Amid the all-too-often irrational rants about health care in this country, I was having a civil conversation with a friend about the state of health care. He's one of those people who can carry on engaging conversations about a broad range of topics.

We were talking about President Barack Obama, and I was praising Obama for his positions on reforming health care and opening up exciting new opportunities for federal stem cell research funding.

Invariably, the conversation turned to what I do for a living. My organization, the California Biomedical Research Association, promotes and supports medical research and discovery, and we advocate positions consistent with the responsible use of animals in research. My friend started asking questions.

"So, if we can do more stem cell research, why do we really need to use mice or rats to find cures for Alzheimer's or cancer? There's got to be another way."

It's a conversation that I have frequently with friends, family and supporters of animal rights. All too often, the conversation gets emotional as people talk about how much they care about animals.

Make no mistake - I care deeply about the welfare of animals, too. But the conversation about biomedical research must go well beyond emotion to real data about how drugs are discovered and the powerful impact that this discovery process has on human and animal health.

Animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advancement of the last century. Our knowledge of the underlying causes of disease, the prevention of disease through vaccines and cutting-edge surgical techniques is inextricably tied to research on animal systems. If you look at a list of Nobel Prize-winning research in medicine over the last 100 years, you will find that animal research models were fundamental to discoveries about cancer, heart disease, diabetes and neurological diseases, as well as countless other medical advances.

Today, researchers in laboratories from Cambridge to San Francisco to Singapore are using mouse models to try to find answers to the global AIDS epidemic, to understand spinal cord injuries and to decipher the complexities of genomics and disease. It is due to animal research that we have the knowledge and ability to develop a vaccine for swine flu.

While there are clear benefits to humans that come from animal research, we must also keep in mind that animals benefit from this research as well. New treatments for glaucoma, cancer, hip dysplasia and traumatic injuries are enhancing the lives of beloved companion animals while advanced reproductive techniques are helping to preserve and protect endangered species.

Still, we hear the arguments that with such tremendous advances in technology and computer modeling, why is it still necessary to use animals to advance medical knowledge? These methods are widely used, yet there is an essential need to test drugs, medical devices and other promising treatments on some animals before they are tested on humans. Even the most sophisticated technology models fall short of capturing the complex and often mysterious cellular interactions that take place within a living system.

The Food and Drug Administration, which approves drugs and medical devices in the United States, requires that preclinical animal studies for efficacy and safety purposes be conducted before allowing human clinical trials to begin. Without successful clinical trials, the FDA will not grant an approval. It's all part of the often arduous but necessary process to best ensure the safety of the drugs that we use. It's not always a perfect process, but it succeeds far more than it fails.

There has been a concerted effort over the last three decades to minimize the number and species of animals in research laboratories and to develop ever more humane ways to care for animals. The changes are impressive: Mice and rats today account for 95 percent of all animals necessary for medical research. The use of larger animals - dogs, cats and primates - has been drastically reduced; they now account for less than 1 percent of all animals involved in discovery and research in the United States.

As scientists continually seek new methods for research, they focus on the dual ideas of balance and results. For those areas of research where animal models are not essential to providing answers either to human or animal health, they actively pursue alternatives. For those areas where living systems are necessary to help them understand diseases that ultimately affect the lives of millions of people, they will continue to study animal systems - humanely and responsibly.

The results of these research endeavors, as we have witnessed over the past century, will be bold new knowledge that will lead to dramatic improvements in human and animal health, and new efforts to combat disease.

Amanda Carson Banks is president of the California Biomedical Research Association, a nonprofit serving medical research facilities, hospitals, universities and institutes in California, Nevada and elsewhere in the West.