tried it on cats, but they gave up after they had to amputate a scientist's arm from the claw damage.
Spoken like someone who has never had to deal with a threatened rabbit. (Hint: they have claws, too.)
Title is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
These are not the nine most tested lab animals, as they admit on the first page. It's a list of "some of the animals that stand in for humans in medical research", and it excludes mice for god's sake. How could anyone who read this list think that it represents "the most tested lab animals" if it doesn't include mice or rats? There aren't even any fish on the list.
The list is:
1) Fruit flies
2) Moths
3) Frogs
4) Naked mole rats
5) Prairie voles
6) Rabbits
7) Beagles
8) Pigs
9) Monkeys
cosmetics (Score:3, Informative)
I am kind of an old guy, so I sort of remember when animal cosmetic testing was something of an issue. Here is what I sort of remember. First of all, it is not quite about testing cosmetics, but testing the components of cosmetics. So if you have just a little of something in a cosmetic, the test animal gets a lot of the pure thing on them. Also, suppose a cosmetic was to be applied to the skin. Well it needs to be tested ingested and in the eyes and its pure components too. I hope this is helpful.
Re:They forgot one (Score:4, Informative)
No - the GP is saying that the reduction in morbidity and mortality that we enjoy is largely due to animal research. There are still many diseases that we don't understand and can't treat, so further research will help us further improve quality of life for sick people. If we cease research, then we won't get those benefits (or they will be significantly delayed, likely by decades and possibly by centuries).
I think people _do_ condone (albeit tacitly) the mistreatment of agricultural animals, and I think it's because of the "yuck" factor of some science research. I suspect that an average dairy cow probably lives a worse life than your average lab rat (I've worked on dairy farms, and know how appallingly they're treated).
Having said all this, there are difficult philosophical issues with animal research. For example, what's our basis of saying that it's ok to do research on animals so that people can live better? Is it because we're smarter? If so, is it therefore ok for us to do similar research on stupid or mentally retarded people? (remember that there are primate research labs, some of which use chimps - I think that is ethically very dicey).
I hate animal-rights activists - as a group they're a bunch of ignorant Luddites - there have been cases where they've dynamited animal research labs that were doing population studies of wild animals! But I do think that some scientists are a bit nonchalant when it comes to animal research.
For what it's worth, I'm vegetarian for ethical and environmental reasons, but I do believe there is a place for scientific animal research/testing at this point in time.
Re:They forgot one (Score:3, Informative)
Re:humane testing (Score:3, Informative)
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) are required by federal law in any research institution that gets any federal funding. Their role is in the approval of any research protocol that involves the use of live animal models. They have absolute VETO power over any pending research. They are required to consist of experienced researchers as well as laymen from the community with no connection to the institution. The whole function of an IACUC is to ensure that
1. The research is needful (not needlessy replicating a trial or using animals when another model would be more appropriate),
2. Animal use is large enough for statisticall validity, but not wasteful (if you can get by with 100 mice they won't let you use 200 just because you have them handy),
3. Animal suffering is avoided whenever possible (suffering is allowed only if unavoidable, but then you need to justify why the suffering is necessary, and these protocols get a lot more scrutiny), and
4. Animals will have access to Veterinary care as needed.
Furthermore, every researcher I've ever met go into animal research because they like animals and enjoy working with them. Most have multiple pets whom they treat better than some people treat their own children. You are correct that there is a certain amount of desensitization that occurs, but it is not to the unnecessary suffering of animals. We all minimize the amount of pain and suffering that our animals will experience based on our best understanding of what exactly causes them to suffer. We are not these insensitive, unfeeling, monsters who abuse animals and don't give it a second though.
Besides, the current focus on PAIN as the primary causitive agent of suffering is misplaced. Animals find chronic FEAR to be far more stressful than chronic pain according to behavioral studies I've seen presented by the Animal Behavior group at my university.
Also, you are correct that there is evidence that animal abuse is correlated with human abuse (correlation != causation), but it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand because abuse (unnecessary pain or suffering) is not the rampant problem you believe it to be.
Re:They forgot one (Score:2, Informative)
I also found it offensive that Discovery, a site supposedly dedicated to science, seem to be pandering to animal rights activists. Why mention some rare case of abuse? You want to talk animal abuse? Look at the food industry.
As someone who worked in an animal lab and a pet store I have to say the pet industry is much worse on the animals then labs.