If the recent episode of the BBC's Casualty is to be believed, we should fear animal extremists over angry, brain-washed Muslims.
Anyone who knows just the most rudimentary facts about life in contemporary Britain knows that the Government, businesses, and most of the British citizenry, brow-beaten by political correctness, bend over backwards to avoid offending our Muslim community. A lot of members of this very community are hard-working and loyal to this country, no doubt about it. But if you were going to write a script for a medical drama where a bomb goes off at a British bus station, circa 2007, from what community do you think it's most likely that your bomber originated?…
Article comments
26 - Ray Ellis
Thanks for distilling all of human reason into a meaningless paragraph, Philos. Pity your idea of philosophy came from either (a)Philosophy for Dummies or (b)Spock's Logic 101.
27 - Clavos
An excellent point, Philos.
However it presupposes that killing and eating other animals is somehow immoral.
There's no question that it is immoral for humans to maltreat animals for amusement (e.g.: dogfighting), or even while working them (whipping a team of horses, for example).
But raising and subsequently humanely killing and eating animals is not an immoral act; and is in fact practiced worldwide by literally billions of people, and has been for millenia.
Those who believe it is immoral are a minuscule minority of mankind.
They are entitled to their beliefs (at least in free societies), but are not entitled to force the rest of us to accept and live by their moral view.
28 - Philos
Dave wrote:
"...they could be classing animal rights activists as terrorists because they commit acts of violence and destruction to threaten and terrorize people."
As I said earlier, the numbers of activists promoting violence is a mere handful compared to those millions who are entirely peaceful law-abiding ciitizens, and when someone's sense of the gravity of terrorist threat is so badly disproportionate to the evidence, it is hard not to be suspicious of the motives.
A rapist in Ohio was sentenced to 15 years in prison for beating and raping a 57-year-old woman, while an environmental activist in California was sentenced to 22 years for burning three SUVs at a car dealership- after taking precautions to harm no humans. Something is wrong with this picture.
When government and industry assigns more value to property than to human lives, you can suspect that there is something else going on here. And indeed there is. As usual, it's called follow the dollar!
Dave continued:
"And it could just be that we're calling them "anti-human," "anti-science," and "responsible for violent and illegal acts" because that's exactly what they are."
A few violent acts do not justify labeling an entire group as terrorists. There are many other groups, neo-Nazis, abortion clinic bombers, etc. who are much more violent and actually kill people. As Senator Lautenberg asked, "Who's next--Right to life. The Sierra Club?"
That leaves us with your two unsupported assertions that animal advocates are "anti-human," and "anti-science." You haven't presented any evidence for that??
29 - Philos
Ray,
You don't have any argument, eh?? That figures.
30 - Ray Ellis
Ah, but I do. You use "moral" as the basis for all your argument. "Ethical" would have given it weight. Morality varies from culture, and changes from generation to generation. Ethics are a constant.
All life is dependent on other life for its survival. Humans could not survive without insects, but we think nothing of stamping them out. We don't concern ourselves overmuch at the loss of a tree, either.
Your implication that eating meat is somehow "immoral" is blatantly absurd. There is a huge difference between eating meat, or wearing leather, and the wanton abuse of a living creature.
31 - Philos
Clavos wrote:
"...humanely killing and eating animals is not an immoral act; and is in fact practiced worldwide by literally billions of people, and has been for millenia...Those who believe it is immoral are a minuscule minority of mankind."
First, this is simply false. It is not a "miniscule minority". The fact that you can say this indicates a lack of knowledge of different cultures. There are billions of people and many cultures worldwide that are vegetarian...Indian culture for example. [One figure I read was that 40% of the earth's people are vegetarian, but I'll research the question].
Back to the more important question you raise. The fact that billions of people might do something is not an argument that it is right. The majority used to believe that owning slaves was moral and that women should not have the right to vote. Now we know that both of these majority views were morally wrong. History provides us with many examples.
So it is completely fallacious to argue that something is right because the majority believes or practices it.
Clavos continued: "They are entitled to their beliefs...but are not entitled to force the rest of us to accept and live by their moral view."
Society "forces" beliefs on people every day when we say it is wrong to murder, steal, lie, pollute the environment, etc., and enforce these laws.
