July 29, 2007
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Mentally Ill Mice
Scientists have created the first mentally ill mice. The mice have been genetically engineered so they would have schizophrenia.
Scientists say it will allow them to develop treatments in treating mental illness. Here is the link: Link
Is it immoral to create mice with mental illness?
Comments (111)
Naah, it’s just mice
I’m going to say second just so no one can say “first”
Second
im trying to get past imagining a rat as a schizo
Fight Mental Illness Stigma!
How in the holy hell is a mouses brain chemistry even similar to a human’s?! There is so much more to mental illness that the brain chemistry alone. Mice cannot talk to the scientists and tell them how they feel, what they see, what they hear. I can’t even begin to answer the question you have asked Dan because I cannot even understand how experimenting on the mice is going to help humans who have mental illnesses.
No.. Cuz mice is yucky.. They can do whatever they want to do with it for better cause!!
Nope. I do not believe in being cruel to animals but they have a clear purpose with this experiment and it might help them understand the disease more. It is shocking to think that some people would think this a horrible crime and yet hold up signs in protest of banning the killing of unborn human children.
Ok after reading the article, which I should have done to begin with, I have to say… I would never, ever want to purposefully give another living creature a mental illness, knowing damn well the hell it’s going to go through. There’s got to be a better way to understanding these illnesses than to purposefully make another living creature ill.
“No.. Cuz mice is yucky.. They can do whatever they want to do with it for better cause!!”
Oh, Trunny, I think you have some competition.
no. necessary evil for research…
mmmmmmmmm….what the hell. Sure.
RYSCHEE: At least my wife doesn’t support slavery.
I think it’s fine. They are only mice after all…
What next? Dogs? Cats? Cows? Prisoner? Women? OK OK OK…I will stop.
They already do experiments with mice -_-
What next? Dogs? Cats? Cows? Prisoner? Women? OK OK OK…I will stop. Single4eternally..
Nah, they will use you next!!
Very interesting. I have to say I would support this line of research. Roughly 1% of the worlds population is schizophrenic, so this may be a great help to many people, admittedly at the sacrifice of the mice.
My thoughts are split on this subject. It is my belief that animals, including mice, were created without a soul. This being said, I think it’s absolutly fine and seeing as to why they are doing this expirement, absolutly necessary to continue with these doings. If they are going to make progress and actually develop treatments and/or cures for these mental illnesses, by all means, they should continue their expirements.
My other view is that these means of testing animals should be used only at times and only to benifit in the medical field. Testing animals in any other ways, in terms of testing cosmetics and for other superficial reasons, is immoral.
I love the idea of this blog, I really do. Keep it up.
Definitely.
skizo mice.. next stop bi polar frogs..
well if its for the good of thousands of people with the illness….
Schizophrenia means hallucinating. How do they know the mice are hallucinating?
I’m a bio major and all, but I’m not gonna lie, this sort of creeps me out…
im having mixed feelings on that…
hmm.
not any moreso than sending rats through mazes and conditioning them with Pavlov’s methods.
yes, and it’s also immoral to torture animals for the sake of “science” and test results that won’t even transfer accurately to humans. animal testing is wrong regardless of the circumstances.
“not any moreso than sending rats through mazes and conditioning them with Pavlov’s methods.”
good point… I think I agree with you.
thats horrible!!
i hate them!lol….i’m totaly against testing on animals!!
: /
it’s horrible
but sometimes we just need to do horrible things for good reasons
How would they even do that I wonder? And if they can create it, why can’t they do something at the same time to take it away?
I’m inbetween on this one.
mixed feelings on this…this is definitely hard…:
hmmm. ‘man is not the lord of other creations but just the shepherd’. they dont have to manipulate lower forms for our benefit. =/
Yes. They are creating they warped-minded little mice. They are setting their fates to lives of experimentation. ): Whether it benefits humans or not…I feel sorry for the mice.
Mice have souls too. Very tiny ones.
** creating the @__@
I would agree with what LSP1 said: Schizophrenia is sensory stimuli that isn’t real, even though it appears to be. How do they know these mice are schizophrenic?
“Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering.”
Then these “animal rights campaigners” should be right outside of their church, rallying against whatever deity they believe in. Such self-righteous people see themselves as the deserving voice of the animals, for they have none that are comprehensible to us. Compassion only to play the role of the hero, the saintly crusader against the “evil”. They are the ones who are truly repugnant.
“Animal Aid, a campaign group, said rodents were not a reliable way of modeling human disease.”
I would have to agree with them as well. Even though this is true, it could give us some sort of benefit that may lead to a “cure”, so to speak.
Research on these topics (such as those that effect sentient beings as test subjects) is always used in ethical debates, seen as a reason for controversy. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to figure out why this is. Sacrifice the one for the benefit of the masses? Or is that some brand of tyranny? It is a tricky subject.
