Heartland

markfiend wrote:

Sexygoth wrote:I also believe, faced with a choice of allowing a family member or themselves to become very ill and possibly even die because they refuse to take a revolutionary new drug that's been tested on animals they wouldn't think twice.

Interestingly enough, Linda McCartney, who was, as people may be aware, quite a fervent vegetarian / animal right advocate, did refuse some treatments offered her while she was dying, on the grounds that they had been animal-tested. However, I think you're probably quite right that she was the exception rather than the rule.

I think that this is an issue, like so many others, where people think, "I am right and they are wrong." That's certainly the way I felt when I was younger; a little more maturity and a little more perspective allows me to see that there are grey areas. After all, medical researchers don't get into the field because they enjoy torturing "cute ikkle bunny wabbits" do they?

I still have an emotional reaction that is quite different to this intellectualisation of the argument; I don't like animal testing at all, not even of medicines, but I have to accept that it is necessary.