Quickfinder Qs

It is not always possible, or ethical, to use humans to study disease. By law, all drugs and medicines are required to be tested on animals, to protect the human rights of people who volunteer for drug trials. This testing is not expected to prevent all side effects, but may indicate the type of problem that could occur.

• Studies are carried out on human volunteers in fundamental research projects investigating human physiology such as respiration, kidney function or the nervous system. People are only used for these experiments if measurements can be made through behavioural, psychological or non-invasive means.

• Volunteers would be unlikely to come forward for studies which involved surgery which was not necessary for them, or to test drugs which had only been tested in computer models.

• An important part of most animal studies is examination of tissues and organs post mortem, which would not be possible for human volunteers.

• Animal models are often selected for a particular study because of the ways that they differ from humans, as well as the ways they are similar, for example mice share many of the same genes as humans, but breed quickly and give birth to many young, so the effects of an experiment on future generations can be studied.

• Animals can be bred and kept in controlled conditions and fed standard diets to reduce experimental variables.