[rlpb]

> We do have an alternative to animal testing. We can use humans who are desperate enough to volunteer...

This situation would presumably only arise because somebody else previously made the decision not to perform that experiment on an animal, but instead wait until a human suffers enough to become desperate enough to volunteer. That decision resulted in human suffering (albeit in the form of the trolley problem). Was that decision acceptable? How much human suffering, and/or how many humans suffering, is equivalent to one animal? Does sapience make a difference to this calculation?

I'm not saying this makes animal testing OK. My point is just that testing only on human volunteers isn't a magical solution to this ethical problem.

[belorn]

I agree, its not a magical solution. Some might even call it exploiting to use people when they are at their most desperate point in their lives, and for pediatric research it would basically involve a situation where its the parents that agrees to the medical experiment.

Its a difficult decision to make, experimenting on either animals or people.