If you think morality is just a matter of personal choice that shouldn't be "forced" on others, then you'd have to say that putting thieves in jail or ostracizing liars from your circle of friends is "forcing others". Of course that is nonsense. Most people accept that some things are morally wrong and that it is perfectly proper for society (and individuals) to try and force morality on others.
Moral issues are usually issues that affect or harm others and we don't have a right to harm others.
Slaughtering animals is a moral issue in the same way that cheating, killing, stealing, and polluting are all moral issues. It is not simply a matter of taste, where you prefer meat and I prefer veggies.
Morality is not left "to each his own" like a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice-cream.
32 - Philos
Ray wrote:
"Humans could not survive without insects, but we think nothing of stamping them out. We don't concern ourselves overmuch at the loss of a tree, either."
Animal-rights activists are concerned with sentient beings...those who can feel pain and experience. I have seen no evidence that insects feel pain and certainly I don't think trees feel pain. For one thing plantlife does not have a central nervous system...which is generallly considered necessary for feeling pain. If you have an argument that insects and trees feel pain, then I'd like to hear it.
33 - Ray Ellis
No, Philos-- do you have an argument that they don't? You've set yourself up as the arbiter of philosophy and morality. But you fall back on the human as a "steward of nature", holding dominion over all. You assume that because their "sentience" is alien to our own, they feel nothing. There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.
Your arguments are based on assumptions, and are therefore invalid. Native American cultures held all life equal. You lump all Indian cultures together, claiming they're vegetarian. In fact, Hindus eat pork, poultry and fish--only beef is forbidden.
And you keep using "morality" as if it were synonymous with "ethics". Our laws spring from our need for survival as a population, not from some preconceived notion of right and wrong.
34 - Philos
Ray wrote:
"Morality varies from culture, and changes from generation to generation. Ethics are a constant."
The idea that morality can be whatever different cultures believe it is, is called moral relativism, which is a false doctrine. Morality is objective. The rightness or wrongness of an action is not left up to individual opinion. It is "out there" so to speak, a truth waiting for us to examine and discover.
Here's a simple thought experiment some philosophers use to demonstrate that morality is objective.
Would you say it is "really" morally wrong to torture babies just for fun? If you say yes, then you are committing yourself to the view that morality is objective and not simply a matter of what different cultures or people believe.
As I mentioned earlier, in the past, many thought slavery was moral. Now we know it isn't. The wrongness of slavery wasn't just a matter of opinion. But just because there are differing opinions between people or across cultures about what is right or wrong does not mean that both of them are right. And some opinions are moral issues and some are not.
I prefer chocolate ice-cream --you prefer vanilla. That is a matter of taste, so there is no moral right or wrong involved.
I think everyone should get 8 hrs. sleep -- you think 6 will do. Those are differing opinions. Either of us may be right (or wrong depending on what science tells us about how much sleep we need) so we research it and decide who is correct. But it isn't a moral issue.
Robbing and killing people is wrong...and opinion has nothing to do with it. Polluting the environment, euthanasia, abortion, meat-eating are also moral issues. People may disagree about which is the right position to hold in each case --and careful examination of the arguments is needed to determine the rightness or wrongness in each case-- but the rightness or wrongness is not simply a matter of opinion.
35 - Ray Ellis
Actually, those are all ethical issues. And I'll tell you why. Morality is a product of a given culture or religion. Ethics are a universal hardwired into our brains. An example: It used to be considered "immoral" to live with a person of the opposite sex without benefit of marriage vows. That view had nothing to do with right or wrong--it was societal conditioning.
Now we can split academic hairs all day, but it doesn't change the fact you've done nothing to prove your position that eating meat is immoral.
36 - Philos
Ray asked:
"No, Philos-- do you have an argument that [insects and trees] don't feel pain?"
No, nor do I have an argument that rocks _don't feel pain_, but scientists seem to agree that a central nervous system is necessary for feeling pain which trees and rocks definitely don't have. Insects have a rudimentary central nervous system, although the science is not in about whether or not they feel pain. We'll have to wait on the scientific evidence about the insects.
But more importantly, I don't have to prove a negative! You're the one who implied that insects and trees do feel pain, so the burden of proof is on you to provide some evidence for that claim. If they do, then I might object to killing them.
One thing we know for sure though is that cows, pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, horses, and goats feel pain. Just because there are some fuzzy cases like insects doesn't mean there aren't clear cases all around us.
