Mains Marathon

Start your answer with animal ethics. Explain challenges or ethical concerns and related alternative methods available to reduce or replace animal testing. Suggest some measures to ensure ethical standards and humane treatment of animals in scientific experiments. Way forward bringing a balance of morality and scientific evaluation.

Answer:

• Ethical animal research refers to the use of animals in scientific studies while ensuring that the animals are treated humanely, and their welfare is protected.
• It involves balancing the benefits of the research with the potential harm to the animals and minimizing any harm or suffering that the animals may experience.

Ethical concerns involved:

• Treatment of equality: Animal rights advocates strongly argue that the moral status of non-human animals is similar to that of humans and that animals are entitled to equality of treatment.
• Inhumane treatment: Animals are often not treated humanely and are mishandled throughout the research process, including during transport, housing, and experimental procedures.
• Animal rights ignored: Animal rights advocates argue that animals have inherent rights and should not be used for human purposes. They argue that animals have the right to life, liberty, and freedom from suffering, and that using animals in research violates these rights.
• Animal distress: We should consider animals’ distress. If something is known to be painful in humans, it is assumed to be painful in animals as well.

Arguments in favour of animal experimentation.

• Animals do not possess humans’ cognitive capabilities.
• Benefits to human beings of animal experimentation compensate for the harm caused to animals by these experiments.

Alternative testing modes:

• Testing and mimicking the specific organs of the body, called “organoids” or “mini-organs”.
• Using popular technology like the “organ-on-a-chip”: that mimics the blood flow inside the body. 
• Additive manufacturing techniques like the inkjet bioprinter bring us closer to recreating a human tissue or organ system in the laboratory.

Guidelines for animal research

Empathy for all:

• One is that the research must increase knowledge and, either directly or indirectly, have the potential to benefit the health and welfare of humans and other animals.

Minimal use:

• Another is that only the minimum number of animals required to obtain valid results should be included.
• Minimise pain and distress: Researchers must use procedures that minimize pain and distress and maximise the animals’ welfare.

Using IT tools:

• They are also asked to consider whether they could use non-animal alternatives instead, such as mathematical models or computer simulations.

Measures to ensure ethical standards and humane treatment of animals:

• An amendment to the New Drugs and Clinical Trial Rules (2023), recently passed by the Government of India, aims to replace the use of animals in research, especially in drug testing.
• The amendment authorizes researchers to instead use non-animal and human-relevant methods, including technologies like 3D organoids, organs-on-chip, and advanced computational methods, to test the safety and efficacy of new drugs.
• Applying the principles of 3R: Reduction, Refinement and Replacement, that can be applied to protocols surrounding the use of animals in research.
• Strong legislation for animal welfare laws.

Way forward

• Before beginning a research project, experiments should be thoroughly planned and well-designed, and should avoid unnecessary use of animals. 
• The reliability and reproducibility of animal experiments should also be considered.
• There is a need for greater awareness of alternatives to animal experiments among scientists and easier access to advanced modeling technologies.