Biomedical innovation and ethics: alternatives to animal testing

Abstract

The use of non-human animals has been incorporated into scientific practices as an essential biomedical research tool and in industry tests for human consumption. The systematic review of protocol results of preclinical phases is not a common practice, but recent meta-analyses question the projection accuracy of these data for humans. Currently, along with scientific questioning, there is a comprehensive ethical discussion about the conflicts in the instrumentalization of non-human life, which reached its peak with the creation of transgenic animals. This article discusses the application of the concept of vulnerability to non-human animals in experiments and reflects on the implicit power relations of these practices. We propose to implement and develop alternative techniques to the animal model, combining ethics and innovation.