III Jornada CNIO-Fundación Banco Sabadell en Filosofía y Ciencia. The use of animals in science. Ethical and epistemic problems and alternatives.
Animal experimentation has always been controversial, in times when cadaver dissection and vivisection were forbidden for religious reasons, and nowadays live experimentation is strongly controlled and regulated by bioethical protocols. However, controversy remains, and we have recently seen malpractice reported in the heavily regulated context of Western science.
Therefore, we believe that the appropriateness of science’s continued use of animals for clinical testing and trials should be examined and reviewed, both from the point of view of ethical and epistemic values. In addition, it is worth considering the possible alternatives that current science is opening and their advantages or disadvantages.