Richard Adams Quotes

Scientists should not do animal testing if there is any alternative, but subject to that, I would support it on grounds of the medical benefits.

The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefitted from the treatment.

It’s almost impossible to imagine a society saying, “It’s all right use embryonic stem cells to save your dying dog, but it’s not okay to use them to save your dying child.”… America’s love affair with animals will slowly but inevitably undermine the religious, moral, and ethical arguments against genome-based therapies for people. Healthier cats and dogs will generate an irresistible demand for healthier children and adults.

Scientific men are under definite obligation to experiment upon animals so far as that is the alternative to random and possibly harmful experimentation upon human beings, and so far as such experimentation is a means of saving human life and of increasing human vigor and efficiency.

If the circulation of blood theory could not have been discovered without vivisection, the human kind could well have done without it.

We have a lot to gain through furthering stem cell research, but medical breakthroughs should be fundamentally about saving, not destroying, human life. Therefore, I support stem cell research that does not destroy the embryo.

If our society continues to support basic research on how living organisms function, it is likely that my great grandchildren will be spared the agony of losing family members to most types of cancer.

Most of the time, those who use animals in experiments justify that use by pointing to alleged benefits to human and animal health and the supposed necessity of using animals to obtain those benefits.

My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again.

New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine.

We cannot sacrifice innocent human life now for vague and exaggerated promises of medical treatments thirty of forty years from now. There are ways to pursue this technology and respect life at the same time.

It is an incontrovertible fact that if we want to make progress in basic areas of medicine and biology, we are going to have to use animals.

It is time my colleagues got real. All British universities doing worthwhile research use animals, and, instead of hiding, they should be boasting of their achievements.

Those who experiment on animals should never be able to quiet their own conscience by telling themselves that these cruelties have a worthy aim.

People moan about drugs being tested on animals. I sort of think it depends innit. If the drug's aspirin and the monkey's got a headache, is it right?

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it.

There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved harm to the animal... [even if] the animal were a human being.

Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for and fought for these past eight years: We will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. Now, in recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent.

If you have been vaccinated for polio, mumps, measles, chicken pox, hepatitis, or rabies, it may be too late for you to stand your ethical ground: You have already benefited from fetal-tissue research. This is, after all, a practice that's been legal since the 1930s.

Our healthcare system has seen some of the greatest achievements of the human intellect since we started recording history: We're developing incredible devices and implantables to improve the quantity and quality of people's lives.

There is usually a long interval between important scientific discoveries and impact on human health.

No one likes doing primate experiments, but some research can only be done on monkeys.

The fact that there are bigger injustices and wrongs doesn't make it right to sacrifice an innocent monkey. It doesn't alter the case at all.