Animal testing - What are they, types and alternatives

Content

• What are animal tests
• Types of Animal Experiments
• History of animal testing
• Start of animal testing
• the Middle Ages
• Transition to the Modern Age
• The Contemporary Age
• Alternatives to Animal Testing
• Pros and Cons of Animal Testing

Animal testing is a hotly debated subject, and if we dig a little deeper into recent history, we'll see that this is nothing new. It is very present in the scientific, political and social sphere.

Since the second half of the 20th century, animal welfare has been debated, not only for laboratory animals, but also for domestic animals or the livestock industry.

In this article by PeritoAnimal, we will make a short review of the history about the animal tests starting with its definition, the types of animal experiments existing and the possible alternatives.

What are animal tests

Animal tests are experiments performed from the creation and use of animal models for scientific purposes, whose goal is generally to extend and improve the lives of humans and other animals, such as pets or livestock.

animal research is mandatory in the development of new drugs or therapies that will be used in humans, in accordance with the Nuremberg Code, after the barbarities that were committed with humans in World War II. According to the Declaration of Helsinki, biomedical research in humans "should be based on properly conducted laboratory tests and animal experimentation".

Types of Animal Experiments

There are many types of animal experiments, which vary by field of research:

• Agrifood research: study of genes with agronomic interest and development of transgenic plants or animals.
• Medicine and veterinary: disease diagnosis, vaccine creation, disease treatment and cure, etc.
• Biotechnology: protein production, biosafety, etc.
• Environment: analysis and detection of contaminants, biosafety, population genetics, migration behavior studies, reproductive behavior studies, etc.
• genomics: analysis of gene structures and functions, creation of genomic banks, creation of animal models of human diseases, etc.
• Drugstore: biomedical engineering for diagnosis, xenotransplantation (creating organs in pigs and primates for transplantation in humans), creation of new drugs, toxicology, etc.
• Oncology: tumor progression studies, creation of new tumor markers, metastases, tumor prediction, etc.
• Infectious diseases: study of bacterial diseases, antibiotic resistance, studies of viral diseases (hepatitis, myxomatosis, HIV...), parasitic (Leishmania, malaria, filariasis...).
• neuroscience: study of neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer), study of nervous tissue, pain mechanisms, creation of new therapies, etc.
• Cardiovascular diseases: heart disease, hypertension, etc.

History of animal testing

The use of animals in experiments is not a current fact, these techniques have been used for a long time. before classical greece, specifically, since Prehistory, and proof of this are the drawings of the interior of the animals that can be observed in caves, made by the ancients. homo sapiens.

Start of animal testing

The first researcher to work with animal experiments that has been recorded was Alcman of Crotona, which in 450 BC cut an optic nerve, causing blindness in an animal. Other examples of early experimenters are Alexandria Herophilus (330-250 BC) who showed the functional difference between nerves and tendons using animals, or galen (AD 130-210) who practiced dissection techniques, showing not only the anatomy of certain organs, but also their functions.

the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages represent a backwardness for science due to three main causes, according to historians:

1. The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the disappearance of knowledge contributed by the Greeks.
2. The invasion of barbarians from much less developed Asian tribes.
3. The expansion of Christianity, which did not believe in bodily principles, but in spiritual ones.

THE arrival of Islam in Europe it did not serve to increase medical knowledge, as they were against performing autopsies and autopsies, but thanks to them all lost information from the Greeks was recovered.

In the fourth century, there was a heresy within Christianity in Byzantium that caused part of the population to be expelled. These people settled in Persia and created the first medical school. In the 8th century, Persia was conquered by the Arabs and they appropriated all the knowledge, spreading it through the territories they conquered.

Also in Persia, in the 10th century, the physician and researcher was born Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna. Before the age of 20, he published more than 20 volumes on all the known sciences, in which, for example, one on how to perform a tracheostomy appears.

Transition to the Modern Age

Later in history, during the Renaissance, performing autopsies gave a boost to knowledge of human anatomy. In England, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) in his writings on experimentation stated the need to use animals for the advancement of science. Around the same time, many other researchers seemed to support Bacon's idea.

On the other hand, Carlo Ruini (1530 – 1598), veterinarian, jurist and architect, portrayed the entire anatomy and skeleton of the horse, as well as how to cure some diseases of these animals.

In 1665, Richard Lower (1631-1691) performed the first blood transfusion between dogs. He later tried to transfuse blood from a dog to a human, but the consequences were fatal.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) demonstrated, through the use of animals, that air is essential for life.

