Animal testing and its moral & ethical justification:

Key issues: animal experimentation/drug safety/are animal experiments useful?



Summary:
● When is animal testing acceptable?
- when the suffering of the animals is reduced to as much as possible in all experiments;
- when human benefits obtained can not be achieved in any other alternative way;
● When is animal testing unacceptable?
- when animals suffer during the process;
- when the benefits to humans aren't proven;
- when there are alternative means to animal testing available, to gain those benefits for human beings;
● Many consider it justified, for it will result in such major benefits for humans, that it seems morally acceptable to harm a few animals;
● On the contrary so many animals are involved in it, which are in so much pain, that humanly benefits don't make up for the justification of these experiments;
● How can we make it less harsh on the animals?:
- reduction of the number of animals used in the process by ensuring that information and results are shared with other researchers, and also by improving the experimental techniques and data analysis;
- refining the experiment by using the methods which are less harmful; improving the medical care for animals and their living conditions in those research enterprises;
- replacing experiments on animals by other means of testing, such as: extracting cells from animals and performing the tests on those, instead of on the whole animal body; encorporating the usage of computer models; using human volunteers, who don't mind those tests being performed on them, being primarily warned of the possible side effects; using epidemiological studies, which identifies the methods for preventing diseases rather than how to treat them;
● Why can't we simply ban the animal testing all together?
- scientist staye that it would have significant consequences, such as: an end to testing drugs and humans being the only organisms left to experiment on;
● The sole purpose of animal testing is not to prove that the drugs are safe and effective to give to humans, but to highlight that a certain drug could be tested on a person without severe negative effects, for animal testing gets rid of the drugs potentially dangerous to people;
● Not all scientists agree on the statement that animal testing is useful - "a great deal of animal experimentation has been misleading and resulted in either wisholding of drugs, sometimes for years, that were subsequently found to be highly beneficial to humans, or to the release and use of drugs that, though harmless to animals, have actually contributed to human sufferings and death" - says Jane Goodall;
● Not only the moral justification is important, but also the ethical approach of the experimenters towards their subjects - "the lack of ethical self-examination is common and generally involves the denial or avoidance of animal suffering, resulting in the dehumanization of researchers and the ethical degradation of their research subjects" - by John P. Gluck, 1991;
● The advice which John P. Gluck then gave to the scientists is that there should be clear scientific motives of the research and that they have to make themselves aware of the suffering it might cause to the animals, and to try and minimise it to as much as possible;
● These experiments commonly violate animal rigts, and no one's rights should ever be violated according to the morality;
● The argument constatntly ongoing is whether the benefits to humans outweigh the suffering caused to animals?

BBC Ethics Guide;
Experimenting on animals;
(Animal experimentation, Drug safety, Are animal experiments useful?)
16 October, 2011;
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml#h3;

Animal Testing

Drug companies and the cosmetics industries still do a wide variety of tests and trials on animals. Is this cruelty worth the benefits?


"Animal research has contributed to many medical advances which we now take for granted. Antibiotics, anaesthetics, organ transplants and insulin for diabetes are just some of the breakthroughs that have depended on animal research. The polio vaccine alone has saved millions of lives. And Herceptin was not only developed and tested in mice, it actually comes from mice. This modern medicine can save the lives of women with breast cancer." Festing, S. 2008.

So the question is "Does the sanctity of life extend to the rest of the animal kingdom?"

Are these tests really necessary? PETA think not.

"Most of these barbaric and senseless experiments are funding by the federal government using the public’s tax dollars and by health charities, including the American Cancer Society, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the March of Dimes who are wasting precious dollars on cruel, irrelevant experiments on animals instead of spending the money on promising human-based research." PETA. 2011.

What do you think?

References:

Festing, S. 2008. Animal Research Saves Lives. (online article, available 13th October 2011 at http://www.guardian.co.uk)

PETA. 2011. Animal Testing 101. (online article, available 13th October 2011 at http://www.peta.org)

The Hague International Model United Nations

The Hague Intl. Model United Nations conference was held on 8th of October 2011.
When we went to the conference last year we were not very well trained or equipped for the session. This year there was a huge improvement. All the students had a resolution prepared for their specific committees.
I was the delegate of Kenya in the Human Rights Council. The topics of discussion were:
1.Promoting the rejection of doctrines based on racial indoctrination and xenophobia
2.Child welfare in areas of armed conflict
My resolution was based on the promoting the rejection of doctrines. My resolution was mainly co-submitted by Thailand and during the lobbying, appreciated and signed by 7 other delegations. Due to technological faults my final resolution with some amendments by the co submitters could not be printed. Then too, the session turned out be very informative and successful as I could understand all the issues brought out by the delegations, thanks to the research done before the conference. The resolutions prepared by other delegates gave me a better way in which I could plan my resolutions for the upcoming conference.
I found that our topics both had something to do with Education. Resolutions which did not talk about education in either of the topics were not considered good by delegations.
During the General Assembly I got to express my opinion by having the chance to speak at the podium about the issue of racial indoctrination and xenophobia. The resolutions prepared for the G.A. were well set-out, termed appropriately, well-researched.