37 - Nancy
A simple & easy solution to animal experimentation would be to use violent offender prisoners instead. This would allow society to get a measure of reparation from these maggots, by having them serve the interests of the fellow humans they have grievously (& terminally) harmed, & give the researchers an actual human experimentation model which reacts correctly physically, instead of animal models which frequently do not. A bonus is that the prisoners can speak & therefore report valuable addenda as well, instead of researchers having to infer side effects from visual results. If I'm going to have to pay to keep murderers, rapists, & child molesters alive, fed, & housed, I/society may as well get something for it from them in return.
38 - Ray Ellis
Nancy, if you haven't already met, please allow me to introduce Dexter. j/k
Philos-- you may not have to prove a negative, but you've failed to prove anything. You cant prove the relative.
39 - Philos
Ray wrote: "Now we can split academic hairs all day"...
You're the one splitting hairs with silly questions about insects and trees feeling pain, which doesn't leave much time to address the serious questions.
Ray continued: "...you've done nothing to prove your position that eating meat is immoral."
I can provide numerous arguments from several different directions, but how about we start with the simplest one:
A world with less pain and suffering is better than a world with more pain and suffering. And since eating meat is unnecessary to health and causes enormous pain and suffering to animals, we shouldn't do it.
40 - Nancy
No thanks. Why do you find my solution to be objectionable? Do you feel these creeps ought to be housed and fed for the rest of their lives at public expense just 'because'? IMO when they committed their crimes, they forfeited any claims to rights as a human being. So why not use them so that for once in their lives, they're of use to humanity? At least they earned their status as subjects; animals have not.
41 - Clavos
Philos,
One simple question:
Who besides you agrees that eating meat is morally wrong? Did god tell you that? If not, who did?
And if it was god, whose? The god of Christianity? Islam? Judaism? The gods of the polytheistic religions?
Who decrees what is moral or not?
Besides Ray is right; eating animals is not a moral question.
42 - Ray Ellis
I have a better idea, Philos. Why don't we deal with the more complex issues, and get off Philosophy 101? For every simplistic Western philosophy you bring up, I can counter with an Eastern one.
The fact remains that the world is not Utopian, and it's not made up of good things and bad things. Things simply "are." Have you considered what would happen to the deer population if man did not hunt them? Mind you, I'm not a hunter, and I in no way condone trophy hunting. But a simple fact remains: if man were not there (since man is the deer's main predator in America) the deer population would mushroom, and they would face starvation.
I could go on with realities, but you'd attempt to counter with some babble about the nature of morality--a subject which you have yet to address save in the narrowest parameters.
You still don't get it. Morals are man-made, a product of social and religious mores. Ethics are eternal.
43 - Philos
Clavos,
I don't think morality is decreed any more than the law of gravity is decreed. They are both things to be discovered.
Anyway I didn't suggest anyone degrees it, I gave an argument for it. If you disagree then you should be able to say what is wrong with the argument.
44 - handyguy
Clavos, Philos is far from the only person to have moral qualms about the food industry and its mass production of food animals. Even non-radical non-vegetarians like me can find it disturbing that giant businesses force animals to live in their own filth in cage-like, massively crowded conditions.
It's not necessarily healthy for us to eat food produced this way either [every time you hear about salmonella in salads or in chickens, the waste policies of these factory farms are to blame]. I can comprehend why this could radicalize someone. Can't you? Read Fast Food Nation for more fun facts in this vein.
45 - Philos
Ray wrote:
"The fact remains that the world is not Utopian, and it's not made up of good things and bad things. Things simply "are."
Then you'd have to say that it is neither a good thing nor a bad thing for someone "to torture babies just for fun", as I asked you to address in an earlier post?? If you accept that it is really wrong to "torture babies just for fun" then you have to admit that there are some bad things, therefore your claim that "the world is not composed of good and bad things" cannot be right.
46 - Mark Edward Manning
Nancy: "A simple & easy solution to animal experimentation would be to use violent offender prisoners instead."
Hear, hear! A great idea, one that should definitely be put into practice and one in which vivisection would be a hell of a lot more accurate but it would never make it past the gates due to the nutjobs on both the politically correct, human-rights worshipping Left and the Religious Right.
47 - Ray Ellis
Semantics bore me-- they're the last defense of somebody without a valid argument. And silly arguments relying on semantics are even more pointless.
