THIS HOUSE WOULD BAN ANIMAL TESTING
OPPOSITION
In this debate "testing" should be defined as all testing on animals including, medical research, cosmetics, toxicology testing, and psychological research involving animal subjects. Most existing bans on animal research, when they have been implemented, have involved some form of disciplinary action by a professional body and the possibility of criminal prosecution.
Medical research is the hardest case for proposition in this debate to prove, since it has previously yielded substantial benefits for humanity, while contemporary animal research continues to contribute demonstrably to the speed and efficiency with which new scientific breakthroughs are achieved. Focusing the proposition case on toxicology, or cosmetics alone would divert the debate into an area of law and ethics that is settled in most respects: many states around the world have instituted bans using animals to test cosmetics and the toxicity of domestic cleaning products.
Thus the best proposition strategy is to focus on the hard case of medical research.
Animal research has been used for several centuries as part of efforts to better understand the world around us. Almost all states actively research on animals at present. The total scale of all research on vertebrates is hard to measure, but according to some estimates it could be as high as
115,000,000 animals per year, with the vast majority of these being euthanized at the end of the period of experimentation.
The pharmaceutical industry spends a significant amount of time conducting research on animals. Due to the relative paucity of drugs that make it on to the market place after the initial testing phases, the global cost of each successful new drug in terms of animal lives is around 5.75 million animals. By contrast the now shrinking industry sector on chemical safety testing using animals, uses around 860 animals per chemical when screening for carcinogens (cancer-causing substances).
Whilst much the research described above is categorized as causing minimal pain and suffering, figures obtained in 2010 show that in the USA alone 97,123 animals were used in research likely to involve pain and suffering, where pain killers and sedatives would not be administered.
However, it should be born in mind that this figure is equal to only 8.5% of the total number of animals used in research activities covered by the

US Animal Welfare Act - but the act does not cover mice, rats, birds or fish.
Humans are complex beings with large well developed brains, that form sizeable social groups, have significant ability to communicate with one another, possess interconnected desires, preferences and interests about the world, have an awareness of their own existence and mortality, and as such are beings worthy of moral consideration. Animals too express some of these characteristics to some degree and thus animals too are worthy of moral consideration. However, animal lives and human lives are of unequal value. This is due to the fact that no animal possesses all of these characteristics to the same degree as the average human, or even comes particularly close. Thus any rights ascribed to animals should be truncated relative to the rights we ascribe to humans. Therefore animals should not rightly possess the same rights to not be experimented upon as humans might. To the extent to which causing some harm to animals brings great benefit to humans, we are morally justified in creating some moral harm, to achieve a far greater moral good.
23 new drugs are introduced each year in the United Kingdom alone.
While almost all of these drugs will have been brought to the market after extensive animal testing, the number of animals used to check their safety only seems to be a high cost when the benefits that each drug brings to its users are inadequately considered.
New drugs that are approved for medical use have the potential to relieve human pain and suffering not only for the first group of patients given access to them, but also for future generations of sick and suffering individuals too. Consider all the lives, all over the world, that have benefitted from penicillin since its discovery in 1928. If drugs cost more to research and develop, then that reduces potential profit margins, and some drugs that would have otherwise been discovered and released will fall below the new threshold of likely profits necessary to fund the research. Adopting this proposition will lead to more people suffering and dying in the future than would have otherwise been the case.
Undoubtedly then, the most beneficial research to mankind is the development of truly novel drugs. Even according to the proposition this represents about a quarter of all new drugs released, which could be seen as significant given the great potential to relieve the suffering beyond our current capacity that such drugs promise.
After the effects, side effects and more complex interactions of a drug

have been confirmed using animal and non-animal testing, it will usually pass to what is called a phase I clinical trial - tests on human volunteers to confirm how the drug will interact with human physiology and what dosages it should be administered in. The risk of a human volunteer involved in a phase I trial being harmed is extremely small, but only because animal tests, along with non-animal screening methods are a highly effective way of ensuring that dangerous novel drugs are not administered to humans. In the United Kingdom, over the past twenty years or more, there have been no human deaths as a result of phase I clinical trials.
Novel compounds (as opposed to so-called "me-too" drugs, that make slight changes to an existing treatment) are the substances that hold the most promise for improving human lives and treating previously incurable conditions. However, their novelty is also the reason why it is difficult for scientists to predict whether they may cause harm to humans.
Research into novel compounds would not be possible without either animal testing, or tremendous risk to human subjects, with inevitable suffering and death on the part of the trial volunteers on some occasions.
It is difficult to believe that in such circumstances anyone would volunteer, and that even if they did, pharmaceutical companies would be willing to risk the potential legal consequences of administering a substance to them they knew relatively little about. In short, development of novel drugs requires animal experimentation, and would be impossible under the proposition's policy.
Developed countries, including the US and all members of the EU (since
EU Directive 2010/63/EU) have created laws and professional regulations that prevent scientists from using animals for research if other, non-animal research methods would produce equally clear and detailed results.
The principle described above is also enshrined in the "3Rs" doctrine, which states that researchers and their employers have a duty to identify ways to refine experiments conducted on animals, so that yield better results and cause less suffering; replace animals used in research the nonanimal alternatives where possible; and reduce the number of animals used in research. Not only does the 3Rs doctrine represent a practical way to reconcile the necessity of animal research with the universal human desire not to cause suffering, it also drives scientists to increase the overall quality of the research that they conduct. Governments and academic institutions take the 3Rs doctrine very seriously. In EU countries scientists are required to show that they have considered other methods of research before being granted a license for an animal experiment.

There are a huge number of ways of learning about our physiology and the pathologies, which affect it, including to computer models, cell cultures, animal models, human micro-dosing and population studies.
These methods are used to complement one another, for example animal models may well produce data that creates a computer model.
Nonetheless, there is some research, which cannot be done any other way. It is difficult to understand the interaction of specific sets of genes without being able to change only these genes – something possible through genetically modified animals.
Finally, as noted above, given the high cost of conducting animal research relative to other methods, there is a financial incentive for institutions to adopt non-animal methods where they produce as useful and accurate results.
The vast majority of animals used in research are not subjected to suffering. Where there may be pain, they are given painkillers, and when they are euthanized it is done humanely. They are looked after well, as the health of the animals is usually not only required by law and good practice, but beneficial for the experimental results. Many of these animals live better lives than they might have done had they been born into the wild. Many animals, and indeed humans, die untimely deaths that are due to reasons other than old age, animal experimentation may increase these numbers slightly but so long as the animals are treated well there should be no moral objection to animal research. If the foundation of the argument for banning animal experimentation is therefore based upon the cruel treatment and pain suffered by animals then this is a reason for regulation to make sure there is very little suffering rather than an outright ban.