Cookie bite:
The idea of the other animals as being “lower forms” is laughable. For the reason why, you’ll need to listen to two songs: “Intension” and “Right In Two” (in that order), by Tool. They’re on their latest album, 10,000 Days, or you can find them on my playlist on my Xanga; it’s at the very top, and the songs are somewhere in the middle.
mmmasquerade:
I certainly do not appreciate the connotations surrounding your quotation of the word “science”. It makes one think you don’t believe in it, as though it is a blind faith rather than a logic-based system.
hmmm. ‘man is not the lord of other creations but just the shepherd’. they dont have to manipulate lower forms for our benefit. =/ 7/29/2007 2:11 AM cookie_bite
I dont think so…they are to have fear of us, or in other word, we rule over them and they listen to us.
Read on.
Genesis 9:2 (King James Version)
2And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
It’s a great idea, and I fully support using animals to test on when the alternative is testing on humans. This is not cruelty, it is science. My only concern is that there’s not a whole lot in common between a mouse’s brain and a human’s. I don’t know how much can be gained, but if we can gain anything from this then it will be a success
No, I don’t think so. Schizophrenia is a disorder a lot of people have trouble coping with and I support anything that helps in further study of it.
I’m kind of curious as to how a schizophrenic mouse behaves.
I think “morally repugnant” is a bit strong…the concept seems cruel but it’s cruel with a seemingly philanthropic intent-it’s just a means to an end.
No. TV does that to humans all the time!
does morality come into play when we talk about animals? or does morality only apply to other humans?
As long as they don’t make the little buggars too smart to go for the food in the mousetrap….
No more than experimenting with them in the first place…
I really wish there was a better way…
And now I’m wondering… How do they know the mice are schizophrenic?
Mice or no, they’d better not let mutated species like that get loose…
Slippery slope they’re on…
They already give mice tons of physical problems. I won’t say that it is right, but I won’t say that I care a whole lot about it either.
It’s a mouse.
You can try to say it’s wrong all you want, I don’t care. I won’t listen.
It’s just a mouse.
Poor mice! And how on earth do they know they have schizophrenia?
Hell naw! We’ve done way worse things than that to mice.
I agree with LSP1 – how the hell can you tell if a mouse is schizophrenic? That’s one hell of a tiny MRI.
No, but I’d much rather prefer they practice in prisoners. At least then those good-for-nothing people will be useful for something in their incarcerated lives.
Nah. Do you know anyone with schizophrenia? It’s really, really bad. I hope they find a way to fix it.
I don’t think so… they use mice for many other things why not this? It’s just mice. Animal testing has already led to important treatments being developed. My college did this a lot. The students had to kill the mice after the lab trials; though the killing part I did manage to skillfully avoid.
for some reason I find this terribly sad.
Eeeeeeeeeew. I absolutely detest mice.
that’s very bad very very bad.
I’m all for treating mental illness. If this helps…then no.
I’m not really sure. On one hand, animals have been used for testing for years, and there would not be a lot of the medications we have to today if it weren’t for that. It seems sort of unfair. I’m partial to animals, so I guess I’m a bit biased.
That saddens me.
What’s a schizo mouse like?
i think it’s kinda satanic. what exactly do mice converse about between themselves? then a step beyond that… what would a mice converse with himself about?
man… I don’t know much about this “rat morality” stuff, but whatever you want to call it, that’s sad.
Hummm…in the grand scheme of things, if its for the greater good, then no. People have to die sometimes to make things better for others.
even if there icky, there just animals. They didn’t do anything to us. so i think its wrong..
i dont like it. hmm idk.
thats not nice… but I do not know another way to test treatment before humans.. using animals like that has been happening for a long time. Unless some humans decided to become lab-rates themselves, I do not know how to test such drugs and cures before humans begin taking them.
Daniel (doubledb)
“How in the holy hell is a mouses brain chemistry even similar to a human’s?! There is so much more to mental illness that the brain chemistry alone. Mice cannot talk to the scientists and tell them how they feel, what they see, what they hear. I can’t even begin to answer the question you have asked Dan because I cannot even understand how experimenting on the mice is going to help humans who have mental illnesses.”
The reason mice are used as lab animals is because they are so similar to humans genetically and those genetics cross over to the brain. their brains are like really really simple versions of ours, so if you can cure cancer in a mouse, then you can use the same formula to start developing a cure for humans. It is easier for mice though because they are similar creatures.
And schizophrenia is just chemicals in the brain so the scientists don’t need to talk to the mice as they already know what schiz does, they just need to even out the chemicals, so communication is not required, just monitoring.
In response, no i don’t think its immoral. I think that as long as they work their hardest to cure the mice that in the end it will pay off and i believe that “The ends justify the means” in most situations….
God created the mice…
scientists screwed them up.
