• Question: Do you experiment with animals when you test out your new vaccinations?

    Asked by ej10 to Kath, Ailsa, Evan, James, Ryan on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by rosieapple, bouncyrabbit, pollyedwards, joecrump.
    • Photo: Evan Keane

      Evan Keane answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      I think that is a question for Kath and/or Ailsa but not me, as I have never experimented with animals.

      The closest encounter I’ve had with animals in my work are the kangaroos that hang out outside the telescope in Australia where I visit to do observations!

    • Photo: Kath O'Reilly

      Kath O'Reilly answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      I don’t personally experiment on animals to develop vaccines, but some of the people I work with do.

      For the polio vaccine we use today, it was first developed in the 1950s, by Albert Sabin. ‘Wild virus’, which means virus that causes disease in children, is used to infect rabbits. The virus present in the first rabbit is then used to infect a second rabbit, and so on. Viruses change to adapt to their new host (now the rabbit). So a new virus that infects rabbits, might just create an immune response in humans if they get infected, without causing disease or death. The advantage of this is that the person infected with the new virus, now a vaccine, will be immune to infection from all polio viruses. This is called attenuation.

      Attenuation is used a lot to make new vaccines. Its not great for the rabbits used in the experiments, but they are always treated well in medical experiments. The advantage of using this kind of technology to develop vaccines is that children are protected from disease. Before the use of the polio vaccine in the UK most children would have gotten polio before their 5th birthday and many would have died.

      This is an example of where scientists and everyone else (society as a whole) have to decide whether the advantages of new technology outweigh the disadvantages.

      What do you think?

    • Photo: Ailsa Powell

      Ailsa Powell answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Kath has answered this question really well for vaccines. I don’t experiment on animals nor do I work with anyone that does. However, if any of the work I do looking at new ways of treating Malaria proved to be a useful new treatment, many years and scientists down the line that new treatment would have to be tested for toxicity and that would involve animal experiments. As Kath has said society would have to decide whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and currently there is no alternative to animal testing when bringing new medicines out to help cure/prevent diseases.

    • Photo: Ryan Ladd

      Ryan Ladd answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      The only experiments I do with animals is to video them swimming. Nothing to do with vaccinations.

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