Use of animals in experiments at the viewpoint of medical doctors and veterinarians

For the improvement and innovations in science and medicine, experiments on animals are being performed through centuries. From the point of this view, our aim is to compare the ideas and observations of veterinarians with those of the medical doctors, regarding the researches on animals. Our search was based on a questionnaire with 43 questions, which was applied to 100 veterinarians and 100 medical doctors. The data was evaluated using q-square for frequency of dispersion and classified data, and t-test was used for confrontation of continuous variables. Fifty-one percent of medical doctors and 57 % of veterinarians did have an idea about the presence of legitimates on use of animals in Turkey. Most of the medical doctors and veterinarians (97%-98%) agreed that permission must be obtained from the ethics committee for the use of animals in scientific experiments. The majority of medical doctors think that the experiments on animals are more scientific, easier to accomplish, and more economical (65-68-67%); but the veterinarians with this opinion are less in number (43-50-43%). The worldwide discussions among the scientists on the use of animals in experiments also exist in medical doctors and veterinarians. Nevertheless, most of participants are aware of the importance of animal experiments for the continuation of improvements in medicine.