Animal testing played no role in these and many other developments.
Some argue that many treatments we have today were developed on animals, for example the polio vaccines. Two separate bodies of work were done on polio-the in vitro work, which was awarded the Nobel prize and which did not involve animals, and the subsequent animal tests, in which close to one million animals were killed and which the Nobel committee refused to recognize as anything more that wasteful. Also, polio died out just as quickly in areas of the world that did not use the vaccine as in the United States. .
As George Bernard Shaw once said, "You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments but between barbarous and civilized behavior." There are some medical problems that can probably only be cured by testing on unwilling people, but we do not do it, because we recognize that it would be wrong. .
If the pharmaceutical industry switched from anima experiments to quantum pharmacology and in vitro tests, we would have greater protection from death and injuries, not less. If we did not have animal tests we could conduct medical research by using human clinical and epidemiological studies, cadavers, and computer simulators which are faster, more reliable, less expensive, and more humane than animal tests. Scientists have developed, from human brain cells, a model "microbrain" with which to study tumors, as well as artificial skin and bone marrow. We can now test irritancy on egg membranes, produce vaccines from cell cultures, and perform pregnancy tests using samples instead of killing rabbits.
In Great Britain, it is against the law for medical students to practice surgery on animals. There is no law in this country that prohibits any experiments, no matter how frivolous or painful. The Animal Welfare Act is very weak and poorly enforced.
