My last post was about medical research: I am not totally against it and I do get involved in medical trials as it gives me a sense of helping others. However, I would much rather be doing practical research as it helps others in the future, makes me think, and helps me as well in the present.

To use a recent example: this week I went down to Dundee to look at the new V&A through “dementia eyes”. Firstly, we travelled to the V&A using buses and taxis, that part confirmed that travelling is not good for me, both with the inevitable noises and the sights moving past blowing my brain. I must admit, not helped by my nosiness as I used to live in Dundee and wanted to see how much it had changed.

The museum itself is a disaster for folk such as myself. At the entrance, there is a grey pavement and a lake beside it with no barrier and the two merged into one so I could easily have walked into the lake. There is no obvious entrance sign, three posts with adverts but no sign saying “entrance”. You then go into a dark tunnel with concrete protuberances which was very frightening, glass in front of you, the doors had no handles, just opened if you were close enough, then you were into a bright very open space: mind blown! There were more bad experiences, but the staff were very helpful.

That is just one example of practical research I do, all of it enriches my mind and keeps my cognitive processes working as well as meeting new, interesting people with whom I swap tips and ideas as well as have a chat knowing that I won’t be judged.

Research can be either medical or practical. I will discuss my views on medical research in this post before doing another one on practical.

Medical research using animals is unnecessary, and does not always prove the drug is safe for humans; there have been trials where humans have died even after the drug has worked on animals. But, most importantly, it is unethical to allow fellow sentient beings that feel pain  go through horrendous experiments. We don’t allow uninformed consent for humans do we?

People will say that I shouldn’t use drugs on the market that have been trialled on animals. My answer is that, that is virtue signalling and serves no practical purpose, I do sign petitions and donate to anti animal experiment charities. I also try to buy cruelty free products in other areas.

Drug companies make huge profits which they justify by saying that many experiments fail, however there is a cloud of secrecy over research; only this week a company has been found to have withheld the fact that an anti arthritis drug helped lessen the onslaught of Alzheimers, why?

!Controversy alert! I also believe that if charities help fund drug research (or are funded by drug companies), or are paid to conduct research that inevitably lessens their independence, although they always deny this, it is self evident that you don’t want to risk a revenue stream.