6 ms·

Someone with cystic fibrosis (or the parents of a child with CF) might well disagree, though.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Yep. I agree. It’s a luxury for me personally, but... I do assume there are people with things this could solve that also understand the risks and lean on the side of greater sacrifice/altruism. Here is the thing, this is probably moot. The genie is probably already out of the bottle.
teachingassist 5y ago
And they might well not disagree. I doubt that an average person with CF would want testing on primates to be done in their name. Justifying your ethical position by name-checking a disability group is kind of gross, especially given that animal testing is not a mechanism which typically results in improved treatment.
- bigcorp-slave 5y ago
  Hi, not using a throwaway so you know I’m sincere. As someone with a serious and currently incurable disability, I would support testing on one hundred billion non-human primates if it gave me a 5% chance of a cure. I’m sure you’ll find people who don’t feel that way. But I can’t overstate enough how horrible it is to go from being a functional adult with all the joys and sorrows that brings to being a much less functional person in pain every day. That is reality for millions of people. I don’t feel that what GP did was gross. I think it reflects reality for people who suffer on a daily basis, and whose loved ones do.
  - teachingassist 5y ago
    > I would support testing on one hundred billion non-human primates It's your choice to support that; but there are only about four million non-human primates on the Earth/or, 400,000 great apes. A good percentage of them are already being tested on.
- sidlls 5y ago
  There are tons of biomedical research groups testing things on animal subjects. A lot of discovery and progress has been and will continue to be made with that system. And I’d have any number of them tested on if it meant progress toward a cure for any number of conditions afflicting human beings. I don’t think that’s “gross.”
  - teachingassist 5y ago
    I dispute this - the results of animal research on therapeutic benefit are massively overstated. Most animal research doesn't have therapeutic benefit as a goal or any prospects of contributing to any therapy. Pretty much none is successful on these terms. e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781970/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781970/ Even so, animal research as a whole is still justified and gets public funds on these terms, without any evidence of results. Can you name one therapy, confidently, perhaps even without searching, that has clearly come out of animal testing? [To answer my own question, the only example that I'm immediately aware of is: thalidomide.] Why, in any other circumstance, would we want to spend a precious resource in unlimited quantity on something that is expensive, unethical, and doesn't work?
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      There are significant problems with generalizing from from animal models to humans. There are also significant problems with the ways this research is authorized and conducted. This is true even if you discount all animal suffering that research creates. However, to claim that animal research hasn't had a massive positive impact on the advancement of biological knowledge and healthcare is not based in reality.
    - sidlls 5y ago
      Vaccines, cancer treatements, anesthetics, and so on. Could some or many of these have been discovered without the use of animals in research? Perhaps--but hindsight is what it is, and I'd rather do research on animals with known and well-trod methodologies to discover these now in parallel with developing new techniques to make these discoveries without the use of animal models; not eschew the models until we have alternate methods.
- pie420 5y ago
  That's such a privileged thing to say. You most likely don't have a serious illness or generic issue. You also probably eat meat. Most people have no issues sending billions of animals to painful hellish lives on factory farms and slaughterhouses so that they can enjoy a juicy burger. If there was a small chance of curing a disease that caused you pain and suffering every day, in sure you wouldn't hesitate one second before greenlighting any and all testing on primates.
  - equitablequal 5y ago
    Why does everything have to be so polarized now? I fear it is because on the internet, people can join and leave an argument as they please. The choice between 'No animal testing whatsoever' and 'greenlighting any and all testing on primates' is a false choice. The right answer is probably 'as close to no animal testing as is possible'. Learn to seek the middle ground with others, hint: try to see it from their point of view
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  I don't see how suggesting someone would rather not have a disability is "gross". These kinds of overreactions don't help the situation. Try arguing a point rather than coming from a place of emotion.
  - teachingassist 5y ago
    > Try arguing a point rather than coming from a place of emotion. Arguing that someone with a disability should support this because they might benefit, without reason or evidence for that, is an appeal (only) to emotion. I find it ableist, to use disabled people as an abstract hypothetical grouping in this way, only to support a point that is indefensible any other way. If you don't want me to have an emotional reaction, don't set up an emotive point.
    - bigcorp-slave 5y ago
      You know what I find gross and ableist? Using people like me as a tool to argue against the development of treatments that could help us. That is what you’re doing. You are so concerned with the suffering of animals that you are discarding the suffering of humans. You don’t have any evidence the other way either, you are exactly as guilty as the person you are responding to. Except you are arguing against performing research that can help people.
      - teachingassist 5y ago
        I agree that suffering is a risk that we should balance. Your point in the other comment was that you would cause suffering to and sacrifice "hundreds of billions" of primates for a small chance to heal yourself. That's clearly not balanced. I personally don't think that animal testing as it exists today, and given the complete lack of direct results that it has to show us, is balanced either. Do you really value yourself, as a human, trillions of times higher than a chimpanzee? I don't and won't respect that. You saying that, out loud, only makes me wonder how much you internally value other humans.
        deleted 5y ago
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  > especially given that animal testing is not a mechanism which typically results in improved treatment. The technique described in the article absolutely could result in not just "improved treatment", but an actual cure. We know what causes CF. We know what causes many other genetic diseases. Right down to the individual bad DNA segment. And there is absolutely no way those treatments are ever going to be approved without animal testing. Sorry, they just aren't.

