When Should Animals Be Used in Research?

 In my time at Regis, I have had several classes that have discussed the ethics of the medical field because many people might be going into that field. Some people might even be moving on to becoming researchers and it's important to understand what we can and cannot do. Most if not all doctors will take a hypocratic-like oath to do no harm to other unless it's necessary, and to do good onto others. The medical field can be a dangerous place for those who are not careful and don't understand the rules ethics boards have made. For this post, I wanted to talk more about the use of animals in research as this is also one of the topics that we cover in any ethics class. What makes an animal deserving of beneficence? Does having a vertebra make certain animals more deserving of ethical consideration? 

One interesting paper I found was looking at the idea and seeing whether or not if animals are as good as we think they are. The paper goes on to say that animals have been used as a tool of science since the 18th century and has served as a way for us humans to conduct experiments and understand our own anatomy. It highlights that animal studies have been "invaluable for elucidating general functional similarities, pathways, processes, and guiding the development of hypotheses to test in target animals" (Wall, 2008). Don't get me wrong, animals are important when we can't experiment on what we want to. However, efficacy of the animal model needs to be taken into consideration when doing these studies. If not, it becomes a waste of time, energy, money, and can lead to stress on the animals. Researchers have developed ways to look at what makes a good animal model by using genome sequencing and comparing the knowledge being found with the animal study and applying that to the target animal. I'm not sure how much this has been discussed in other people classes, but this is a new topic for me. How closely do these animals resemble the target animal we want to test treatments on? I guess a lot of this is factored into choosing which animal they will test, but it always raises the question: how many animals models are being wasted through testing? 

Wall, R. J., & Shani, M. (2008). Are animal models as good as we think?. Theriogenology, 69(1), 2–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.theriogenology.2007.09.030