ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

CARD 1)

Read the following short article carefully:

Should we experiment on animals? (2015, The Guardian)

Antibiotics, insulin, vaccines for polio and cervical cancer, organ transplantation, HIV
treatments, heart-bypass surgery - it reads like an A to Z of medical progress. But these
major advances have something in common: they were all developed and tested using
animals. Animal experimentation is a contentious issue, but it boils down to two essential
questions: does it work, and is it ethical?

The first is easy to answer: it works. Some would have you believe there are alternatives
for all animal research, or that animal testing is always misleading and unsafe. These are
fallacies. No one chooses to use animals where there is no need. It gives no one any
pleasure, and it is time consuming, expensive and - quite rightly - subject to layers of
regulation. Yet it is still the best way of finding out what causes disease, and of knowing
whether new treatments will be safe and effective.

But what of the ethical issues? Some say that saving people from suffering is no excuse for
the death of laboratory animals. Those who object are entitled to refuse treatments that
have been developed through animal tests - even if that means rejecting virtually every
medical treatment that exists. But they don't have the right to force that opinion on the
majority, who expect and yearn for new and better treatments. We all hope for a day when
animal research is no longer needed, but until then it is vital.

1) Be ready to: a) briefly discuss the contents of the article; b) state your own
opinion about the general topic of scientific testing on animals; c) retell a short
anecdote or news story related to the topic that you might remember.