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The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-a-list-you-want-to-be-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"

8 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. They forgot one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    College students.

    1. Re:They forgot one by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3, Funny

      How about a form that consents to animal testing or they don't get treated with anything that was developed with animals?

      In a generation the absurd notion that animal testing is bad will die out.

    2. Re:They forgot one by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3, Funny

      Animal testing isn't just for disease, but for drugs, tape, sutures, everything.

      Computer models aren't going to solve everything, animal testing and human tests will continue on for decades.

      Explain to me how using a rat or a cat to test something that will save 1,000 human lives is barbaric and uncivilized.

    3. Re:They forgot one by alexo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Prove irrefutably that God in no way guided the researcher and I'll sign that statement in its' entirety.

      Prove irrefutably that an Invisible Pink Unicorn didn't.

  2. Rabbits and contacts.... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would think it would be obvious why they put contacts on rabbits. They tried it on cats, but they gave up after they had to amputate a scientist's arm from the claw damage.

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    1. Re:Rabbits and contacts.... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thats very true. One summer my parents cat got into the habit if sleeping on their pot belly stove. First time we used it that year this horrible scream was heard around the house. The cat charged across the living room, bounced off the far corner ricocheted into the kitchen and huddled under the kitchen table.

      So then I applied the standard treatment for burns, to immerse the affected area in cold water.....

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    2. Re:Rabbits and contacts.... by Hatta · · Score: 2, Funny

      I would think it would be obvious why they put contacts on rabbits.

      I don't get it. With all the carrots, you'd think rabbits wouldn't need contacts.

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  3. Re:humane testing by Tigersmind · · Score: 3, Funny

    What about if it may save many human lives? Cosmetic testing is probably not as bad as drug/vaccine/antibiotic testing or general research, which can be pretty horrific and is pretty much guaranteed to cause great sufferring, but all those things are fundamental to our ability to save many people.

    The world would be much worse for us without medical research, but it does create what might as well be factories of suffering for lab animals. They even breed lab animals specifically with the worst genetic diseases, which would be the ultimate cruelty if it didn't bring the possibility of future cures.

    Hard not to be conflicted about it I think.

    Better them than me.

    See how easy that was :)