"The Wild World of Animal Prostheses"

The main thing that I took away from this article was the overwhelming connection that exists between animal health and human health. Carolyn Sayre spoke quite a bit about how the advances in the world of animal science lead to significant advances in the human world as well. It is amazing how quickly science can move. However, I began to contemplate how these animal advances came about. Normally when I think of animal testing, I think of medications and types of injections but when I read this particular article it made me question whether or not testing out new techniques for prostheses on animals could be considered “animal testing” Also, whether or not it is a more accepted means of using animals to further our scientific knowledge. Personally, I believe that prostheses are great for animals that are missing limbs or the like, especially if it is a loss that they experience later in life so they are unable to adapt to life without said limb. However, I do see some instances where it comes off as less of a function to help the animals but rather a way to test things that we wouldn't necessarily try right away on a human being. For example, in the article the method of in-growth or osseointegration is explained and then further discussed. That is a particular method that I do not think would ever be tested on humans first. It speaks of one doctor who tried this method on a cat and was unsuccessful. If they had attempted to attach prosthesis directly to the bones of this cat and it did not work, what happened to this cat? Were there major problems due to the fact that it didn't work out? That was the particular case that made me consider animal testing as part of this, even though it was not exclusively expressed in the article.