Appalled at experiments on dogs

de130770

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they hade to come up with the humlin rang of insulin to please the muslums
as the insulin then was pork and beef and if i rember rightly in strenths of 20 40 and 80 u/ml
 

jayne15

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I would NOT agree to animal testing even if my children were involved, unless it is carried out humanely and the animals are well treated , preferably living at home with a nice family.

I would if it meant my daughter would be free from diabetes- sorry I just would
 

juliekem

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Thank you for replying Cambridge lass - however i said nothing inaccurate in my original post! Yes, this IS aforum for opinions, mine too. In case yoyu ahven't noticed, it is called "Soapbox" lol.
Perhaps the only opinions allowed to be expressed are the ones with which you agree?

Remaining appalled
 

juliekem

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How did the dogs get diabetes in the first place? How didi the blind dogs get blind in the first place (see ? (it would have to be blindness from a particular cause for the scientists to be abler to teat their "cure."
Do you really think that the scientists sent a request around all the vets in the country?
People need to think about this and be fully aware of what is happening, it is easy to make up excuses so you don't have to face the facts. For example, I eat meat and I once worked in a slughterhouse, so I know the facts and make this choice in full knowledge of what transpires.

See the furore in our press over the horsemeat scandal - becasue they are seen as pets in the UK we do not generally want to eat them. What is the difference? Dogs serve us in so many ways, they deserve better than to be used in experiments without any comment by DCUK, which was my main point anyway.
 
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juliekem said:
Thank you for replying Cambridge lass - however i said nothing inaccurate in my original post! Yes, this IS aforum for opinions, mine too. In case yoyu ahven't noticed, it is called "Soapbox" lol.
Perhaps the only opinions allowed to be expressed are the ones with which you agree?

Remaining appalled

Everyone has a right to express their views, beliefs and passions.Its an open forum, not just about diabetes. A lot of posts get mixed replies,some positive with lots of support, others more negative and some who try to 'start a war' it happens all the time on forums,I have found, in the past, to give some threads or the posters a very wide berth :roll: :p

From what I have read in your posts, you are very passionate about this and obviously you care immensly about the subject.

If you had no replies at all, then it would seem to show that people aren't interested in the subject, but, as we can see, they are.

All the best RRB
 

juliekem

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Thanks RRB! Yes, I am passionate about this, but I have been stung at some of the personal attacks.
What shocked me particularly was the fact that the research was published without any comments about the welfare of the test subjects - it is an ethical issue.
I would like to see any report published which involves animal testing to be accompanied by information about the welfare etc of the animals, it is a moral issue.
 
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juliekem said:
Thanks RRB! Yes, I am passionate about this, but I have been stung at some of the personal attacks.
What shocked me particularly was the fact that the research was published without any comments about the welfare of the test subjects - it is an ethical issue.
I would like to see any report published which involves animal testing to be accompanied by information about the welfare etc of the animals, it is a moral issue.


I have highlighted your last sentence, as it would be immensly beneficial to us and of course, the animals well being. But, would it actually happen :think: ?

RRB
 

AMBrennan

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I wonder if you'd been this outraged if it had been done in mice only - beef burgers are fine, but slaughtering horses for meat is barbaric...
 

