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Etymologically, '''vivisection''' refers to the ] of, or any cutting or ] upon, a living organism. More generally, it is used to describe any invasive experiment upon living animals, or any live animal testing, typically for the purpose of ] or ] scientific investigation.<ref>Croce, Pietro. ''Vivisection or Science: An investigation into testing drugs and safeguarding health'', Zed Books, 1999. ISBN 1-85649-733-X</ref><ref>"Vivisection," Encyclopaedia Britannica.</ref> The term is not generally used by present-day scientists, and at least one professional scientific society claims that animal rights advocates attempt to use the word to recast the terms of the discourse on animal research to favor their position.<ref name="safetypharmacology">Safety Pharmacology Society, , accessed August 18 2007</ref>. Therefore, the word "vivisection" is used almost exclusively by opponents of animal research<ref name=OEDvivisection> "vivisection n." The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition. Ed. Erin McKean. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 3 July 2006 (http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t183.e85331)</ref><ref> Michael Fox, "Deep and SHallow Vegetarianism and Animal Rights </ref>. | |||
Etymologically, '''vivisection''' refers to the ] of, or any cutting or ] upon, a living organism. More generally, it is used to describe any invasive experiment upon living animals.<ref>Croce, Pietro. ''Vivisection or Science: An investigation into testing drugs and safeguarding health'', Zed Books, 1999. ISBN 1-85649-733-X</ref><ref>"Vivisection," Encyclopaedia Britannica.</ref> | |||
*For vivisection on animals, see ]. | |||
Experiments with live animals have been controversial since the 19th century with ]s expressing reservations much earlier. Sides, for and against, have formed over the years and are often deeply entrenched in their respective viewpoints. | |||
*For vivisection on human beings, see ]. | |||
==Animal vivisection == | |||
{{main|Animal testing}} | |||
Modern codes of practice like those issued by the U.S. ] or the British ] require that major surgery on laboratory animals be performed under deep ]. Animal experimentation typically requires permission from an independent ethics body, who review the proposed experiment based on validity and design, focused on ensuring that the work is scientifically sound and that the welfare for the animals is ensured. Opponents of animal testing strongly contest the view that the law offers sufficient protection, since the ethics bodies are made up of other scientists, leading to potentially biased definitions of what is deemed as the "acceptable treatment" of animals. In an attempt to alleviate this concern, some countries have legislated that animal ethics must also include representatives from animal welfare groups and other members of the public, increasing society's input in these matters.{{Fact|date=August 2007}} | |||
== Human vivisection == | |||
] conducted human vivisection for ] research.]] | |||
{{main|Human experimentation}} | |||
Vivisection has long been practiced on ] beings. ], the "father of anatomy" and founder of the first ] in ], was described by the church leader ] as having vivisected at least 600 live prisoners. In recent times, the wartime programs of ] Dr. ] and the ]ese military (] and Dr. ]) conducted human vivisections on ] prisoners in their respective countries during ]. In response to these atrocities, the medical profession internationally adopted the ] as a code of ethics. This code of ] does not completely prohibit vivisection on humans. | |||
Human volunteers can ] to be subjects for invasive experiments which may involve, for example, the taking of tissue samples (]), or other procedures which require surgery on the volunteer. According to the ] guidelines such procedures must undergo an ethical review and carried out in an approved manner that minimizes pain and long term health risks to the subject . Despite this, the term is generally recognized as pejorative: one would never refer to a potentially therapeutic surgery as "vivisection." The use of the term vivisection when referring to procedures performed on humans almost always implies a lack of consent. | |||
==Vivisection debate== | |||
Animal research has changed considerably in the twentieth century, with efforts to harmonize scientific goals with animal well-being beginning in the early 1900's.<ref name="ilar2005">James L. Weed, and James M. Raber. , ''Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Journal'', 46(2), 2005, PMID 15775021</ref> Before these changes, many thoughtful people rightly cited ethical problems with the troubling way in which animal research was carried out. In 1764, ], who was against vivisection before the advent of modern ], wrote the following in his ''Philosophical Dictionary'': | |||
