This completely fails to address the actual gaps in scientific animal care legislation, in this case lack of oversight to make sure they actually adhered to the CCAC guidelines and a major lack of transparency. This legislation just sets back science that has good reason to use dogs as model organisms while letting abuse of other animals continue (especially non-government-funded work which has no requirement to follow CCAC rules!)
While this is going on, “dog lovers” are turning in pandemic dogs in record numbers to be euthanized.
Incredibly shortsighted and he’s demonstrating his ignorance of the laws of his own country.
What is the decision framework they used that led to them approving inducing 3hr heart attacks in beagle puppies before killing them?
People here seem happy to have blind faith in the system when it produced results that are objectively horrific. I would genuinely like to understand what the cost/benefit analysis was, what alternatives methods of research were considered, and why they weren’t viable.
They said they told him how researchers would induce hours-long heart attacks as part of efforts to improve medical imaging processes for humans.
If only you’d bother actually reading the whole article, the same phrase you took a bit from actually explains why they do that. But no, better to just attack the whole thing pretending we do that for fun.
That is not a justification, that’s a hand wave. That sentence answers literally none of my questions.
It does, maybe it’s just not precise enough for you, but it does. Medical imaging for humans. What do you actually want?
I don’t believe you’re here to argue in good faith anyway.
Edit: I also notice that you carefully avoided another answer that goes into much more details than mine. Yeah you’re not here in good faith.
Edit: I also notice that you carefully avoided another answer that goes into much more details than mine. Yeah you’re not here in good faith.
I replied to yours first because it was shorter and easier, I was literally replying to them when you made your edit. You need to spend less time on the internet.
And here are the specific questions I asked which again, that sentence does not answer:
I would genuinely like to understand what the cost/benefit analysis was, what alternatives methods of research were considered, and why they weren’t viable.
So in general, research on animals is a step before research on humans. That’s as simple as that. It costs more to do experimentation on humans, and it’s also more dangerous (to humans). But you didn’t need the article for that, any simple research online would have given you that answer.
I maintain that you are not arguing in good faith here.
Edit: There’s a bit more information on this article from the CBC, notably with the following:
Other effective models don’t yet exist for this specific line of inquiry that connects the metabolic and cellular mechanisms that can lead to, or prevent, a heart attack or heart failure with non-invasive imaging techniques.
I maintain that you are not arguing in good faith here.
I maintain that you think that because you spend too much time on the internet and don’t talk to people in real life. Irl people have opinions that don’t all fall in lock step with the hive mind.
So in general, research on animals is a step before research on humans. That’s as simple as that. It costs more to do experimentation on humans, and it’s also more dangerous (to humans). But you didn’t need the article for that, any simple research online would have given you that answer.
Ironic that you’re complaining about me arguing in bad faith when you can’t answer of any of the very specific questions I asked, and keep hand waving them away with broad generalizations.
Animals can only be used in research when there is convincing scientific justification, when expected benefits outweigh potential risks, and when scientific objectives cannot be achieved using non-animal methods. In Canada, there is federal and provincial legislation overseeing the humane treatment of animals.
This type of intervention makes scientific evidence appear secondary to partisan political opinion, weakening the integrity of the research enterprise. Moreover, such actions embolden activist campaigns that often misrepresent the reality of modern animal research and are usually counterproductive. These campaigns frequently ignore or sidestep the strict welfare standards and regulatory requirements that govern research facilities, as well as the medical breakthroughs that benefit both human and animal health.
Blah blah blah.
Again, tell me the specific justification in this case, given what they were doing to beagle puppies.
I’m not interested in just hand waving it away and saying “trust the system”. If the system produces horrific results, the system should be able to openly justify why they were necessary.
Dogs are a particularly useful model for heart problems in humans because they naturally get several of the same conditions and diseases humans do. You can try to create genetic variants of mice to have these conditions but it’s not nearly as good as a species that naturally experiences the condition. You may waste hundreds of mouse lives for poor quality research that way.
All studies involving animals require ethical approval involving a detailed assessment of the protocol by a committee that must include veterinarians, managers of the facility (not the lab members but outside of the research team), technicians who work directly with the animals, other researchers doing unrelated work, and a community member otherwise uninvolved in research at all. This is just for the ethical approval, they will also have to go through scientific merit evaluation by a different committee before this step. They must lay out exactly what they are doing and why it is necessary and how they are mitigating pain and distress. They may be under anesthesia for the entire heart attack, and then euthanized without waking up, or receive painkillers and be monitored constantly by a veterinarian. If they don’t do this, the work wont happen, and results wont be publishable either. Without being at that meeting we can’t know the exact technical justification, but there is a very strict process to follow and often everyone has more feelings about it when they are companion animals and they receive a lot of scrutiny.
I’m not all for animal research, some of it is poorly done and wasteful and doesn’t have any practical use. Or the data suffers from human incompetence. But a lot of it does help humans and animals. And there is a lot more tendency to intervene on pain and distress than you’d think - a distressed animal with no pain mitigation is not a good representation for your average human receiving treatment for something at a hospital. Your average local veterinary clinic almost certainly sees far worse cases of neglect and festering horrifying injuries and disease at the hands of incompetent dog owners than a study like this would ever produce.
