this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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It's in part an issue of consent. The animals can't consent to what's being done to them, so to force testing on them is fucked up.
The alternative is voluntary human testing. In an ideal world, we would have good models and simulations to filter out the riskiest drugs (these kinds of models aren't being prioritized in part because people are fine with animal abuse), and then people would volunteer to be parts of trials.
In our current world, we could pay people to take part in trials. We already do this at least in the US, but usually after initial rounds of animal testing. So increase the payout dramatically for the initial rounds which are much riskier. We already pay people to do other forms of risky jobs, why should this be different?
You know who else can help test cancer treatments? Humans with cancer who want to try them.
Ah, yes, testing drugs pre-animal trial on the poor and disenfranchised sound so much better, truly the end of a dystopia
Edit: Not to mention, the meat industry produces despair of the same level while being entirely superfluous (something animal testing, unfortunately, is not) and on a scale which would be an ocean compared to the drop that is animal testing
That's already basically what we do, lots of homeless folks do drug trials for money. And there are tons of super risky jobs people do because they pay well. But it's not good, it should be that people do all those things for reasons other than their only options being that or poverty
This being your only option would be poverty, not an alternative to it. And highly dangerous jobs aren't comparison here, testing drugs before animal testing is is no way a level of danger comparable to being a woodcutter
Human testing is necessary, and while the disenfranchised are already subject to it, skipping animal testing and directly proceeding on the most vulnerable would be truly despicable.
Furthermore, if the issue is consent, then this "solution" does not resolve it at all. What you get from subjecting poor people to the choice of cold & hunger or being a test subject is not consent, and once again minorities, disabled people, LGBT and women would be the primary victims
"This being your only option would be poverty, not an alternative to it."
it shouldn't be anyones only option. Extremely dangerous jobs are already lots of peoples only option, and it's a bad thing. That doesn't mean "turn around and torture animals instead"
the problem is, right now there's not much incentive to find cruelty free filters (i.e. making sure a novel compound is "safe enough" for human trials), in fact finding them is disincentivized because animal tests are mandatory. So we should incentivize finding better ways to test and screen new drugs. Not torture animals.