Haven’t animal experiments resulted in medical advances?
Animal experiments have been a part of medical research for centuries, and many millions are conducted every year. It would be absurd if some of those experiments had not led to some progress, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries when so little was known about how human and animal bodies function. However, due to species differences and other limitations of animal experiments for predicting what happens in humans, very many experiments on rats, mice, rabbits, primates and other animals have produced misleading information. The government’s advisory committee has admitted that the validity of animal experiments cannot be assumed and would need to be demonstrated on a case-by-case basis. Where the reliability of animal experiments for medical progress has been independently analysed, many were shown either to have been conducted badly or to have wrongly predicted human outcomes.
Animal experiments have been a part of medical research for centuries, and many millions are conducted every year. It would be absurd if some of those experiments had not led to some progress, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries when so little was known about how human and animal bodies function. However, due to species differences and other limitations of animal experiments for predicting what happens in humans, very many experiments on rats, mice, rabbits, primates and other animals have produced misleading information. The government’s advisory committee has admitted that the validity of animal experiments cannot be assumed and would need to be demonstrated on a case-by-case basis. Where the reliability of animal experiments for medical progress has been independently analysed, many were shown either to have been conducted badly or to have wrongly predicted human outcomes. For some diseases where little progress has been made in spite of decades of animal experiments, the conc
