Didn't all Nobel Prize
winners in Medicine and Physiology experiment
on animals?
Yes, most did. But it doesn't follow that the
discoveries would not have occurred without animals.
It only means that the market for lab animals
was thriving and accessible.
From the second half of the 19th century onward,
experimenting on animals became part of all medical
curricula. Therefore researchers were obliged
to perform animal experiments to earn their degrees.
In the instances wherein animals were used for
the Nobel Prize-winning results, they were not
necessary. Though animal tissue research was
the convention, human tissue was available and
more viable - as many Nobel Prize winners have
since remarked.
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|
The discovery of the DNA double helix,
arguably the 20th Century's most important
medical breakthrough, would have been impossible
without the non-animal methods of technology
and in vitro research. |
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