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Comment by benesch | Hacker News Reader

Turn the question on its head. Why is it right to prolong human and animal suffering to minimize the suffering of a few lab animals?

These experiments are incredibly important for science and healthcare.

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Am I to believe you? Even if these experiments do have importance, are they more important than being humane and ethical?

We're so damn advanced as a race, yet we can't come up with more humane alternatives?

We have record unemployment and pharmaceutical companies that are making billions in profits, why can't we experiment on humans who give consent and are fairly compensated? It's more humane to animals and people.

Because these experiments kill stuff.

The humans are more valuable, and I'm sorry that you'd rather see them die than a few rodents.

And I'm sorry you lack insight and empathy towards both animals and people who could use the income to have a better life.

The problem is you (as a scientist) don't know that an experimental subject will have a better life, or a life at all, and you don't have enough data about the risks to fairly compensate a person for taking those risks on. You're just making the cost of collecting data much more expensive while shifting the risk (of suffering, disability, death) from animals bred for the purpose to poor people.

While the topic was about animal suffering, you are talking about suffering in human subjects. As far as I know(and that is not much), human studies are done after animal studies. This means the drug is most likely not toxic to animals and by extension humans.

You didn't read the thread. He's suggesting doing human studies instead of animal studies.

Without animal studies, you are exposing human subjects to potentialy toxic drugs.

That's what we said.

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