Aren animal experiments necessary because medicines need to be tested on a whole body?
It is true that experiments in human tissues, etc. cannot always predict what will happen when a drug, for example, is given to a living person. But the question is, can animal tests do better? The answer is that a carefully designed battery of tests in a variety of human tissues, combined with sophisticated computer simulations will give much more accurate and reliable predictions for human responses than animal experiments ever could or ever will. Animals do indeed give results about the whole body – but it is the wrong body! Ultimately, the first truly valid assessment of any new drug comes after it has been given to human volunteers and patients in clinical trials. This does not amount to experimenting on people, which we would never advocate. Ethically conducted clinical trials, with participants’ fully informed consent, make a major contribution to finding and improving treatments for the diseases which blight our lives. Unfortunately, clinical trials are not entirely risk-free –
