[Lilac_Dreams]

So I've not read the other comments, but to me when it comes to science almost everything done on the animals is completely unethical anyways. Now, I'm a science freak, my crush is studying to become a Biologist and eventually get a career as a geneticist and I love it when he finds me peer reviewed stuff to do with hamsters, I personally don't have the GCSE scores to do anything science-wise for my life but I would love to.
But, as you do in science, thinking of it without bias, almost everything done on these lab animals is unethical no matter how you think of it.

For example, in one study, they gave Syrian Hamsters wine to test if drinking red wine, dealcoholised red wine and/or red grape juice actually decrease the risk of heart disease.

Keeping them in below standard conditions to test things such as stress factors, lowering their life spans and purposely breeding them with certain conditions so as to study them as human models.

To pet owners and indeed some scientists keeping them in a tiny cage with no toys at all is very much cruel and unethical, however if done with a grant, licensing and for research it's something that you just have to put to the back of your mind to look at from an unbiased view point, no use doing research if you look at it with Bias.