I understand that, but all of that boils down to “trust the bureaucratic system”.
It’s inherently problematic that the justifications for animal research trials are not required to be publicly posted. If the justification is legitimate, you should feel comfortable defending it publicly.
Keeping it secret and gatekept to the scientists in the field means that the broader public has no real input or say on topics that are not just purely scientific, but deeply moral and ethical.
Virtually every scientist I’ve ever known has been a deeply moral person, but at a broader scale, there have been enough scientific studies that have been used to abuse people and animals, that their shouldn’t be a culture of ‘trust us scientists, we always know what the right thing is’. There should be a culture of open transparency and verification.
I absolutely agree. There is a push for more openness and transparency in animal research, it is a major initiative of the CCAC for rollout over the next 5 years. There is a lot of fear of animal rights activist groups and litigation or harassment from them that I think is generally unfounded - those incidents are pretty rare. Unfortunately, situations like this with Doug Ford only stoke the fear and protectionist attitudes that need to be broken down… now people in this field feel more targeted and scared and less likely to speak to the public. It’s very counterproductive.
https://ccac.ca/en/animals-used-in-science/transparency/institutional-transparency.html
There is a lot of fear of animal rights activist groups and litigation or harassment from them that I think is generally unfounded - those incidents are pretty rare.
I get the fear, but do also agree it feels unfounded. If farmers and slaughterhouses manage to get by, it seems like animal research labs should be able to too.
as he called the practice “cruel.”
Cool. Then we can agree that fishing, animal-based agriculture, hunting, fur farms, and puppy mills should be banned, too? Right, Doug?
What we need is auditing and enforcement of our already comprehensive ethical restrictions on scientific research across fields. He’s using this one instance of gross negligence and misconduct to attack science in general, rather than do the proper job of enforcing the regulatory apparatus. Why is he doing this? Attention and optics to distract from his massive failures and bad ideas and investments, and also his side dealing which is getting harder and harder to ignore.
It’s because Ontario has among the poorest involvement in biomedical research in Canada despite having 10 universities.
That’s frankly embarrassing for the most populated province, and is also a huge spotlight on the ‘leadership’ refusing to invest in the growth of the industry. I hope we make it past businessmen politicians and make it to science-based leaders.
Wait I had no idea this was even allowed to begin with
That led to an article published earlier this month that found the dogs — mostly puppies — were used for tests and killed before their internal organs were removed for further examination.
What the fuck?
I thought Lemmy would be a little more educated than Reddit…but nah.
Banting and Best used dog models to develop insulin.
Drugs don’t suddenly appear at pharmacies.
Pretty standard practice for animal research. Mainly mice and rats, but some types of research are better modeled by different animals.
like the discovery of insulin.
Do you know what the laws are like in other provinces or countries?
There are national regulations covering animal research under the legislating body, the CCAC.
This. (For people who aren’t familiar with them) Regulations are also very strict to ensure the animals are cared for very well and not in pain, etc.
I’m not all for animal testing, but for some things it’s still necessary, sadly.
People are researching many alternatives to reduce animal experimentation as much as possible.
Now do rabbits, mice, bats, primates and everything with a brain actually.
This comment has a conflict of interest.
Wouldn’t that include the eventual patients as well, for new treatments?
Like, there’s strong questions about specism here, but somebody is going to have to go first.
Willing human beings are a better choice than unwilling animals. It’s not just speciesism since I don’t think speciesism is “bad” in the sense that it is inevitable, but rather that it is questionable how much results replicate across species.
it is questionable how much results replicate across species.
No, it is not. WTF…you think we should be inducing heart attacks in people and harvesting their organs?
Other people, of course.
Most people only view cats and dogs of having any value worth protecting, which is terrible.
Oh, by the way, Doug’s government also wants to make it illegal for people to know about the cruelty on factory farms.
Doug brought back the blood sport of penned hunting in 2024.
Testing should be limited to the researchers and owners trying to make money out of their questionable concoctions.
We’ll cure everything with essential oils and apple cider vinegar!
Good - do bunnies and monkeys too.
and cows and pigs and chickens
Cool! how do you guys suggest we do medical research? homeless people?
What makes dogs and cats special?
People only get outraged at cute animals.
In regard to some avenues of research that’s too bad. Cats are a point of study for weight gain and loss since they appear to have issues similar to us. Some cats gain and hold weight faster than their mates with similar amounts of food. Some cats compulsively overeat while their mates do not. And so on.
many human and dog genes are syntenic, they are very similar, on the same chromosomes.
Without dogs, Banting and Best would not have discovered insulin. That’s why the historic pictures always have Marjorie, she was not a pet.
Yeah not to mention animal testing isn’t just for human medical advancements… a lot of animal testing is to develop treatments for animal diseases, test new diet ingredients (after which the animals are adopted out), etc…