ingrid

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Hi juliekem, you're not alone - here's a bit of moral support :) I've been type 1 over 40 years & have always been anti-vivisection, I'm vegan too. I did voluntary work for BUAV many many years ago & they had a pamphlet about how initially insulin trials in humans and diabetes research had been held back because of the unfavourable results using dogs (of course I can't find it now...hmph). That was their opinion which I agreed with. The thing that gets me is that the dogs used then and now are not diabetic!!!!!!! They do not have any of the active disease processes in their bodies which we have which have either destroyed our beta cells or made us insulin insensitive. They have had their beta cells destroyed by the experimenters to make them unable to produce insulin themselves - that is not a disease process. So, currently, I cannot see how this could successfully 'cure' type 1s anyway, as our immune system would continue to destroy any insulin producing cells. I don't wish to get into any discussions pro-/anti-vivisection here as been there done it all & usually fruitless, just escalates into nastiness and personal attacks. Really just wanted to share my supportive view of being against medical (and all other) animal experimentation. There are some very good books arguing the anti- case, including ones written by medical professionals e.g. Ray & Jean Greek, and I used to belong to a group called Disabled Against Animal Experimentation, not sure it exists any more. We're in a minority, doesn't make us wrong (doesn't necessarily make us right!) - but we have our (informed) opinions and others have theirs. Well done for daring to post your opinion juliekem, it was likely to be a controversial and heated thread!
 

Sid Bonkers

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Hi juliekem, try not to take comments here too personally, this is a sensitive issue but you have to remember that you are talking to many T1 diabetics here who would not be alive today if it weren't for animal testing, and testing in the past was a lot less humane than it undoubtedly is today.

Is it humane to test on animals? Well animals are not human so the question is wrong to start with and anyway humans are capabler of much worse atrocities than testing in order to help others. Is it wrong to test on animals? Well that is a very subjective question IMHO, some people will be absolutely against it and a lot of those people will be vegetarian due to they believes but not all. And some will be for it and many of those will be alive today because of it but not all.

I guess it boils down to whether you choose to life or the lives of laboratory animals, personally I do as I have been close to death and were it not for animal testing I probably would be, just as every T1 diabetic would be too. So please bear in mind other peoples feeling on this subject, I doubt anyone here would willingly be cruel to an animal but testing for new drugs and procedures needs to be carried out or we would still be prescribing leeches for everything.

That last sentence is absurd I realise but I use it to emphasise my point.
 

mo1905

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Well put Ingrid. Intelligent words. For the record, I would never lower myself to personal attacks on anyone for their beliefs. Just because I don't agree with someone, doesn't mean I don't admire their passion and integrity.


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 

Shaun IDD1970

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I agree with the outcomes, so well said CambridgeLass

I am ignorant but surely testing on animals is not pleasant. Consider also the ethics on whether to man should accept the "testing" done by Nazis on gypsies which was was very unpleasant yet led to advances in treatments. By accepting the treatments I believe we recognise that suffering had huge value measured in the extended lives and lack of suffering of patients afterwards.

Many animals need to be thanked for their contribution to human lives, but I am a coward: I would not want my basset to be part of the process.
 

juliekem

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"I wonder if you'd been this outraged if it had been done in mice only"
I don't like experiments on any animals but my main points have been
1) Animals should not be used when there are viable alternatives (and from my knowledge there are, nowadays;)
2) at the very least there should be comment on the ethics when they are used.
What I really objected to most was the cold reporting of these tests without comment - I hoped to get this topic discussed and I have achieved that.
To all who put words into my mouth, I have never suggested that research done in the past should be disregarded - like the comment about the horrble Nazi experiments on humans - we cannot change th e past but we can change the future.
The first step is to get people talking about this issue and I am grateful for ALL the comments - at least all of you have taken the trouble to think about the issue and reply.
It might be a long time before animal experiments are ended but at least we can debate the issue and not simply accept the status quo.
 

mrawfell

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Phoenix, the animals that provided insulin were pigs that had been slaughtered for their meat. It was extracted from their pancreas, not often used as a food source for humans. So it was really a by product of the food industry.
 

maxies-mom

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If governments would allow it, all these drugs would be and could be trialled on humans and I for one would be the first on in the queue to sign up. If all I had to endure was some testing and needles and a few dodgy side effects so that my son could be cured, I would gladly do it. But we aren't allowed to be first tier trial "animals" and so we have what we have and it is what it is.
I respect every view expressed but living with T1 has changed my perspective on so many things I once rapidly voiced opinion on. Now I just keep an open mind, an open heart and live in hope one day at a time.
 