You can skirt issues all you want. From the point of view of the Universe, you can't strip it down to such easy questions. If A had not happened, then B would not have happened, in which case, C (where we are now) would not exist.
The subject of "torturing babies for fun" is not germaine to the original discussion. Please focus.
48 - handyguy
Meanwhile, the 4 most popular articles on this site currently are about Britney Spears, and the 5th is about that star of High School Musical and her nude pics. It's good to know we have such a serious, high-minded readership.
49 - Clavos
handy,
If you've read my comments carefully, you'll see that the thrust of my arguments are in response to the question of the morality of eating animals, not really the conditions under which they are bred and raised; that's a separate set of issues which I don't believe I've addressed; at least not in this thread.
Unless I've seriously misunderstood Philos' arguments, he's not concerned so much with the nature of the commercial meat industry as he is with what he considers the immorality of meat-eating as a practice.
50 - handyguy
This article is now in the top 5, apparently because of my mentioning you-know-who in my previous comment. Yeesh.
51 - Clavos
handy #48:
H.L. Mencken had it right.
52 - Clavos
"I don't think morality is decreed any more than the law of gravity is decreed"
Apples and pears, Philos. Newton scientifically proved the existence of gravity.
Where's the scientific proof of what constitutes morality, especially the universal morality you postulate?
Why, for instance (I'll make it easy), is murder immoral? What makes it so?
53 - zingzing
"A simple & easy solution to animal experimentation would be to use violent offender prisoners instead."
hrm. wouldn't that be unusual punishment?
loading someone up with drugs or cutting them open or experimenting on their brain is just sick, nancy. same to you, rj.
that's a nasty idea. one can only hope that you are never falsely imprisoned and have your brain replaced with an empty beer can and the latest 50 cent album.
54 - Philos
Clavos wrote:
"Unless I've seriously misunderstood Philos' arguments, he's not concerned so much with the nature of the commercial meat industry as he is with what he considers the immorality of meat-eating as a practice."
I'm concerned about both, but the nature of the meat industry and the horrific treatment of animals is paramount. Over 10 billion animals a year are produced for food in the US alone. In order to produce that many animals at an affordable price (so they fit on the fast food value menu), they must be crowded, mistreated and tortured. That's morally (or ethically, if you prefer) inexcusable. But it wouldn't be right to kill them even if they were treated well, since they have lives of their own and we don't need to breed and kill them for food.
There are other moral issues with breeding animals that concern me, as well:
The Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics-vol.16-pp.505-511 says that on average, you have to plant about eight times as much land in crops to feed to the animals --to then feed to us --as you would need to plant crops to feed us directly. If we didn't use the land to crow crops to feed animals that land could be used to feed the starving people of the world.
Livestock production takes a heavy toll on the environment. Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that "switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius."
A recent 400 page UN reportcalled "Livestock's Long Shadow" says "that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, and [planes] in the world combined."
Here's the link to the UN report and Here's a link to a great cover photo and article from Rolling Stone Magazine.
55 - Ray Ellis
Aha! The truth comes out at last--and what a surprising truth it was.Unfortunately, Philos, you could drive a hybrid vehicle through the holes in your logic.
Animals and humans have coexisted for millenia, and from earliest times, the relationship between them has been symbiotic.
You've gone from faulty philosophy to pseudo-science in a single bound. You do those of us who are truly concerned about the environment, and the steps we need to take to preserve it,when you link vegan babble to the environment.
I don't advocate the mistreatment of animals in any fashion-- but your arguments are just plain silly now. And I think you have served to eloquently illustrate Manning's original point.
Nice work.
56 - Philos
Clavos asked:
"Why...is murder immoral? What makes it so?
Either murder really is wrong or it is not. If you agree that it is wrong, then you're agreeing that there is a real right and wrong. If so, then we see eye-to-eye on that point, and the meat-eating debate can proceed from there.
However, once we're discussing the rightness or wrongness of meat-eating it is not a relevant reply to then ask "is anything right or wrong", because we have already agreed on that.
If you really doubt that murder (or torturing babies just for fun) is wrong, then I don't know what to say to you. There are answers to this kind of question-- about whether or not morality exists at all -- but it would require presenting a philosophical treatise.
If you're seriously interested in exploring that question I recommend Ronald Dworkin's "Truth and Objectivity: You'd Better Believe It", which can probably be found online.
