Question: How is it justified to test on animals that COULD lead to a cure for humans, And even after it passes animal testing how do you justify testing it on humans because you dont know what the outcome will be untill you actually test it

Jamie Honeychurch answered on 28 Jan 2025:

This is a very emotive subject and one that people have very different opinions about. Currently regulations for new drugs going in to humans are required to have some degree of safety/efficacy testing in animals first, This is very carefully regulated and there are a lot of ethical and legal frameworks in place to make sure this is kept to a minimum and that animal welfare is paramount. In humans, there are early phase clinical trials to test safety before being rolled out to efficacy studies. All trials are carefully explained to participants who do so voluntarily. This is also mandatory. Ultimately this is deemed necessary and a justifiable degree of “cost” compared to the potential “benefit” and there would be no new treatments developed without these steps.