In the May/June 2008 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker have a piece called, Warning: Animal Extremists are Dangerous to Your Health. Under the title it reads; “Animal extremists are foot soldiers in a quiet war - one that could restrict the ability of researchers to develop drugs urgently needed for the treatment of new and emerging diseases.”
What are some opinions on the matter of using animals for research?
What are some opinions on the matter of using animals for research?
Whilst I would like to see more emphasis put on computer modeling and cell-based research (rather than whole animal) I am grateful for the products of animal research ... without it I would live a life of constant pain (probably bent double and possibly dead), my wife would be dead, most likely so would my oldest daughter and my father would have died in extreme agony rather than in relative peace.
Regardless of the personal benefits I and many of friends have had I am absolutely 100% pro the use of animals in research because the without it our medical/biological knowledge would never have progressed as far as it has and IMO some (not all I guess) animal activists who set such animals free simply condemn them to death where before (as research animals) at least their deaths stood for something.
I think erasmusinfinity’s comments in the thread on vegetarianism are spot on. Research on animals inevitably entails causing suffeirng. The degree of suffering does vary in meaningful ways with the kind of animals (as well as the kind of research, of course). Flatworms suffer less than mice, who suffer differently, and in some ways arguably less, than chimps. Ethically, we are certainly obliged to reduce the suffering we cause as far as possible, which means attention to the behavioral and physical needs of research subjects, pain control, minimizing the number of subjects, and so forth. Ultimately, though, the decision to pursue research at all is a decision about whether or not to deliberately cause suffering to other animals for a benefit to humans. We are effectively making our well-being more important than theirs, and we have to acknowledge that.
Now should we do this? It’s a tough call. I can give up meat and leather because I don’t really need those things. I’m not prepared to give up medical therapies just because they were developed using animal research. Whether or not I can defend this philosophically (and I probably can’t), it’s something I’m willing to accept. There are lots of trickier areas (product safety testing, basic non-medical research, etc), but medical research is a fairly good case study because it presents clear benefits at a clear cost. Sure people argue about the usefulness of animal models, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are useful and necessary for some medical research and that human suffering would increase if we didn’t do such research. So I think the question is ultimately if I am willing to condone inflicting suffering, with all the caveats about minimizing it to the greatest extent possible, in order to benefit the health of humans, and I am. I don’t feel that in principle we can automatically privilege human welfare above that of other animals, but in practice we naturally do, and while there are situations in which we can and should suppress this natural inclincation, I’m not convinced that we can or should always do so. It is possible to get into the kind of ad absurdum arguments along this line that lead to complete tolerance of parasites and infectious organisms, never eating anything living, and so on, which I think are bizarre and inappropriate.
Now I worked as a behaviorist trying to improve the life of captive primates (monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees) used in medical research. It was depressing and demoralizing work. I cannot justify to myself the keeping of chimpanzees in a medical research setting at all, because I am certain there is no meaningful difference from inflicting suffering on them and inflicting it on a human child. And though it is possible to do a better job on meeting the needs of captive monkeys, in practice it is difficult and expensive and so most of these also live in conditions I consider unacceptable, so I cannot support work on them as well. Rodents are tougher, as I am convinced their cognitive capacity is sufficiently less than that of primates that it makes a big difference in how and why they suffer, and I think using them as research subjects while still giving them a decent quality of life is often possible, though not always. Once we answer the basic question about whether we can inflict suffering for our own benefit in the affirmative, as I do, there are still lots of tough questions about how, why, how much, and so on, and I don’t have answers to them all.
My opinion is that what might not harm an animal, could harm us or vice versa. Chocolate is poison to cats, but not humans, yet there are some things a cat can tolerate but we can’t. Asprine can kill a cat, but not us. Does this mean we should not use it? What doesn’t harm a rat, could harm us. So, I don’t find animal testing beneficial. I find it a waste of time and harmful to the animals. We have people who will volunteer to be guine pigs for such research and to me that is what tells the real truth. Not the animal research.
Sorry, but those are all gross oversimplifications. The differencees between species are important, and have to be considered but 1) they are much smaller than the similarities and 2) the only reason we know they exist is because we’ve done research. There are plenty of arguments against animal research, but the idea that its useful because of species differences is simply wrong. HERE is a short list of some examples in which significant medical advances were made with animal research that could not have otherwise been made.
My opinion is that what might not harm an animal, could harm us or vice versa. Chocolate is poison to cats, but not humans, yet there are some things a cat can tolerate but we can’t. Asprine can kill a cat, but not us. Does this mean we should not use it? What doesn’t harm a rat, could harm us. So, I don’t find animal testing beneficial. I find it a waste of time and harmful to the animals. We have people who will volunteer to be guine pigs for such research and to me that is what tells the real truth. Not the animal research.
I think it is a matter of degrees. We are diferents from animals, but no so diferent: we share a lot of mechanisms. What doens’t harm a rat could harm us, but is a matter of probabilities: what doens’t harm a rat is less likely to harm a human than what does harm a rat. I guess I remember that the FDA regulations requires that the toxicology pre-clinical trials should be conducted in three diferents species of animals, one of them should not be rodents, which minimizes the risk for the first humans to be tested.