pumppimp

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Hi,
I agree with what everyone else has said, I don't know the people who worked on the spanish dog testing that I think everyone is talking about but I have worked with dogs, mice, daphnia, fish etc in the course of my own studies and work. I would think that the experiments carried out in spain were done to the very same standards that I have seen and those standards are in a lot of cases better care than many dogs recieve in their own homes. From reading the paper I don't see any abuse in the slightest, They have very comfy quarters lots of walks and excercise and after these experiments are finished recieve very loving caring homes, but would recieve that any way from the people looking after them in the lab. The worst thing these dogs faced where lots of injections and blood test with a small blood sample taken from the liver. They were also made to be diabetic but the research has shown that this has been corrected and it's working for the moment here's an excerpt from the paper If anyone would like to read the full copy I can send it to you.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
Animals. Male Beagle dogs were purchased from Isoquimen (Barcelona, Spain) and
housed at Servei de Granges i Camps Experimentals of the Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona (UAB). Animals were fed individually once daily at 9:00 am with 30 g/kg body
weight standard dry food (Nestle, Vevey, Switzerland) or twice daily at 9:00 am and 9:00
pm with 15 g/kg body weight with diabetic food (Prescription diets w/d, Hills, Topeka,
KAN) when indicated. Dogs were monitored regularly at the UAB Veterinary Clinical
Hospital. C56Bl6 male mice (Harlan Teklad, Barcelona, Spain) were fed ad libitum with a
standard diet (Harlan Teklad) and maintained in the SPF-mouse facility at the Center of
Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy under a 12-h light/dark cycle (lights on at 8:00
AM). The Ethics Committee on Animal and Human Experimentation approved all
procedures.
Diabetes induction. Experimental diabetes was induced in 6-12 month-old dogs by a
single intravenous injection of a mixture of streptozotocin (STZ) (35 mg/kg) and alloxan
(40 mg/kg) (Sigma, St Louis, MO, USA) as described previously (15). When
hyperglycemia developed, dogs were maintained without exogenous insulin treatment,
unless indicated. Dogs receiving exogenous insulin were injected subcutaneously with
Lantus (Sanofi Aventis, Paris, France). When indicated, exogenous insulin treatment was
optimized individually, increasing gradually the insulin dose up to the maximum tolerated
dose that did not cause hypoglycemia. To induce diabetes in mice, animals aged 8 weeks
were given, on 5 consecutive days, an intraperitoneal injection of STZ (45 mg/kg bw)
dissolved in 0.1 mol/l citrate buffer (pH 4.5) immediately before administration.


AAV production and administration. AAV vectors were produced by triple transfection
of HEK293 cells and purified by a CsCl-based gradient method (16). Expression of an
engineered human insulin gene containing an endoprotease furin cleavage signal, and of rat
glucokinase, was driven by the CMV promoter in both vectors (9). For certain experiments
as indicated, codon-optimized versions of human insulin (oIns) (with furin cleavage sites)
and human glucokinase cDNAs (oGck) were used. Vectors were delivered to a total of 12-
25 sites on the lateral aspect of the thigh (with a 5-prong needle syringe) and the
craneolateral face of the leg (single point injections) of both hind limbs, with maximal
vector dose per site of injection being <6x1011 vg (Supplementary Fig. 1). Dogs received a
vector dose of 1x1012 vg/kg or 2x1012 vg/kg 2-4 weeks after diabetes induction
 

londoner

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To all those who are so appalled at drug testing on dogs just read about Banting and Best and be thankful. If it was not for them, insulin would not be available to save your life.
 

cjld999

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There are plenty of patients to test on where no other 'cure' has been found.....there is absolutely NO need to subject animals to testing. The biggest main reason that the disease state is introduced artificially.
 

SamJB

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You can't give human patients drugs when you have no idea about the safety, or efficacy, of the drug. If society wants to cure cancer, diabetes etc then animal testing is unfortunately necessary.