On justifiability of animal research (based on the article by Cameron Shelley entitled ‘Why test animals to treat humans? on the validity of animal models’)

Abstract

The article sums up the pros and cons regarding the animal models selected and critically explored by Cameron Shelley in the article entitled ‘Why test animals to treat humans? On the validity of animal models’. Special attention is given to the adaptation of the topic-related English version of this discourse for a Russian-speaking reader. Arguments of supporters and opponents of animal models provided by C. Shelley are reviewed. The issue of the effective use of animals in biomedical research considering the validity criterion is being discussed. The connection between the validity and morality of an animal model suggested by C. Shelley is further elaborated. According to C. Shelley, out of three critical arguments for animal modeling, the pseudoscience argument and the disanalogy argument do not work, as the pressing issues they raise are interpreted by supporters in the wrong way. The predictive validity argument is not sufficient, as the doubts raised about the predictive power of animal models are either not supported or lack clear formulation. C. Shelley states that assessing the validity of an animal model is a complex task, which includes various approaches to determining the extent of model validity as appropriate, and defines the problem as an issue of determining the type of validity and its effect on the assessed morality of an animal model. According to the author, ethical issues come down to pragmatics of validity as a criterion capable of disorientating critics of animal modeling or at least reconciling them with the necessity and inevitability of animal experiments.