57 - Philos
Again Ray Ellis provides us with no argument about anything...only nonsense.
For anyone seriously interested in the environment, in a previous post I've provided a link to the 408 page UN report about the environmental destruction caused by livestock production and the recent University of Chicago report is also available online.
58 - Ray Ellis
I was rather expecting a response like that from you, Philos.
Tell me, how is posing a question nonsense? I've seen nothing but platitudes and rhetoric from you--oh--and a link to a 408 page report. Yet, you quote not one sentence from it.
What is your solution for the Earth's woes, Philos? You've yet to provide one. You have no problem stating what is wrong in the world according to Philos, but you've yet to even hint at a solution.
And I'll tell you what-- driving a Prius make you feel all warm and green, but the problems we face are a helluva lot more serious than cows feeding on land that could be reserved for vegans.
59 - Philos
Ray, you need to go back to the Britney Spears page and try not to get lost again.
60 - Clavos
Sorry, Philos.
I will leave the discussion here, because I can't even think about accepting your basic premises in re what's wrong with meat eating, as presented in your #54; to wit:
"...the nature of the meat industry and the horrific treatment of animals is paramount. Over 10 billion animals a year are produced for food in the US alone. In order to produce that many animals at an affordable price (so they fit on the fast food value menu), they must be crowded, mistreated and tortured."
There are a number of viewpoints about that issue, but accepting for the sake of argument that every meat producer is cruelly mistreating animals, the problem is easy enough to fix with legislation and regulation of the industry. However, as I said, there are many opinions on the severity and extent, and even whether or not there is a problem on this issue.
"But it wouldn't be right to kill them even if they were treated well, since they have lives of their own and we don't need to breed and kill them for food."
I will agree that we don't need to "breed and kill them for food," but the question of whether it's right or not is not empirical, and I don't agree (nor do millions of people) that it's wrong. This is not an issue; it's a question of opinion (or preference).
"The Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics-vol.16-pp.505-511 says that on average, you have to plant about eight times as much land in crops to feed to the animals --to then feed to us --as you would need to plant crops to feed us directly."
I'll accept the truth of that, though I've not researched it myself for opposing opinions.
"if we didn't use the land to crow crops to feed animals that land could be used to feed the starving people of the world."
We could do that, but we don't need to. People are not starving because there's not enough food to go around, but because the distribution of the food we already produce is political. Witness the millions of tons of grain we (the US) waste every year propping up the price of grain; that would feed a lot of people, but doesn't. Even though the US does donate large quantities of foodstuffs annually to the third world, much of it never reaches the people it's meant to feed, it's sold (not by the US, by those to whom it's delivered). I have personally seen bags of grain for sale in Third World marketplaces, clearly marked with "shaking hands" logo of USAID.
There is still ample room in the temperate parts of the world, to grow even more food than is already produced, but no incentive to do so until the whole thing is de-politicized.
"Livestock production takes a heavy toll on the environment. Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that "switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.""
Here, you really lose me. The whole GW issue is a purely political one as far as I'm concerned. I don't accept the basic premise that GW is largely anthropogenic. That's an entire other issue, which I would be glad to debate (perhaps you'd like to write an article?), but which would be totally off-topic here, so I won't even get into it.
61 - Ray Ellis
Philos, I take it by your puerile reply, you're stumped.
Better luck nest time.
62 - Philos
Clavos wrote:
"...the question of whether it's right [slaughtering and eating animals] or not is not empirical, and I don't agree (nor do millions of people) that it's wrong. This is not an issue; it's a question of opinion (or preference)."
It's no less a moral issue than the other moral issues I mentioned earlier like killing humans, euthanasia, stealing, cheating, and polluting the environment.
Moral issues are usually issues that affect or harm others and no one has a right to harm others. If anyone thinks it is wrong to harm humans needlessly, but it is okay to harm animals needlessly, then they need to explain what the morally relevant difference is between the two cases. This of course, leads to some of the main (and lengthy) philosophical arguments for animal rights.
Anti-animal folk have not managed to provide a morally relevant trait that includes all humans, while excluding all the other animals. If anyone thinks it is easy, try to come up with one and maybe I'll find time in the next week to respond.
Otherwise, I'm going to say so long Clavos, I've enjoyed debating with you.
63 - Ray Ellis
And so it ends--not with a bang, but a whimper. "Some say the world will wnd in fire, some in ice."
