Our pets and other animals also benefit from research on lab animals. Most of the medicines and surgical procedures vets use to treat sick or injured animals are the same or similar to those doctors use to treat their human patients.
If you have ever taken your pet to the vet or watched a vet programme on TV you will have seen that they use the same or similar medicines to those used on humans. Most of the medicines that a vet prescribes were first developed for people and then tested in animals to get the proper dosage for that animal.
A few medicines are used for animals' only e.g. vaccines for canine distemper and feline enteritis. Distemper in dogs has virtually been erradicated through effective vaccination. Both cats and dogs are routinely given worming tablets, important for the health of them and their owners. More than half the drugs used by vets were developed for human medicine and as a result tested on animals first.