Yep. I agree. It’s a luxury for me personally, but... I do assume there are people with things this could solve that also understand the risks and lean on the side of greater sacrifice/altruism. Here is the thing, this is probably moot. The genie is probably already out of the bottle.

teachingassist 5y ago

And they might well not disagree. I doubt that an average person with CF would want testing on primates to be done in their name. Justifying your ethical position by name-checking a disability group is kind of gross, especially given that animal testing is not a mechanism which typically results in improved treatment.

bigcorp-slave 5y ago
Hi, not using a throwaway so you know I’m sincere. As someone with a serious and currently incurable disability, I would support testing on one hundred billion non-human primates if it gave me a 5% chance of a cure. I’m sure you’ll find people who don’t feel that way. But I can’t overstate enough how horrible it is to go from being a functional adult with all the joys and sorrows that brings to being a much less functional person in pain every day. That is reality for millions of people. I don’t feel that what GP did was gross. I think it reflects reality for people who suffer on a daily basis, and whose loved ones do.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  > I would support testing on one hundred billion non-human primates It's your choice to support that; but there are only about four million non-human primates on the Earth/or, 400,000 great apes. A good percentage of them are already being tested on.
sidlls 5y ago
There are tons of biomedical research groups testing things on animal subjects. A lot of discovery and progress has been and will continue to be made with that system. And I’d have any number of them tested on if it meant progress toward a cure for any number of conditions afflicting human beings. I don’t think that’s “gross.”
- teachingassist 5y ago
  I dispute this - the results of animal research on therapeutic benefit are massively overstated. Most animal research doesn't have therapeutic benefit as a goal or any prospects of contributing to any therapy. Pretty much none is successful on these terms. e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781970/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781970/ Even so, animal research as a whole is still justified and gets public funds on these terms, without any evidence of results. Can you name one therapy, confidently, perhaps even without searching, that has clearly come out of animal testing? [To answer my own question, the only example that I'm immediately aware of is: thalidomide.] Why, in any other circumstance, would we want to spend a precious resource in unlimited quantity on something that is expensive, unethical, and doesn't work?
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    There are significant problems with generalizing from from animal models to humans. There are also significant problems with the ways this research is authorized and conducted. This is true even if you discount all animal suffering that research creates. However, to claim that animal research hasn't had a massive positive impact on the advancement of biological knowledge and healthcare is not based in reality.
  - sidlls 5y ago
    Vaccines, cancer treatements, anesthetics, and so on. Could some or many of these have been discovered without the use of animals in research? Perhaps--but hindsight is what it is, and I'd rather do research on animals with known and well-trod methodologies to discover these now in parallel with developing new techniques to make these discoveries without the use of animal models; not eschew the models until we have alternate methods.
pie420 5y ago
That's such a privileged thing to say. You most likely don't have a serious illness or generic issue. You also probably eat meat. Most people have no issues sending billions of animals to painful hellish lives on factory farms and slaughterhouses so that they can enjoy a juicy burger. If there was a small chance of curing a disease that caused you pain and suffering every day, in sure you wouldn't hesitate one second before greenlighting any and all testing on primates.
- equitablequal 5y ago
  Why does everything have to be so polarized now? I fear it is because on the internet, people can join and leave an argument as they please. The choice between 'No animal testing whatsoever' and 'greenlighting any and all testing on primates' is a false choice. The right answer is probably 'as close to no animal testing as is possible'. Learn to seek the middle ground with others, hint: try to see it from their point of view
mitchdoogle 5y ago
I don't see how suggesting someone would rather not have a disability is "gross". These kinds of overreactions don't help the situation. Try arguing a point rather than coming from a place of emotion.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  > Try arguing a point rather than coming from a place of emotion. Arguing that someone with a disability should support this because they might benefit, without reason or evidence for that, is an appeal (only) to emotion. I find it ableist, to use disabled people as an abstract hypothetical grouping in this way, only to support a point that is indefensible any other way. If you don't want me to have an emotional reaction, don't set up an emotive point.
  - bigcorp-slave 5y ago
    You know what I find gross and ableist? Using people like me as a tool to argue against the development of treatments that could help us. That is what you’re doing. You are so concerned with the suffering of animals that you are discarding the suffering of humans. You don’t have any evidence the other way either, you are exactly as guilty as the person you are responding to. Except you are arguing against performing research that can help people.
    - teachingassist 5y ago
      I agree that suffering is a risk that we should balance. Your point in the other comment was that you would cause suffering to and sacrifice "hundreds of billions" of primates for a small chance to heal yourself. That's clearly not balanced. I personally don't think that animal testing as it exists today, and given the complete lack of direct results that it has to show us, is balanced either. Do you really value yourself, as a human, trillions of times higher than a chimpanzee? I don't and won't respect that. You saying that, out loud, only makes me wonder how much you internally value other humans.
      - deleted 5y ago
Turing_Machine 5y ago
> especially given that animal testing is not a mechanism which typically results in improved treatment. The technique described in the article absolutely could result in not just "improved treatment", but an actual cure. We know what causes CF. We know what causes many other genetic diseases. Right down to the individual bad DNA segment. And there is absolutely no way those treatments are ever going to be approved without animal testing. Sorry, they just aren't.