64 - Cindy D
Eating one of the things I have been adapted to eat--meat--is hardly a moral issue.
Humane treatment of animals, now that is a moral issue.
"Anti-animal folk have not managed to provide a morally relevant trait that includes all humans, while excluding all the other animals."
Animals do not engage in moral thinking. Humans do.
(P.S. I hope its okay to answer despite the fact that I am not "anti-animal.")
65 - Clavos
I don't think anyone commenting on this thread is "anti-animal," Cindy.
But apparently, others do.
66 - Cindy D
I wonder if Philos will consider "thinking about moral issues" a relevant trait.
67 - Ray Ellis
Cindy--he's had the better part of a week to consider those issues. I wouldn't bank on any relevance, though.
68 - Charles
Cindy wrote (citing Philos):
" 'Anti-animal folk have not managed to provide a morally relevant trait that includes all humans, while excluding all the other animals.'
"Animals do not engage in moral thinking. Humans do."
This is a good example for Philos's point. Is engaging in moral thinking something that includes all humans and excludes all other animals?
Focus on the first part. Does it include all humans? No, none of us has engaged in moral thinking for all of our lives--when we were babies, for example. Some of us, those who are handicapped or disabled in various ways may not even have the potential.
So, even if no other animal engages in moral thinking (some ethologists might dispute that), moral thinking may exclude all other animals, but it doesn't include all humans.
If we still don't think it's OK to raise and kill handicapped children for food, then something's wrong with "engaging in moral thinking" as a morally relevant difference between animals and humans--that is, one that makes _enough_ difference that it is (supposedly) alright to eat the animals but not the babies.
It's back the drawing board. (Not back to the dinner table!)
Charles
69 - Clavos
First of all, as Ray has pointed out repeatedly in this thread, whether or not we eat animals is an ethical, not a moral question.
You AVs hurt your own argument by insisting it's a moral issue, because, as Ray also pointed out, morality is not absolute throughout all of humanity; each set of mores is decided by the society that observes it; what is moral here may be considered to be immoral elsewhere. Since this society long ago decided there was nothing wrong with eating meat, it is obviously not immoral to do so in this society.
It's not sematics that the organization is named PETA, and not PMTA.
70 - Cindy D
Charles,
I want to include insects (maybe even germs) in the moral quandary. How do you think this would play out?
This is perfectly reasonable to do. After all Jains already do.
What do you think of eliminating farming because farming could kill insects?
71 - Squirrel
This society also 'decided long ago there was nothing wrong' in making people into slaves and oppressing women, so does that mean it is 'not immoral to do so' or will people in the far future look back on meat eating as something done long ago by people who didn't know any better, as we do with regard to the slavers and oppressors of women? Your arguement holds no water.
72 - 4mula1
hey mr. clavos, thats like saying society LONG AGO decided the world is flat.. its the meat n dairy (milk is for baby cows, get soymilk) that lead to heart attack, stroke, ed, PAD, ect..
73 - 4mula1
over 200 charities no longer fund animal research (peta). over 95% of u.s. medical schools no longer offer animal lab (pcrm). animal research has never been validated (pcrm). "currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory animal studies" said health and human services secretary mike leavitt. (acs, su2c, susan g. komen, ect) "there is a laundry list of problems with mouse models of cancer research" dr.bob weinburg, director of the ludwig center for cancer research at m.i.t. (march of dimes) "work on prevention of polio was long delayed by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys" albert sabin, m.d., during a 1984 house subcommittee. in over a quarter of a century, more than 85 hiv vaccines were developed that demonstrated benefits in nonhuman primates but all failed in at least 200 human trails (pcrm). every year charities spend 100s of millions of dollars on animal research. how many more millions (billions?!) before they stop being so gullible.. does your charity still (think the world is flat) fund animal research?...
74 - Mark Edward Manning
"Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory animal studies," said health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt."
That says it all.
75 - Dr Dreadful
What 4mula1 (and PETA) fails to grasp is that the failure of 9 out of 10 drugs at the clinical trials stage is a GOOD thing. It means bad drugs aren't flooding the market.
As he (she?) quite rightly observes (but comes to the wrong conclusion), a drug may have the desired effect when tested on animals but may not work on humans. This is why we HAVE clinical human trials.
This is standard operating procedure, people, not some kind of scandal.