by Wayne Reeves

Created on: June 06, 2008   Last Updated: June 14, 2008

Intelligence is supposed to differentiate between the numerous species on Planet Earth, then why do humans assume experimenting on animals as an adequate replacement to represent us in these tests?

The best way to find out about new treatments and products is to field-test the actual consumers; doing endless tests on unwilling and unsuspecting participants (other species) isn't morally right or really being that scientific. What better way to perform an experiment for the better of the human race than to try them out on humans; hardly a stretch of anyone's imagination to think this might be relevant when assessing results of such experiments.

It's very difficult to see the logic when animals are killed in the development of drugs and consumer products; surely there should be a human risk involved if it's our needs and desires that are being fulfilled. The best way to find out if something works is to use humans - now we get into an area of contention. Just who would want to take part in experiments to further our knowledge and understanding?

There have been some strange ideas with the use of animals: car manufacturers have used pigs to test steering wheel strength, cosmetic companies have used small animals like rabbits, and rats have had human ears attached to their bodies to see if they grow! This would be considered a freak-show in a sane world but it goes on every day as though it were untouchable from the rest of society.

Cancer and AIDS are big killers all around the world with no known cure available at this present time; willing volunteers would step forward if possible cures could be developed from these experiments and the drugs they'd help to make for the future. If a sufferer were given any hope of treatment, they wouldn't turn down that opportunity to try anything would they? The only real way to get proper results is testing the drugs on people they're designed for; knowing what it would do on a monkey, rat or rabbit is no substitute.

A radical thought is to focus experiments on those that society have deemed unworthy of living in our free society, the unwanted in our prison systems. Any life-sentence prisoners could be used as part of their punishment in experiments to help us all; their lives are deemed surplus to requirements by the law. Another twist could be that instead of death-sentences, many could be enrolled in these new scientific tests - at the very least something good could come from a horrific act that put them in prison to begin with.

It needs a change in the whole idea that animals are there to be used and abused by the all-conquering human; no other species uses another species as a pure curiosity as the human does. Science is generally considered the work of intellectuals, so they should realise that we're all animals in the big picture and each species will act differently from the next.

Once science makes that jump from animal to human experiments, then and only then will they start to find the real answers they're looking for; otherwise they'll remain side-show scientists as they are now.

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