Animal Experimentation: An Inequitable Practice Out of Touch with the Structural Determinants of Health?
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Though still preferred among the scientific community, animal-based research is attracting increased public scrutiny as AI and other animal-free technologies to learn about human health and disease proliferate. A rising cohort of scientists and other scholars and commentary have flagged the inefficiencies of animal-based models given the poor translation of findings to the human context, the unnecessariness of animal research given new technologies to replace them, and the ongoing ethical implications for animals as involuntary and suffering research subjects. In this talk, moderated by LEAP Faculty Co-Director Doug Kysar, University of Victoria Faculty of Law's Professor Maneesha Deckha discusses an additional reason to question the continued preference for animal-based research: its inequitable nature in terms of the humans it might benefit and its unresponsiveness to the core drivers of human health and health inequities at both global and domestic levels, namely, the structural determinants of health. Prominent messaging about the continued need for animal research implies that all humans stand to benefit evenly from it. Professor Deckha argues, however, that a fairer assessment would acknowledge its considerable differentiated impact and role in exacerbating health inequities.