Vivisection talk

[IzzaFred]

I'm not sure if this is on the right board, but this one seemed most appropriate.

I have to give a talk on vivisection next week for Religious Education because we are studying animal rights and ethical issues. The teacher knows I am anti-vivisection so asked me to do the talk. The problem is I haven't got a clue what to say and I know that many people in the class will refuse to listen. I don't want to make a complete fool of myself, I really want people to realise what goes on. Does anyone know of any useful sites, as I'm trying to find as much information as I can. Thanks in advance, Izzy.

 

[bunnyluv17]

peta.com would be the place to start and you may also want to check the library

 

[sasha]

Vivisection refers to the dissection of a live animal. I have a pre health professions biology degree, and plan on attending medical school, and believe in dissection, if the animal is obtained after it has lived a good life and been pts or died under veterinary care or of natural causes. I have dissected a cat obtained this way, and studied a human skull that was donated.

A lot can be learned from dissection, but when the animal is still living, there is no added benefit in many cases. Also, in cases where something must be studied using a live animal, such as heart rate being effected by a drug, there are computer models(I have used a rat heart model before) or other ways of studying this without being cruel to the animal, or cutting it open.

We can grow tissues in laboratories now, and can have tissues nicely contained in petri dishes, and dump whatever we feel like on them, without taking anything more than a few cells to grow it from an animal. We have begun to grow bones on a matrix material, to regrow broken bones, and have tested this successfully in dogs. We can grow almost any animal organ tissue, just not make a complete organ yet, but we are even getting close to that. I learned about this process in one of my pre-med classes, and the name of this is called tissue engineering. It is better not only because it avoids cruelty, but because the medical technology developed can be used to help people, not just in research- we are looking into growing liver, lung, cornea, etc for transplants, and materials that will encourage nerve cells to regrow together.

 

[sasha]

Sorry to double post, but I forgot to mention this, they have actually grown a frog without a head, trunk, or tail, but that has good organs. This is a big deal to some people because its not clear if they could use adult cells to grow a new one in an embryonic sac like compartment, or if embryonic tissue would be necessary, and this gets people fired up.
(broken link removed)

This is very controversial, as are some other technologies that could be used to replace vivisection. Be careful about the information you find, the union of concerned scientists, along with 48 nobel laureates, have even come out against the current presidential administration's misuse of scientific information for political agenda. Trust only peer reviewed, education oriented sites like scientific journals. (broken link removed)

Sadly, what is most beneficial is often the most controversial.

 

[IzzaFred]

Thank you for the links and information.
For part of the talk I would like to mention the size of the cages that laboratory animals are kept in. I want to compare the minimum guinea pig cage size recommended by cavycages, to the sizes used in laboratories. Does anyone have an idea of the size of cages that guinea pigs are kept in at laboratories?

 

[bunnyluv17]

Some get only one or two square feet of space and a lot (if not most) of labratory cages have wire floors.

 

[LiciaMommycott]

I am thoroughly shocked! Is vivisection legal????? How can that not be considered cruelty to animals?

 

[Jess1ca]

this is great! i'm doing a research paper & speech on this topic too! try to google it. that helps a lot!

 

[Jess1ca]

uh, sorry to double post but fyi i'm anti-vvsn as well.

 

[IzzaFred]

I did the talk last Monday and I think it went well. I did loads of research and the class seemed to listen. I was quite nervous though and I think it showed because I looked at my notes quite a lot.