Question: Do you do testing on animals

Rosie Coates answered on 11 Mar 2014:

No, I don’t do testing on animals but some of my friends do use mice in their experiments.

Doing experiments on animals is a difficult ethical area of science. We have to balance the good an experiment will do for society as a whole with the potential suffering of the animal.

Before anyone can use animals in their experiments they have to be able to prove to other scientists that they think the experiment will work well to be able to answer whatever question they are asking. They also have to use as few animals as possible to cause as little suffering as they can. You also have to learn how to handle the animals properly so that your experiment causes them as little stress as possible.

Without testing on animals we wouldn’t be able to make the safest medicines possible to make people better when they get sick. Because of that experiments using animals are very important even if it’s a hard idea to accept and understand.