Pfizer drug scandal

Sept. 2, 2009 Pfizer Drugs Hit With Billion Dollar Fines
The biggest punishment in US drug company history was given to Pfizer a major corporation that made a drug called Bextra or the name of Valdecoxib.
The drug was supposed to be for approved only as an anti-inflammatory related to osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.
In 2009 alone, Pfizer through its subsidiary Pharmacia and Upjohn Company was hit with a 2.3 billion dollar fine with the “intent” to mislead and defraud the public.
The drug giant actually admitted to committing these offenses but the CEO’s never received any punishment, which is entirely a huge mistake. Even though some of the little men that were caught burning paperwork, files and reports a district manager was only charged with home confinement.
Another regional manager was found guilty of distributing a mislabeled drug and was given a slap on the hand of two years probation and a $ 75,000 fine. A small inconvenience and a pittance for multi-national multi-billion dollar corporate giant.
Instead the pharmaceutical marketed the drug through various promotional methods and to doctors as a painkiller.

Pfizer hit with Billions in Fines for Fraud on Bextra
Bextra was approved by the FDA which doesn’t say much these days in 2001 and was pulled in 2005 because of dangerous side effects such as asthma like reactions or breathing difficulties of consumers. However the FDA gave Bextra a five year run of profits for Pfizer of billions of dollars profit in those five years of running a scam in this particular drug.
By expanding it’s uses Pfizer increased sales profits which would come in handy for lawsuits and fines later. The whole scam of approvals and a 5 year run then slapping a ban on these drugs is a fraud that the public is well aware of today.
The major problem with this drug is that it caused heart attacks, stroke and angina besides the serious skin reactions experienced from people who took the drug.
Pfizer also is paying 1 billion to Medicare and other government health insurance schemes to reimburse those organizations for over billing for this drug.
Like a long laundry list of dirty drug company CEOs who should be sharing a jail cell with Bernie Madoff the CEO’s are bent on a “profit at any costs” as the drug company representative testified in court.
Thanks to honest people who still do exist in this world Mr. John Kopchinski an ex-Pfizer sales rep was told to push Bextra at “all costs for all symptoms” and he just could not do it.
He said this drug put people’s lives at risk and he just could not do that as he testified in court he has probably saved millions of people from strokes and possible deaths.
Wyeth Drug Company for lying about breast cancer risks on Prempro and Hormone Replacement Drugs. Wyeth is also being investigated for hiring ghost writers to falsify reports from professional endorsements from retired professors and doctors. Wyeth dictated to these endorsers who’s reputations now are mud, what to say and how to describe the drug’s effectiveness which was all false information. Wyeth should be in court for fraud and other charges however they are still fighting the Prempro cases which gave middle age women -breast cancer and heart attacks.
The state of affairs with the Swine Flu Vaccine which was rushed to the market is that it is now in jeopardy because of the ingredients. As much as the government forced the vaccine through various new laws people defying the government’s call for mandating mass vaccinations for the swine flu. As it turns out the forcing of vaccines by government through drug company lobbyists backfired.
The drug company motto for the past few decades has been to make profits -at any cost -it does not matter how many people get killed in the process.
The next job for President Obama is to clean house and fire the FDA administration especially the top executives who are corrupt and accepting bribes for drug company approvals. It is not a huge surprise that this will continue unless he stops accepting campaign contributions from big pharmas like Pfizer however the public does not believe in the scam system of drug approvals. They follow the money.
TAGS: drug company fined for fraud, Pfizer fined big time, Wyeth falsifies reports, drug company’s gone wild, profits before health, Drug company mottos, Pfizer Fined billions in drug fraud, Valdecoxib, Pfizer mislabels drugs, Pfizer admits to corruption charges, FDA approvals a gimmick for drug industry,

Euthinasia and assisted suicide

What is euthinasia-its the termination of very sick persons life,in order to relieve them from their pains abd suffering
People who undergo euthinasia have incurable condition.in some other casess,rhey just want their lives to
end

