¿Existen alternativas a los experimentos con animales?

Abstract

For many centuries, humanity has been using animals for scientific knowledge and thanks to these animals much progress has been made in the development of therapies, surgery, etc. But it is known that not all trials carried out on animals end up leading to new treatments of clinical interest. Despite this, many laboratory animals continue to be used, although some statistics point to a decrease in the number of animals. Moreover, there is an increase in the use of genetically modified animals. When a researcher considers a project in which animals are used, they should look for alternatives that replace animals, reduce the number used and refine techniques to reduce animal suffering. In practice, many researchers do not conduct a thorough search and justify it by saying that there are no alternatives to their experiments and animals are necessary. This article presents how to perform this search and examples of alternatives of replacement, so that there are no excuses to change the methodologies used.