In the 18th century, animal testing increased considerably and the first contrary thoughts began to appear and the awareness of pain and suffering of the animals. Henri Duhamel Dumenceau (1700-1782) wrote an essay on animal experimentation from an ethical point of view, in which he said: “every day more animals die to satiate our appetite than are slaughtered by the anatomical scalpel, than the which they do with the useful purpose of resulting in the preservation of health and the cure of diseases”. On the other hand, in 1760, James Ferguson created the first Alternative Technique to the use of animals in experiments.

The Contemporary Age

In the 19th century, the greatest discoveries of modern medicine through animal testing:

• Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895) created anthrax vaccines in sheep, cholera in chickens and rabies in dogs.
• Robert Koch (1842 – 1919) discovered the bacteria causing tuberculosis.
• Paul Erlich (1854 – 1919) studied meningitis and syphilis, being the promoter of the study of immunology.

From the 20th century, with the emergence of anesthesia, there was a great advance in medicine with less suffering for the animals. Also in this century, the first laws for the protection of pets, livestock and experimentation emerged:

• 1966. Animal Welfare Act, in the United States of America.
• 1976. Cruelty to Animals Act, in England.
• 1978. Good laboratory Practice (issued by the Food and Drug Administration FDA) in the United States of America.
• 1978. Ethical Principles and Guidelines for Scientific Experiments on Animals, in Switzerland.

Due to the growing general malaise of the population, which became increasingly opposed to the use of animals in any area, it was necessary to create laws in favor of animal protection, for whatever it is used for. In Europe, the following laws, decrees and conventions were enacted:

• European Convention on the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes (Strasbourg, 18 March 1986).
• November 24, 1986, the Council of Europe published a Directive on the approximation of the legal, regulatory and administrative provisions of the Member States regarding the protection of animals used for experimentation and other scientific purposes.
• DIRECTIVE 2010/63/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.

In Brazil, the main law that deals with the scientific use of animals is the Law No. 11.794, of October 8, 2008, which revoked Law No. 6,638, of May 8, 1979.^[1]

Alternatives to Animal Testing

The use of alternative techniques to animal experiments does not mean, in the first place, to eliminate these techniques. Alternatives to animal testing emerged in 1959, when Russell and Burch proposed the 3 Rs: replacement, reduction and refinement.

At replacement alternatives to animal testing are those techniques that replace the use of live animals. Russell and Burch differentiated between relative substitution, in which the vertebrate animal is sacrificed so that you can work with your cells, organs or tissues, and absolute replacement, where vertebrates are replaced by cultures of human cells, invertebrates and other tissues.

Regarding to the reduction, there is evidence that poor experimental design and erroneous statistical analysis lead to the misuse of animals, with their lives being wasted without any use. must use as few animals as possible, therefore an ethics committee must assess whether the experiment design and the animal statistics to be used are correct. Also, determine whether phylogenetically inferior animals or embryos can be used.

The refinement of techniques makes the potential pain that an animal can suffer minimal or non-existent. Animal welfare must be maintained above all. There should be no physiological, psychological or environmental stress. For this, anesthetics and tranquilizers they must be used during possible interventions, and there must be environmental enrichment in the animal's housing, so that it can have its natural ethology.

Understand better what environmental enrichment is in the article we did on environmental enrichment for cats. In the video below, you can find tips on how to take care of a hamster, which unfortunately is one of the most used animals for laboratory tests in the world. Many people adopt the animal as a pet:

Pros and Cons of Animal Testing

The main disadvantage of using animals in experiments is the actual use of animals, the potential harm inflicted on them and the physical and psychic pain who can suffer. Discarding the full use of experimental animals is not currently possible, so advances should be directed towards reducing their use and combining it with alternative techniques such as computer programs and the use of tissues, as well as charging policymakers toughen the legislation which regulates the use of these animals, in addition to continuing to create committees to ensure the proper handling of these animals and prohibit painful techniques or the repetition of experiments already carried out.

The animals used in the experiment are used by their likeness to humans. The diseases we suffer from are very similar to theirs, so everything that was studied for us was also applied to veterinary medicine. All medical and veterinary advances would not have been possible (unfortunately) without these animals. Therefore, it is necessary to continue investing in those scientific groups that defend the end, in the future, of animal testing and, in the meantime, continue to fight for laboratory animals don't suffer anything.

If you want to read more articles similar to Animal testing - What are they, types and alternatives, we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.