{{Quotation|Is it because I speak to you, that you judge that I have feeling, memory, ideas? Well, I do not speak to you; you see me going home looking disconsolate, seeking a paper anxiously, opening the desk where I remember having shut it, finding it, reading it joyfully. You judge that I have experienced the feeling of distress and that of pleasure, that I have memory and understanding. Bring the same judgment to bear on this dog which has lost its master, which has sought him on every road with sorrowful cries, which enters the house agitated, uneasy, which goes down the stairs, up the stairs, from room to room, which at last finds in his study the master it loves, and which shows him its joy by its cries of delight, by its leaps, by its caresses. Barbarians seize this dog, which in friendship surpasses man so prodigiously; they nail it on a table, and they dissect it alive in order to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature.}} | |||
In 1655, physiologist ] is recorded as saying that "the miserable torture of vivisection surely places the body in an unnatural state."{{Fact|date=March 2007}} O'Meara thus expressed one of the chief scientific objections to vivisection as it was performed in his day, that the pain that the subject endured would interfere with the accuracy of the results. On the other side of the debate, those in favor of vivisection held that experiments on living animals were necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. | |||
In 1822, in the ], ] ] piloted the first parliamentary bill in the world to give animals a degree of protection in law. This first bill related to farm animals. The first to regulate ] in Britain was the Cruelty to Animals Act (1876). One of the people who campaigned to see the bill introduced was ] (1809-1882). He said, in a letter of ], ] to Professor ]: "You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it, else I shall not sleep to-night." The bill remained on the ] books until the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (1986). | |||
From the early days of ] legislation, concerns were both for the relief of animal suffering and also for the moral health of ]. The ]s were particularly concerned that people should show good moral virtues such as kindness and concern for others. It was in Victorian ] that the ] (the world's first SPCA - Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was formed. One of the founder members was ], who was also in the forefront of anti-] ]. These Victorian concerns have formed a backdrop to ongoing debate throughout the ] and into current times. | |||
Opposition to anti-vivisection movements from within the scientific community has been consistent since at least the nineteenth century. In August of 1896, the ] (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society, passed a resolution in opposition to an anti-vivisection bill (Senate Bill 1552).<ref name="AAAS1552">, American Association for the Advancement of Science, August 1896, accessed August 17, 2007.</ref> The resolution condemns "cruelty and needless vivisection experiments," while simultaneously stating that "those who are trained in biological research are the ones who are best able to decide as to the wisdom and utility of animal experimentation"<ref name="AAAS1552" />. | |||
Focusing on the cruelty issues, SPCAs have been formed in ], ], ], ] and other countries. Animal welfare organisations have fiercely debated the issues both scientific and moral and have developed an offshoot: the ] movement. | |||
Focusing on the scientific issues, research departments have been set up in ]{{fact|date=August 2007}} and the ]<ref name="animalalts">''see'': ] and ]</ref> to find as many non-animal methods of research as possible and to provide the information about these methods to scientists working within relevant fields. Medical researchers experimenting on animals often express a wish that the general public had a greater understanding of the issues involved and say that every care is taken in safeguarding the welfare of the animals being studied.{{Views needing attribution|date=August 2007}} | |||
==Scientific issues== | |||
{{main|Animal model|Model organism}} | |||
The main science-based issues raised against animal experimentation are: | |||
* Because the biological structures in animals are only analogous to those in humans, ]s never exactly mimic human responses. | |||
* Experiments are conducted because of a lack of knowledge. This lack of knowledge makes it impossible to know all the variables involved and to control them{{clarifyme}}. | |||
* '']'' methods exist for a variety of purposes and can often be used instead of experiments that cause pain to animals (e.g. ] production<ref name="kohler1975">Kohler G, Milstein C. Continuous cultures of fused cells secreting antibody of predefined specificity. ''Nature'' 1975;256:495-7. PMID 1172191. Reproduced in ''J Immunol'' 2005;174:2453-5. PMID 15728446</ref>). | |||
The counter arguments to these concerns are: | |||
* The ] of different animals is not random, and while ] results in differences, within any specific research topic there are usually many similarities between humans and certain animals. The differences that do exist are almost always expected, so they can be taken into account. | |||
* Live animals are often the best models that scientists have when attempting to answer certain questions, short of testing humans themselves. Even in cases where unexpected results occur, any outcome is still productive as it can illustrate interesting differences between species. These differences can often be useful to understanding differences in disease progression (e.g. mouse models of cancer<ref name="dennis2006">Carina Dennis. , ''Nature'' 442, 739-741 (2006)</ref>). | |||
