Why do we need animal testing, Mr M眉ller?
Text: Nico M眉ller, philosopher
Experiments on animals provide fundamental insights and enable progress in medicine. However, they raise ethical and political questions. Perspectives from the field of philosophy on the uses and the future of animal testing.
Let’s think for just a moment about another type of technology, the internal combustion engine. For more than a hundred years, it has been used in countless forms of transport and in various industrial machines. There’s no denying that it has enormous benefits. And yet in light of the climate crisis, we need to find new ways of obtaining these benefits. The transition is complex, laborious and contentious. It requires planning and coordination.
Gaining the benefits in alternative ways.
In the last 15 years, a political debate has developed that regards animal experiments — at least those that are harmful to animals — in a similar way to the combustion engine. In other words, while they have their benefits, we should seek to gain these benefits from other sources in the future. Since 2010, the European Union Directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes has stated the final goal of replacing all animal research.
Since then, two European citizens’ initiatives have called for the EU to develop a corresponding strategy. The Dutch government has had several transitional scenarios developed since 2015. In 2021, the European Parliament called for a phase-out plan. In Switzerland, Maya Graf, member of the Council of States and Green Party representative, launched a parliamentary initiative with the same goal.
When reduction or phase-out plans are first mentioned, they may sound like “prohibition by degrees,” as though the state were to restrict the number of licenses for animal experiments and then gradually reduce the number further. That’s not the idea. The combustion engine can’t be overcome with prohibitions and quotas alone either. Alternatives are needed, such as hydrogen fuel cells or electric engines, as well as an environment in which they can actually be used, such as a network of hydrogen filling stations and charging points.
Scientific criteria and practical circumstances.
The situation is similar for animal-based models in research. If you look at how researchers justify their choice of models, two things become clear: First, that there are scientific criteria — which systems a model can represent, how the model reacts to experimental intervention, which phenomena it renders measurable. Second, practical circumstances also play a role: Mice are often the model of choice, not only but also because universities already possess the necessary infrastructure and researchers know how to work with them. Organoids haven’t been around for long; they take time and resources to produce, and many researchers simply don’t have any experience with them.
If the aim is to have fewer conflicts between research and animal welfare, then we need to start with the practical conditions of science: How much research funding is awarded to projects that establish or use methods other than animal experiments? How are new research labs being outfitted and what training is being offered?
Conventional efforts to stick to the 3Rs (replace, reduce, refine) barely touch on these considerations. Yet this is exactly where we would need a strategy with clearly defined measures and milestones to create an environment in which fewer and fewer animal experiments are “necessary.” As with the combustion engine, political willingness plays a major role in whether and how quickly we can implement this kind of strategy.
Nico Müller is a postdoc in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. As a project manager within the “Advancing 3R” National Research Program, he explores plans to reduce and cease animal experimentation from the perspectives of ethics and the philosophy of science.
More articles in this issue of UNI NOVA (May 2025).