News ALS Ice Bucket Challenge | Pam Anderson, Animal Testing & Wasted Water

[Bite Size Vegan]

pamela anderson recently refused to participate in the ice bucket challenge because most als research involves animal testing. does opposing als research on animals mean you hate people with als and are more concerned with the wellbeing of animals than humans? get the full story:Issues With The Ice Bucket Challenge | Bite Size Vegan #icebucketchallenge

 

[Amy SF]

I haven't watched the video, but I applaud Pam Anderson for her stand. I don't think it means she hates people with ALS. I'm sure if there was an ALS charity that doesn't test on animals, she'd wholeheartedly support it.

 

[Dedalus]

Good for Pamela. Here is an article in defense of her position.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aysha-akhtar/does-pamela-anderson-have_b_5704971.html
Excerpts:

But here's the problem and this is a point I have discussed before: ALS is a uniquely human disease. Researchers have artificially created animals who show some symptoms that resemble ALS. But as in so many disease areas, the animal "models" only mimic some of the symptoms of ALS and they differ in what symptoms they produce and the causes behind those symptoms. Thus these animal models are extremely poor substitutes for studying uniquely human diseases.

But how long do we keep doing this? Each time a new animal "model" is created, only after decades and millions of dollars spent do we discover that the animal model is wrong. Experimenters then go back and tinker again only to create another wrong model. And on and on it goes.

In fact, my greatest fear is that we may have found the cure long ago, but it was abandoned because of misleading animal experiments. Drugs that could have worked in humans may have been tossed out because they did not work in mice.

The choice here is not between testing on animals or humans--and it never was. The choice is to either keep putting people's lives at risk based on inaccurate animal experiments or to ensure their safety by using much more accurate human-based tests before humans start taking the drugs.

 

[Bite Size Vegan]

I haven't watched the video, but I applaud Pam Anderson for her stand. I don't think it means she hates people with ALS. I'm sure if there was an ALS charity that doesn't test on animals, she'd wholeheartedly support it.

there is one…and several charities that are all about advancing medicine without harming animals. i talk about them in the video and there are links in the video description and blog post

 

[Dedalus]

The way this thing has blown up into an internet sensation - I'd be willing to bet that a fair percentage of these people dousing themselves in ice water aren't even donating anyway.

 

[Bite Size Vegan]

The way this thing has blown up into an internet sensation - I'd be willing to bet that a fair percentage of these people dousing themselves in ice water aren't even donating anyway.

oh i'm sure the majority of them don't.

 

[Amy SF]

I think it’s caught on mainly because it’s considered a good excuse to douse oneself with cold water and ice on a hot summer day.

 

[Bite Size Vegan]

I think it’s caught on mainly because it’s considered a good excuse to douse oneself with cold water and ice on a hot summer day.

it was quite refreshing, i must say