* Scientists often prefer ''in vitro'' experiments, and work with animals only when scientific questions cannot be answered in any other way.<ref name="rdsTRP">Research Defence Society, , accessed August 20, 2007.</ref> However, many ''in vitro'' techniques which seem to not require the use of animals actually do require continuous animal usage (e.g. ] requires ]), or one-time animal usage (] production requires prior isolation of immune cells<ref name="kohler1975" />), and for a large number of ''in vitro'' techniques, studies with animals were necessary for their discovery. | |||
* The presence of inconsistencies between ''in vitro'' and ''in vivo'' research is not evidence that vivisection is ineffective for research. This is instead seen as an argument for continued ''in vivo'' study, in order to understand why the ''in vitro'' system does not effectively model the live animal. | |||
* Most techniques that do not use live animals are indirect and therefore require the use of ]. Since induction requires the use of other scientific conclusions and (incomplete) knowledge, these techniques have innate limitations and their own errors. If all animal physiology was determined solely by inductive reasoning, one influential but false conclusion is likely to negatively influence future experimental design and compromise scientific knowledge. The ability to ] results from vivisection remains one of the major reasons why many scientists retain its value in research where no reasonable alternative exists. | |||
==Ethics== | |||
The main issues raised of an ]al nature regarding vivisection are: | |||
* Whether it is morally wrong to inflict harm on an otherwise healthy animal. | |||
* Whether preventing harm to humans justifies vivisection. (It would be cruel to cause harm to human beings by not using animals. Many patient groups of the terminally ill are staunch advocates of animal experimentation<ref name="mayor2002">Susan Mayor, , ''British Med. J.'' (2002) 324: p. 444, PMID 11865847</ref>) | |||
* Whether vivisection results in psychological harm to practitioners. (According to some ]ic viewpoints committing acts of harm to an animal will cause the development of psychological callousness in those who habitually tolerate it. Actions such as those depicted in ] suggest that some researchers involved in animal testing have behaved in ways that suggest a disregard for animal welfare, even when such behavior was not conducive to the experiment itself.) | |||
* Whether humans have a right to use animals for discretionary purposes. (An outright rejection of animal experimentation is ethically equivalent to an outright rejection of human use of animals ''in general''. Anything short of an outright rejection is acceptance of the current system under which animal welfare is supported, and each experiment must have adequate scientific merit to justify the use of animals.) | |||
* Whether vivisection violates a moral imperative to help relieve suffering in other species. (Some ], ], ], ] and ] theologies advise us to work actively to help relieve suffering in other species.{{Fact|date=August 2007}} Religion is not always opposed to animal experimentation; for example, the Dalai Lama, in response to questions after his address to the ] (2005), voiced support for animal experimentation as long as it led to "the greater compassion".) | |||
* Whether preventing harm to animals justifies vivisection. (Animal experimentation actively works to relieve animal suffering by providing the knowledge necessary to develop veterinary cures.) | |||
==Other issues== | |||
There exists a further area of debate which combines some scientific and moral issues into one. This is the area of concern about humans who may be harmed as a result of trusting possibly inaccurate test results and consequently taking unsafe medication. One side believes that animal experimentation puts humans at risk and the other side believes the risk to be lessened by such experiments. | |||
Some experimenters are of the opinion that this particular objection to animal experimentation is invalid since animal testing of pharmaceuticals is only part of the first phase of any clinical trials. Two more phases must be passed before a drug is allowed for public use, both of which use human subjects. | |||
==See also== | |||
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==Notes== | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
==Further reading== | |||
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* animal ethics encyclopedia | |||
* ]. '']'' (2003) | |||
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* in defence of vivisection for biomedical research | |||
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Revision as of 00:14, 21 August 2007
Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Vivisection.If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.
Etymologically, vivisection refers to the dissection of, or any cutting or surgery upon, a living organism. More generally, it is used to describe any invasive experiment upon living animals.
- For vivisection on animals, see Animal testing.
- For vivisection on human beings, see Human experimentation.
- Croce, Pietro. Vivisection or Science: An investigation into testing drugs and safeguarding health, Zed Books, 1999. ISBN 1-85649-733-X
- "Vivisection," Encyclopaedia Britannica.