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<title> Experimenting with and research on animals </title>
There is something called experimenting with animals, that is testing of substances and researching on medicine and illnesses on animals. There is also research on animals where humans in their craving for knowledge on the function on a certain species do research on it, research that requires that certain individuals be killed. There are two sides to this coin. The suffering of the animals or their loss of dignity, because as seen below the animals need not know what is done to them, and the suffering of humans. As the human society is, obviously, constructed of humans the latter must be the worst for us. I have encountered two different ways/uses for animals in research, the first is experimenting on animals in research on rheumatism.

Most people think experimenting with animals is not acceptable. In their minds they are seeing rabbits suffering while used for testing of cosmetics. I too believe that should be forbidden, but not all experimenting on animals is unnecessary. Research on rheumatism is, I think, necessary. This research is for discovering the reason for rheumatism and through that discovery later finding a cure. At this moment there are only ways of delaying the illness. The research is done on mice at BMC. The mice are infected or treated so that they are going to get rheumatism in the future. When the first signs on the illness shows, but before the mice starts feeling it, they are killed and sliced into parts that are possible to view from under a microscope. Sometimes unfortunately they have to let the mice live longer and in those cases they are probably suffering from the illness. On the other hand humans with rheumatism suffer a lot, it is one of the worst diseases there are, especially when it happens to young people and children. As the suffering of the mice is minimal and the amount of mice used is very restricted, my friend working on this used about 3 mice a day, although this may vary a lot, I believe that this kind of research is highly motivated. Who when really ill would refuse the medicine or even ask if it was researched on animals. There are alternatives to using animals are an argument that is often used. In this case I don't believe that it is possible to research on little clumps of cells as they don't have any joints or on humans, who would that be? Hardly voluntaries. The other type of experiments made on animals that I have encountered was not for research on human illnesses but for another reason.

At the centre for education of veterinarians there is some animals bred and used only for experimenting. Apart from bigger animals, like horses and cows, all animals used for experimenting must also be bred especially for experiments. The most mild use for them is the mares and stallions that are kept for the students to learn of breeding and how to test when a mare is ready for insemination. The worse experiments consist of operations on animals, among other Beagles. 

Before an experimental operation is started the dog is put to sleep and it is never woken again afterwards. Even if the dog would survive the operation the suffering during the recovery is deemed to high. The reason for the operations are the training of the veterinarian students and is essential in their education. The student I talked to has done one operation on a Beagle once, they where eight students operating on one dog and they trained every possible type of operations including those that could be acutely lifesaving, so there are no unnecessary operations done. The Beagles at least have a nice life in a kennel where they may go outside each day and have people to care for them. The veterinary students have met them on some occasions and think that the dogs appear very nice, lively and happy. Nowadays she believed they use only pigs but she is not certain. I am slightly more ambivalent to this kind of experiments but how could they train otherwise? The animals are at least not suffering in any way. It is maybe their dignity or ours, that we use other live beings, that is threatened. On the other hand we breed animals for food and we eat more meat than is necessary for us to survive, just for the taste of it, that must be as bad or slightly worse. 

As long as we have animals as pets and as food I believe we may as well use them for research and experiments that are essential. Who can say that a rabbit suffers more in a cage in a laboratory than in a cage the same size in a seven year olds home. On the other hand as long as the laboratory cannot take care of and give an animal a nice life they should not research on it, monkeys for example that need greater living space and stimulation. But in that case the discussion leads into zoological gardens where animals are kept, and sometimes suffering, only for our amusement. Here I really would like to continue the discussion on to bumblebees, the freezer in the corridor has occasionally harboured some, but I have already written too many words.
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