Potential for failure is high, of course, an experiment might not have the desired outcome and a death of a few hundred mice would not lead to a cure of some disease, sure. But without trying for millions of times, scientists won’t find the one drug that works. If it saves at least person, isn’t the risk and cost of not trying to find the cure by all mean possible even higher?

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sysguest 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> But without trying for millions of times, scientists won’t find the one drug that works.

well isn't it mostly other way around? millions of times to LOOK FOR hidden SIDE-EFFECTS?

animal testing is mostly for answering 'is it safe?'

	▲	doctorpangloss 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sacrificial animals are used to answer nearly all questions in medicine. I would be surprised if you could find a single therapeutic out of the last 3,000 that entered Phase I that didn't cite mouse experiments in its preclinical studies for efficacy.