Euthinasia is illegal in most coup in the world apart from belgium switzerland

The ethics behind euthinasatia

This topic raises alot of question such as:
*Is it very right to end the life of terminolgy patient who is undergoing severe pain an suffering

*Under what circumstances can euthinasia be justified,if at all

*is there any moral difference between killing someone and letting them die

WHY DO PEOPLE WANT EUTHINASIA

Most people think it is only because of having unbearable pain,some survey from the usa and the netherland show that less than a third of people request euthinasia because of pain
Terminally ill people can have their quality of life severly damaged by physical conditions such nausea,incontinence,breathlessness,paralysis, etc. Also phsycological factors such depression,fearing of loss of dignity,feeling of burden can make peoplethink of euthinasia.

FORMS OF EUTHINASIA
Active and passive
In active euthinasia a person directly causes death but in passive,they dont directly kill the patient but simply just allow him to die.
With active euthinasia,death is brought to you by an act but with passive euthinasia death is brought to you by an ommision. Eg,letting a person die by withdrawing or withholding treatment.

Voluntary and involutary euthinasia
Voluntary euthinasia is when euthunisia occurs at the requst of the person and involuntary is when doesnt have a descision to make a meaningful descison so its done on his behalf.

Plastic surgery and its consequences

- Key points: The consequences of plastic surgery and how it can affect people psychologically and physically:

- Summary:

● the patients who have too much expectations from the plastic surgery can end up being depressed, if the outcome of the operation doesn't meet their expectations. This can lead to the developpement of family problems, social isolation and anger towards the surgeons;
● the dissatisfaction of the outcome of the operation can also cause self-esteem issues;
● although some patients' ego does get boosted enormously and they even start participating in the beauty pageons, without feeling self-consious and having negative body image thoughts;
● the negative outcomes of plastic surgery are sometimes linked with suicide;
● It is risky to perform operations on people younger than 18, since they are still in the stage where they are developping physically and mentally;
● a large proportion of Plastic Surgery patiens experiences body dysmorphic syndrome;
● pmany people who are about to go into the plastic surgery trearment or who have already done it, usually seek assistance from the psychologist, which highlights the link betwen the plastic surgery and the mental state of a person;

● Quotes:

-"Studies have shown that people report increased satisfaction with the body part they had surgery on, but results are mixed on whether plastic surgery boosts their self-esteem, quality of life, self-confidence and interpersonal relationships in the long term";

- "Some studies have even gone as far as linking dissatisfaction with cosmetic surgery procedures to suicide. For example, in one study, the National Cancer Institute found in 2001 that women with breast implants were four times more likely to commit suicide than other plastic surgery patients of the same age as the women who underwent breast implants";

Personal opinion: I think that if a person already has a lot of issues concerning their appearance, then the plastic surgery might not necessarily solve all the problems, since low self-esteem is more of a mental issue, and a person who doesn't love themselves will always find something negative about their appearance;

American Psychological Association;
By Melissa Dittmann;
Plastic surgery: Beauty or beast?
7 October, 2005;
Cosmetic surgery is booming, but what's the mental cost of changing your appearance? Psychologists look to fill in the research gaps.
Link: http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep05/surgery.aspx

Abortion's Hardest Cases

Reference

Time Magazine U.S.

Monday 9 July 1990

Abortion's Hardest Cases: In the Supreme Court and in Louisiana

Last Visit to Site: 10 October 2011

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,970568,00.html

Abortion is a thing that should be stopped world-wide. It is murder, and I am COMPLETELY against it!

This article is about an abortion that took place in Indiana. It's about a seventeen year old girl that got pregnant and didn't want to keep the child so she happened to be in a state where it was possible to have abortions without parental permission. Her parents didn't know about the abortion and she ended up dying from it. It took place in an illegal abortion center. [These do usually not meet a satisfactory standard, and cause a lot of deaths worldwide]. After this case, a new law was put in place stating that every woman under the age of 16 or exactly 16 has to have parental permission and proper discussions with their parents before deciding to have an abortion.

There are also other serious abortion cases on the following pages, but i decided to put this one up as the girl was around our age and we could relate more to it than the other articles.

