Attitude of Swedish veterinary and medical students to animal experimentation

Nearly all veterinary and medical students (94 per cent) found it morally a cceptable to use animals in research and believed it to be a necessity in o rder to treat human diseases. In contrast with the medical students a subst antial proportion of veterinary students (40 per cent) considered themselve s animal rights activists. Unlike the medical curriculum, the veterinary cu rriculum contains a two-week course in laboratory animal medicine, and a hi gher proportion of the students who had not been through this course was op posed to the use of animals in research than of the students who had comple ted the course. The course modified the views of half the students; more th an 26 per cent of them became more positive towards animal use in research after the courser whereas 3 per cent became more negative.