By Nicolas Marty and Kevin Vezirian In 2023, Science reported that as many as nine in ten laboratory animal personnel will experience compassion fatigue at some point in their careers. For a workplace problem of that magnitude, occupational health offers a standard instrument: the hierarchy of controls, which ranks responses to a hazard from most […]
Category: non-human animals
When sentience becomes a moving target: The case of xenocortical mice
by Andrea Lavazza Kaganovsky and colleagues genetically modified mice so that much of the cerebral cortex and hippocampus would not develop. They then transplanted human neural organoids into the space left vacant. This is a remarkable scientific achievement, intended to provide a living model for studying brain development and disease and for developing therapies. It […]
Should patients have a say in the authorisation of animal experiments?
By David Azilagbetor Animal experiments are often justified by their potential benefits for patients. They are performed to understand diseases, test possible treatments, and generate knowledge that may eventually improve human health. Yet, when decisions are made about whether animal experiments should be ethically approved, patients themselves are rarely present in the room. This was […]
Exploring the ethical controversy of ‘live tissue training’
By Cara Swain ‘Live tissue training’ (or LTT) is a term used to describe the use of living anaesthetised animals for medical education purposes. Within surgical specialties, live animals are used for skill acquisition and practice in a variety of surgical techniques, including laparoscopic, endoscopic, robotic, microsurgery as well as traditional ‘open’ surgery. Examples range […]
Revisiting the lessons of Frankenstein
By Julian Koplin & John Massie The story of Frankenstein came to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in a nightmare. It was a miserable, wet summer in 1816, and Mary Shelley was visiting the poet Lord Byron with her sister, Claire Clairmont, and her soon-to-be husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. They spend much of the summer […]
How should we treat beings of uncertain moral status?
By Julian Koplin and Dominic Wilkinson Advances in stem cell science are making it possible to create new kinds of living beings. Using a technique known as interspecies blastocyst complementation, it may soon be possible to grow human organs inside of human-animal chimeras. Most of the tissues of these chimeric animals would be composed of […]