Table 3.
The 66 reasons why peoples choose an alternative or animal model.
| Area of Reasons | I Choose the Alternative Because … | I Choose the Animal Model Because … |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Attitudes (PA) | PA1.1: “I am curious to try new things” (E) | PA2.1: “It can be justified and is ethically acceptable” (E) |
| PA1.2: “it draws (media) attention” (D) PA1.3: “experiments with animals are stressing me emotionally/psychologically” (E) PA1.4: “animal experiments (in this field) were cruel” (E) PA1.5: “I want to contribute to change the current practice in research and development” (E) |
PA2.2: “I will/must comply with the ‘state of the art’ (animal experiments)” (E) PA2.3: “I find it important to carry out experiments again myself and, thus, confirm known results” (E) PA2.4: “protecting a human being from ineffective or harmful drugs is a higher value than refraining from animal experiments” (E) PA2.5: “I lack confidence in the potential of alternatives” (E) PA2.6: “I feel that this is my responsibility in the education of veterinarians (E) |
|
| Work Environment (WE) | Reasons Concerning Work Organization | |
| WE1.1: “alternatives are cheaper” (E) WE1.2: “alternatives are associated with smaller amounts of lengthy bureaucracy (e.g., no approval procedure)” (D) WE1.3: “alternatives can be realized more quickly” (D) WE1.4: “there is suitable infrastructure on site” (D) WE1.5: “I am not authorized and/or qualified to conduct animal experiments” (E) WE1.6: “animal keeping is quite costly” (E) WE1.7: “we never would have been able to do that quantity of tests on animals” (D) WE1.8: “I get more freedom (in choosing experimental design, methods) than in animal experiments” (E) |
WE2.1: “there are too many research ethics and legal requirements for research on humans or human tissue” (E) WE2.2: “the development of alternatives is longsome and inadequately funded (while animal experiments are established)” (E) WE2.3: “alternatives are often more expensive than an animal experiment” (E) |
|
| Research Climate within Institution | ||
| WE1.9: “superiors are demanding or are explicitly supporting the use of alternative methods” (D) | WE2.4: “my supervisor has decided so” (D) | |
| Expert Opinion and Research Funding | ||
| WE1.10: “funding lines exist exclusively for them” (D) WE1.11: “it can be used to answer the now wider-ranging and more complex research questions” (D) WE1.12: “reviewers respond in a constructive manner” (D) WE1.13: “I was contacted by agencies/research funders to use (test, develop) alternatives” (D) |
WE2.5: “reviewers tend to come from a generation in which animal experiments are recognized above all” (D) | |
| Peer Group/Scientific Community | ||
| WE1.14: “I have already internalized the 3R and am, therefore, more receptive to associated innovations” (E) WE1.15: “alternatives have, in the meantime, been accepted by the community” (D) |
WE2.6: “science has 50 to 60 years of experience with certain animal models” (D) | |
| Education and Teaching | ||
| WE1.16: “I would like to reduce the number of animals required for educational purposes” (E) | WE2.7: “there is some content that simply could not be communicated without the direct use of animals” (D) WE2.8: “animal experiments are legally part of the training of veterinarians; it is written in the license to practice and, therefore, mandatory” (D) |
|
| Society | ||
| WE1.17: “society is demanding more alternatives and animal experiments are respectively more criticized than in the past” (D) | --- | |
| Technical Development | ||
| WE1.18: “new milestone technology (e.g., CRISPR/Cas, IPSC) is enabling me to work in a more targeted manner on a genetic level than working with animal models (e.g., mice)” (E) WE1.19: “I have learned about their many uses through previous experiments with alternatives” (D) |
WE2.9: “alternative methods are not yet fully developed in my field” (D) WE2.10: “I can’t (yet) connect the correspondences of the organs/functions in alternatives (so I can’t test complex interactions)” (D) |
|
| Animal (A) | Animal Welfare/Dignity | |
| A1.1: “I 1: “I want to avoid animal suffering” (E) A1.2: “it enables various pre-experiments that can avoid animal experiments which otherwise would have to occur” (D) A1.3: “The consequences of a failed experiment are much less critical than in animal experiments (especially regarding the animal)” (E) |
A2.1: “they are necessary and before someone does it who doesn’t care about animals, I prefer to do it myself” (E) | |
| Science (S) | Research Questions and Approaches | |
| S1.1: “a correct replication of the disease or (e.g., cellular) processes cannot be obtained through the animal model (e.g., mouse)” (D) S1.2: “I can have a greater degree of control (manipulability) over the experiment” (D) S1.3: “I can preselect (narrow down) substances this way” (D) S1.4: “I can better describe and/or explain the basic effects/mechanisms here” (D) S1.5: “I find the transferability of animal models to humans inadequate” (E) S1.6: “I can get results without hypotheses” (E) S1.7: “I only want to observe a certain step/function (e.g., effector function of T cells against tumors) and not the whole process (as would occur in an animal)” (E) |
S2.1: “experiments on living animals rather allow one to discover completely new (unexpected) things” (E) S2.2: “complex questions/interactions can only be investigated in the whole organism” (D) S2.3: “I perform research in animals for animals of their species (veterinary medicine), which is very difficult to replace with alternative methods” (E) S2.4: “to gain access to and expertise in a disease from it” (D) |
|
| Results | ||
| S1.8: “the standardizability of the experiment is higher (more valid and reproducible results)” (E) S1.9: “it allows me to avoid variability between individual animals” (D) S1.10: “conditions of animal keeping in the laboratory can distort the results of animal experiments, and some of these effects are unknown” (D) |
S2.5: “alternatives currently produce too many false-positive or false-negative results” (E) | |
| Translation/Usability | ||
| S1.11: “it is now increasingly possible to obtain approval for new experimental therapeutic approaches without prior animal testing” (D) | S2.6: “the industry often demands results from animal models, and otherwise commercialization of our results is hardly possible” (E) S2.7: “the results of alternatives (alone) are an insufficient basis for clinical studies with humans (translation)” (E) S2.8: “it is a test method recognized by the OECD in safety assessment” (TOX) (D) S2.9: “there are also legal requirements that prescribe some animal experiments” (D) |
|
| Publications | ||
| S1.12: “I get publishable results faster when I am using an alternative” (E) | S2.10: “because with alternatives you have a hard time with some important journals” (E) |
(E) = reason refers to an evaluative premise/backing or to the value judgment itself; (D) = refers to descriptive premise/backing.