How do you as a vegan feel about animal testing in science?
So for context: I am currently a biology student at university, and as that have been confronted with various model organisms that are not only being observed, but also used for various tests, not just for medication, but also in general to progress our fundamental understanding of basic processes going on in cells, tissues and the organism as a whole.
Now I know this is a difficult topic and I personally believe that animal testing should absolutely be avoided if possible, however it is kind of undeniable that a lot of recent breakthroughs in science have been due to testing various things in all types of animals (and plants) from C. elegans to the famous lab mouse.
Of course there are ethical standards for what can and cannot be done and while I do believe most labs do try to follow these standards there obviously will be exceptions to this and even if standards are upheld this obviously doesn't diminish the inherent cruelty of potentially causing major issues to some of these animals. I know this isn't ideal by any means and even if one, as a scientist, tries to do one's best to treat all the animals right, it's just never really going to be enough, it is just that at the moment there aren't really many alternatives in some fields. So to reiterate my question, I'm just in general curious what exactly you think of animal testing in this scientific context and if you know of any alternatives to it!
I personally have fairly recently gotten to know a research team that specifically tries to find ways to avoid animal testing and instead use other methods to further their knowledge within their specific fields, however most biologists and professors I know do end up working with some type of model organism (though luckily mice are actually fairly rarely used compared to yeast strains or C. elegans colonies for example).