Background information provided for students
Throughout the activity, students will be directed to the supporting information given below, which provides some background, challenging ideas and options for further research. They are given fact round ups at the start of each section, and invited to scroll down for more information, ideas for research and discussion points.
Introduction
“We shouldn’t test medicines on animals, even if it’s for vaccines that are supposed to help them.”
What are animal vaccines?
Vaccines help prevent animals catching and developing contagious diseases, such as cat flu, feline AIDS, bovine TB, myxomatosis and foot-and-mouth disease. Just like people, healthy animals can be inoculated with vaccines to protect them against a specific disease. The vaccine produces antibodies that give the body immunity against a future attack of the disease.
Why do we need to test them on animals?
Medicines for animals have to be tested on other animals to see if they are safe and effective, and this means one set of animals benefits at the expense of another. This presents a dilemma for everyone who cares for animals and does not want them to suffer. Making decisions about what is right and wrong in such circumstances is very difficult.
Find out more
About 425,000 animals are used in the EU every year to produce and test vaccines for animals. Dogs, cats, horses, hamsters and guinea pigs are just some of the animals used. Find out more here.
Now it's time to say what you think - remember you're voting on whether or not you agree with the case made by this first character: "We shouldn't test medicines on animals, even if it's for vaccines to help them."
Round 1
“Surely they don’t really do that? I mean, we’ve got all the drugs we need for pets, haven’t we? Why would they still test them on animals?”
“The bottom line is, I can’t afford to have animals getting sick. For one thing, they suffer. And for another, they pass on diseases to other animals. With the risk of new diseases all the time, farmers need vaccinations they know will work – otherwise the whole industry suffers and food prices go up.”
Are vaccines only developed for pets?
Vaccines are used not only to protect pets, but also farm animals and wildlife.
- Bovine TB is a serious condition in cattle, caused by infection with the bacterium mycobacterium bovis. It can be transmitted to other animals and to humans. The UK government has spent millions of pounds developing vaccines for both cattle and badgers, which often carry bovine TB. The Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) began a test vaccination of badgers in Gloucestershire in 2010, which will continue until 2015. You can find out more about this here.
- Foot-and-mouth disease is a serious infectious disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, camelids and deer. In young animals it can be fatal, and in older ones very debilitating, causing significant losses in productivity. A vaccine has been developed that can protect animals from foot-and-mouth. Find out more at this link.
- Myxomatosis is a severe viral disease of rabbits, which decimated the wild rabbit population when it arrived in the UK 50 years ago. Domestic rabbits can also catch it and some pet rabbits die of it every year. Biting insects, such as fleas and mosquitoes, usually spread the disease by carrying the myxoma virus, but it can also be passed from rabbit to rabbit. Pet rabbits need to be vaccinated against it every six months.
Find out more
In 2001, foot-and-mouth disease hit the UK farming industry. To control the spread of the disease, at least six million animals were culled, which resulted in losses of £3.1 billion to agriculture and the food industry. The government paid out £2.5 billion in compensation for slaughtered animals and payments for disposal and clean-up costs. The outbreak also affected tourism and other rural industries. Find out some of the arguments for and against using a vaccine to control the disease at this link. What is the government's position now?
Now it’s time to say what you think - remember you’re voting on whether or not you agree with the case made by the first character: “We shouldn’t test medicines on animals, even if it’s for vaccines to help them.”
Round 2
“I don’t like the idea of any animal suffering by being tested on. But...I suppose if I’m honest, my Henry’s health is more important to me than that of other animals I don’t know, so I want to be sure there are vaccines for him when he needs them. I feel bad about saying that, but you have to make a choice.”
“To me, vaccines for people are more important than ones for pets. And if people kept their pets indoors and looked after them properly, surely we wouldn’t need all these vaccines for them anyway.”
What happens to animals in tests for veterinary vaccines?
Even though scientists may be able to perform some of their research without harming animals, ultimately the law requires all veterinary medicines to have been tested on animals before they can be used, to show that they work and are safe. These tests can cause a great deal of suffering to the animals involved. The nature and length of suffering an animal experiences during the developing and testing of a veterinary medicine often depends on the severity of the condition for which the medicine is intended.
For example, laboratory dogs can suffer substantially when they are used to develop and test vaccines designed to prevent life-threatening conditions in pet dogs. In order to see whether a vaccine will protect against a life-threatening disease, some dogs will be given the vaccine and some will not. Later all the dogs will be infected with the disease that the vaccine is designed to protect against. The unvaccinated dogs can become extremely sick, and may even have to be killed to end their suffering. The test shows that the vaccine works if all of the vaccinated dogs stay healthy.
For other types of product, such as worming and flea treatments, and specialist diets, the animals used are unlikely to suffer major harms during the tests. This is because these products are designed to treat relatively minor conditions that only become serious if left untreated for a long time.
Find out more
What concerns does the RSPCA have about the use of animals in developing vaccines for other animals? What is its policy on the use of vaccines that have been tested on animals? Check out this link.
Now it’s time to say what you think - remember you’re voting on whether or not you agree with the case made by the first character: “We shouldn’t test medicines on animals, even if it’s for vaccines to help them.”
Round 3
“Oh, don’t get me started. One of my cats died from cat flu and it was a nightmare. I’d never want to see another pet of mine suffer like that. They need proper vaccines, and if a few poor animals have to suffer to make that happen, in the end it will be worth it.”
“There’s a lot of fuss about vaccines for animals. But disease is a natural control mechanism. We’d be overrun with cats and dogs if they didn’t get diseases and die naturally.”
Find out more
Check out the UK government’s approach to controlling diseases at this link.
What do you think?
Would it be right to let diseases act as a natural control mechanism? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of stopping the use of animals in research and testing for animal vaccines? If we continue to develop vaccines, what alternatives could there be to using animals to develop them? And what other ways might there be of controlling populations of animals?
Something to think about
Serious diseases such as distemper in dogs can now be prevented by vaccination. Find out what you can about the symptoms and effects of distemper. Do you think it is a good thing that we have vaccines to prevent it now, or do you think it would have been better to let the disease take its course?
What evidence can you find that there is a need to continue developing new vaccines for animals?
Now it’s time to reach a verdict - remember you’re voting on whether or not you agree with the case made by the first character: “We shouldn’t test medicines on animals, even if it’s for vaccines to help them.”