Christopher Reeve - Stem cells

Summary:

- Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) was an actor (Superman)
- He was thrown from a horse during an equestrian event. Reeve landed on his head and suffered multiple injuries, including two shattered vertebrae, resulting in a C2 spinal cord injury. He stopped breathing for a couple of minutes and the injury blocked almost all neural communication between his brain and body.
- Doctors predicted that he would never have feeling or movement below his head
- He considered suicide after hearing this
- He became an advocate for stemcell research, therapeutic cloning and increased funding for spinal cord injury research.
- He opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center that helps paralysed people live more independently.
- Despite Reeve's heavy therapy his condition didn't improve much during the first five years.
- He was a hero and an inspiration for other living with paralysis and fought for embryonic stem cell research
- He died after having a heart attack during treatment for an infected pressure wound

Quotes:

"Perhaps it's my job to offend some scientists," Reeve told the Lasker Foundation last year after receiving the group's annual award for public service. "I'm not asking them to be reckless or unprofessional, but I do want to reinforce a sense of urgency."

Key points: The story of Christopher Reeve, a man who fought for stem cell research

Source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23222-2004Oct11.html

Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
www.washingtonpost.com

Swedish doctor charged with infant euthanasia

By Dave Andrusko
The details were sketchy but legal proceedings began yesterday in the case of a Swedish doctor accused of alleged infant euthanasia in a children’s hospital.
A 57-year-old doctor, whose name was not disclosed in the story that ran in asiaone.com, “has been charged with manslaughter or alternatively attempted manslaughter for allegedly administering excessive doses of thiopental, an anesthetic” to a three-month-old baby who was born prematurely. If convicted, she faces six to 10 years in prison.
The focus of the story was less on what the doctor was alleged to have done than on the “deep unease among the country’s medical profession” where “legal procedures against doctors are very rare,” according to asiaone.com.
According to the news service, after the doctor consulted with the family and “conclude[ed] that the baby’s life could not be saved,” she removed the child from life support. However in the autopsy that followed, the family learned “that the infant had received abnormally high doses of thiopental, and the family then had charges pressed against the doctor.”
The story quoted Swedish medical officials who took one of two positions. First, that to question yourself is “part of the job,” but if doctors now “think things over a bit more” it can “unnecessarily delay medical care,” according to Marta Christensen, the deputy head of Stockholm’s Association of Medical Practitioners. Alternatively, (according to Professor emeritus Margareta Leijonhufvud) “that in end-of-life medical care, ethical guidelines allow doctors to administer painkillers even if it means death comes sooner than it otherwise would have.”
The latter rationale ignores that the doctor did not ask the parents’ permission to administer a powerful anesthetic. According to the story, having been told the baby could not be saved, they agreed only to remove the child from life support.
The former justification (by Dr. Christensen) implies that asking the parents for authorization to do something she wanted will endanger the way medicine is practice in Sweden. It also included the conclusion that “A sense of insecurity has plagued the entire medical corps.” That may be because malpractice cases typically are heard by the National Board of Health and Welfare “with no criminal ramifications,” according to the news service. http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/09/swedish-doctor-charged-with-infant-euthanasia/

Scientists Use Monkey Clones to Extract Stem Cells

Medical ethics :
Cloning

Scientists in Oregon are now cloning the embryo's of monkeys. This is the first time such cells have been produced in any animal other than a mouse, but the method, could potentially work when cloning humans.

In south korea in 2004 scientists had wanted to do the same thing with humans, although the experiment did not succeed, they proved the cloning of embryo's is not an impossible task.

The monkey stem cells were genetically identical to an adult monkey.Medical researchers hope they could one day use human embryonic stem cells to study diseases and supply replacement cells to treat them. If this could be possible, it will be one of the most successful projects in the medical world as it could save thousands of lives every single year.

An advantage of using cloning to obtain stem cells is that they would genetically match a patient’s cells, making it unnecessary to suppress the immune system if the stem cells are used in treatment. Cloning could also produce stem cells that genetically match patients with complex diseases like Alzheimer’s. That might let scientists study those cells and understand how the diseases progress. This could lead to better knoweldge of these diseases, that could potentially lead to development of mediaction to treat these complex diseases.

For now, scientists only use monkeys. However it is only a matter of time for them to start using humans since their research with monkeys has proved to be successful.
Not only have monkey's embryo cells been cloned. The scientists have recently also cloned heart and nerve cells - the most important factors in a human body as well as in monkeys.
Although most attempts of cloning wats, now scientists have found a method of extracting cells more carefully, making their research more successful. They have not officially cloned any monkeys yet, however it seems to be only a matter of time for it to become a possibility.

source : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/science/15primate.html?ref=cloning

The New York Times
Science division
Research by Dr Mitalipov, lead researcher of the group at Oregon health and science university
and Randall Prather,professor of reproductive biotechnology at the university of Missouri