That’s a toughy… we can kill and eat them if we want, but to make it live on in that state. Yet for a good cause… if forced to pick I would say “no,” based on what the Bible says. Of course, most people don’t care what the Bible teaches…
I mean, we’ve already bred and created a lot of immunodeficient mice, or mice that spontaneously develop cancer. Why is this any different?
It’s fine with me and for the heck of it their lives are more interesting
I believe so.
All in the name of progress
There isn’t that much of a connection between the way medicine affect animals and the way it affects humans. Different species, different results. I think putting a rat through that is immoral, you wouldn’t want someone to do that to your pet. Great now I sound like someone from PETA… and I’m sticking up for an animal that completely grosses me out, but I’ll stand by what I said. It’s still pain towards the animal, whether it’s mentally or physically.
-_____- I’m still trying to get over the fact that I sound like someone from PETA…
What I wouldn’t pay for a schizophrenic mouse!
I love mice. I think they’re adorable. But I’m sure their thoughts aren’t as deep as humans. They won’t try to kill themselves because they don’t know who they are. It won’t hurt them. But humans feel a lot of emotional pain and get confused and want to kill themselves. Sacrificing a mouse’s mental health for people’s mental health sounds like an ok idea to me.
Even though schizophrenia isn’t the same as split personality disorder, the first thing that came to mind was a mouse version of fight club. haha
Wow that’s so sad but I guess if it’s going to help humans then I guess it is needed……. eh…. idk though.
the concept is sick.. but I guess it’s for a good purpose..
Oh, yeah.
humans and rats are very different and i think that they should just test it on humans because it is way more accurate and animal testing is wrong on a billion different levels. SAVE THE RATS!!!
I would like to see a cure for mental illness. Too many suffering with it whom I know so if working with mice may bring a cure; then GO FOR IT!
thats terrible, yes
Yes.
But then again… the better part of the world is “Immoral” in some way or another…
But I think it’s wrong.
Animals have feelings too. =]
No. It’s highly entertaining is what it is!
God bless those little critters – hope they can help us. And we dont’give them shock treatment.
I couldn’t do it…hasn’t anyone seen Stuart Little? I understand the greater good and all of that but they are living creatures and it just turns my stomach. I guess that’s why I’m not a scientist. Besides that fact that I got a D in Chemistry.
WOW. How can they determine it has a mental illness without talking to it????
If it’s true… I’m so hopeful. Mental illness is my worst enemy.
I don’t care
Of course it’s cruel, giving mice a disease just because they can…Their research dollars should go to more productive experiments, like investigating the psychological drugs that are already on the market! Plus, the vast majority of animal testing is unneccessary anyway, seeing as humans and mice have very little in common.
I’m having mixed feelings too. I think it’s immoral, but it could be useful.
i love mice!! they are so cute and so friendly!!
but still… i dont think theres anything wrong with it… as long as theyre not breeding schizophrenia into all the mice that run around everywhere… cuz that would suck for all the mice owners that love their cute little buddies
Did those scientists get my family’s dna to produce the “mentally ill” mice?
All animal experimentation is immoral.
I found the following comment offensive–I guess to the mouse lol, I guess it’s the “what I wouldn’t pay for a schizophrenic mouse” part.
“What I wouldn’t pay for a schizophrenic mouse!
I love mice. I think they’re adorable. But I’m sure their thoughts aren’t as deep as humans. They won’t try to kill themselves because they don’t know who they are. It won’t hurt them. But humans feel a lot of emotional pain and get confused and want to kill themselves. Sacrificing a mouse’s mental health for people’s mental health sounds like an ok idea to me.”
gutterglitter672
YES. Thats so cruel! Its prolly gonna try to bite its own tail off thinking its some other rat.
No way.
Ohh, I misread the question, as usual. So by “No way.” I meant that it shouldn’t be allowed, therefore meaning that it is indeed immoral.
so
Having worked with Schizophernic clients for years, I doubt that mice will really be able to tell them anything new. They try so many different meds on the mentally ill already that it is pathatic. Then when something does work, the client refuses to take it because it lowers their sex drive.Or causes weight gain. Or hey! they like their pals. In my estimation, anything they have tried already they most likely have tried on either mice, monkeys or dogs without telling anyone anyhow. What makes this any different? Someone found out about the mice?
At least they can force the mice to take the meds that will hopefully make them less ill again. You cannot legally force a patient to help themself.
No, because it’s much more humane to do tests on schizophrenic mice than it is on schizophrenic people. Mental illnesses are still so misunderstood. If the mice can lead to a better understanding of and then treatment for mental illness, then it would be wonderful for those people with the disorders.
No. It’s completely awful.
Mixed opinions….
First, ouch. Yes. It’s torturous.
Second… it’ll help us find treatments.
I don’t know.
Do you read these replies?
Fuck science.
Sick.
Not if it’s to help in the treatment of humans.
Wow, that’s a good question.
yeah
LAST!