Cancer Research in Animals: Is causing disorders and disease in animals moral?

[ethereality]

Common in cancer research is implanting tumors of various human origin into mice (or other animals such as dogs or pigs), experimenting on them, and then “sacrificing” or euthanizing them after a certain amount of time: near the end of the experiment, at the point of data collection, or when the tumor reaches a certain size.

Is this practice moral? Is it moral to cause disorders and disease in animals – and how can we really estimate pain or discomfort they might feel? – and alter their natural lives, indeed, treating them as objects, to learn more about human ailments? There are a few issues involved here:

• causing disorder within an animal
• treating a living being as an object
• causing artificial environments for the animals (i.e. creating external disorder for them)

Questions coming to mind include:

• Are these means intrinsically evil?
• Does the principle of double effect apply, namely, that these evils are neither intended nor directly caused? (I’m not an expert: Perhaps this can also be formulated as when one good is directly caused while simultaneously and necessarily causing another evil.)

What are your thoughts?

 

[meltzerboy]

Common in cancer research is implanting tumors of various human origin into mice (or other animals such as dogs or pigs), experimenting on them, and then “sacrificing” or euthanizing them after a certain amount of time: near the end of the experiment, at the point of data collection, or when the tumor reaches a certain size.

Is this practice moral? Is it moral to cause disorders and disease in animals – and how can we really estimate pain or discomfort they might feel? – and alter their natural lives, indeed, treating them as objects, to learn more about human ailments? There are a few issues involved here:

• causing disorder within an animal
• treating a living being as an object
• causing artificial environments for the animals (i.e. creating external disorder for them)

Questions coming to mind include:

• Are these means intrinsically evil?
• Does the principle of double effect apply, namely, that these evils are neither intended nor directly caused? (I’m not an expert: Perhaps this can also be formulated as when one good is directly caused while simultaneously and necessarily causing another evil.)

What are your thoughts?

Judaism advocates the humane treatment of animals at all times, even when killing them for food. However, human life always takes precedence, so that if a human life can be saved or its quality improved, and the only means of doing so consists of animal research which may cause disorder–physical or psychological–or disease, then the research is permissible, perhaps even required. Apart from what Judaism’s perspective may be though, I personally view this intentional or highly likely procedure of inflicting pain and disease as immoral since animals are sentient beings who suffer and die as a result. Although I am a psychologist, the branch of psychology I specialize in usually does not engage in animal research, whereas some other branches do. While I completely understand the potential human benefits this research offers and sympathize with those individuals and their families who count on such research, I cannot bring myself to support it morally.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

I think, as long as the animals are being treated humanely in every other regard (ie. access to plenty of food and water, sanitary enclosures, toys to play with to keep them stimulated, etc), then there should be no problem here. I can’t think of the name of the place, but there is a medical college which owns a pig farm and utilizes the pigs as test subjects for surgeons in training (performing surgical training sessions on human cadavers or animal carcasses is not the same as working with a living, breathing, anesthetized subject). When the pigs aren’t recuperating from the training sessions, they’re free to run about in their open air enclosures and play with each other. Sometimes, they do end up dying due to Things Going Wrong during a training session, but it’s better than having the surgeon make a mistake through improper training, while performing the procedure on a human.

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Our lives are dependent upon the deaths of others”. He was speaking about soldiers dying to protect their countries, but I think it applies to a much broader perspective. I’ve had multiple surgeries to save my life and fix the serious imperfections left by nature, and I’m grateful for the expertise of the surgeons who worked to repair my physical side. If they learned by performing surgeries on pigs or some other large animal, in order to be better at it, I’m cool with it, and I’m grateful to the animals who may have had to give their lives to protect the lives of the humans.

 

[severus68]

Judaism advocates the humane treatment of animals at all times, even when killing them for food. However, human life always takes precedence, so that if a human life can be saved or its quality improved, and the only means of doing so consists of animal research which may cause disorder–physical or psychological–or disease, then the research is permissible, perhaps even required. Apart from what Judaism’s perspective may be though, I personally view this intentional or highly likely procedure of inflicting pain and disease as immoral since animals are sentient beings who suffer and die as a result. Although I am a psychologist, the branch of psychology I specialize in usually does not engage in animal research, whereas some other branches do. While I completely understand the potential human benefits this research offers and sympathize with those individuals and their families who count on such research, I cannot bring myself to support it morally.

I share your personal view.

 

[thistle]

Common in cancer research is implanting tumors of various human origin into mice (or other animals such as dogs or pigs), experimenting on them, and then “sacrificing” or euthanizing them after a certain amount of time: near the end of the experiment, at the point of data collection, or when the tumor reaches a certain size.

Is this practice moral? Is it moral to cause disorders and disease in animals – and how can we really estimate pain or discomfort they might feel? – and alter their natural lives, indeed, treating them as objects, to learn more about human ailments? There are a few issues involved here:

• causing disorder within an animal
• treating a living being as an object
• causing artificial environments for the animals (i.e. creating external disorder for them)

Questions coming to mind include:

• Are these means intrinsically evil?
• Does the principle of double effect apply, namely, that these evils are neither intended nor directly caused? (I’m not an expert: Perhaps this can also be formulated as when one good is directly caused while simultaneously and necessarily causing another evil.)

What are your thoughts?

The Church teaching:

CCC 2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure.** Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.**