Actually, the test on animals are usefull to:
. forecast long term hystological damage looking at the organs of the animals, what means that sometimes we have to kill this animal to get the organ.
. first safety studies, which are non conclusive, but the physician and biochemist ussualy now or could figure if the harming mechanism would take place in humans. Also, we find the lethal doses on rodents, which is a precondition to start to administer the drug to humans.
FWIW, recently I was reading a research protocol which stated that the preclinicals test were not completed because the only species suitable for the test (a kind of monkey, suitable because their individuals share with us a complicated mechanism with certains proteins that is beyond my little biological knowledge) was an endangered one so the first efficacy would be conducted against humans.
Great thread! And I am delighted that the veg discussion has taken another interesting direction. I agree with McKenzie’s points about medical research. I do think that his experience with animal behavior gives him special insight into the mental capacities of certain species. And I would love to see where he draws lines regarding the mental capabilities of particular animal species. The case for animal medical research is keenly different from the matter of eating or wearing animals because it often does have clear benefits for humans. It is not pure decadence, as is eating meat.
I also think that Mriana raises a valid point that medical researchers can and sometimes do behave gratuitously, with disregard for their specimens. And that some scientific research is founded on useless ambitions or false assumptions about the meaning of the outcome of that research. Peter Singer documents several such cases in his book Animal Liberation. In one of his other books, I forgot which one, he proposes that there ought be ethics panels that include both scientists and ethicists that make decisions about the need for experiments before they are given permission to proceed. On the other hand, I know medical researchers, who work in labs with mice, who tell me that there is no other way for them to conduct their research. They are working on solutions to debilitating and terminal diseases, and that seems to me a rather dire and even compassionate cause.
There is some gray area. Particularly in the case of medical research, as opposed to military weapons testing or vanity cosmetic testing. Here we have a conflict of interest in which all solutions involve something negative. We are forced to make an immoral choice in order to make a moral choice. Relatedly, consider the classic scenario of stealing medicine in order to save your own sick child. Or consider the real world common practice of ill persons living in countries with socialized medicine flying to countries with open market medical systems for internal organ transplants because they don’t want to wait their turn for the procedure at home - and die. Can you blame a person for doing something that is morally questionable when their life, or the lives of the persons that they most love, are at stake?
It seems legitimate, to me, that humans should recognize certain “animal rights” based on the capacity of a species to reflect upon their own existence and death, and upon their capacity to establish hopes and dreams for their futures. “Animal welfare” should be provided for all animals who are capable of suffering. I would love to get to work at categorizing which species fit into each of those two categories and which species fit into the more “automaton” category along with plants. I would love feedback from McKenzie about the relative consciousness of particular species.
...one that could restrict the ability of researchers to develop drugs urgently needed for the treatment of new and emerging diseases.”
New and emerging diseases? can they be a bit specific on how those “diseases” continue to emerge in a world where science supposedly is in charge? How is it possible that we are capable of eradicating fatal diseases yet, uncapable of preventing others from being born or developped? what is the point if eradicating them if those same conditions are bound to be replaced by maybe even more serious as well as deadly ones? many serious medical conditions first EMERGE as side effects to the use of a medication not fully tested, short term side effects not immediately (as well as honestly) addressed turn into a long term side effects, and then revolve into a new serious medical condition for which a new medication has to be invented (and we know how that is likely to be done: via more research). The snow ball only continues to slide down and increase in size from then on.
Brennen, those conditions are all preventable, just last year, I started to exhibit ashma symptoms, I looked it up and it turned out that one popular additive (sulfite) is very known to cause the symptoms I was having, my first instinct was to stop eating any type of packaged processed food whatsoever, and guess what?! within weeks if not days the throat inner walls tightening (shoking)I was having and very frequently, was gone, needless to say that now, I stay away from packaged and canned food as much as Possible. This is just one example. A doctor dependant person would have run to one, get booked and probably for life with ashma ticket. In other words, I didn’t need medication developped in a lab and tested on poor creatures for me to get better, I just used my relatively average brain. I do this all the time, and I think everybody else can. Maybe animal testing is inevitable but still the scale to which it is maintained at the present time is simply uselessly and selfishly barbaric.
New and emerging diseases? can they be a bit specific on how those “diseases” continue to emerge in a world where science supposedly is in charge? How is it possible that we are capable of eradicating fatal diseases yet, uncapable of preventing others from being born or developped? what is the point if eradicating them if those same conditions are bound to be replaced by maybe even more serious as well as deadly ones? many serious medical conditions first EMERGE as side effects to the use of a medication not fully tested, short term side effects not immediately (as well as honestly) addressed turn into a long term side effects, and then revolve into a new serious medical condition for which a new medication has to be invented (and we know how that is likely to be done: via more research). The snow ball only continues to slide down and increase in size from then on.
The fight with diseases is the major drive of evolution. Most people (most of your ancestors) and other animals have died in the past due to diseases, such as TB, plague, diarrhea, etc. Until recently natural selection has been in charge and deciding who will make it to the next generation. Since the discovery of antibiotics, for example, we have been able to prevent many people dying from many diseases caused by bacteria. Sure, there is now a new TB strain spreading in South Africa, resistant to all antibiotics. But I am sure you are not willing to not take antibiotics next time you get infected by a bacteria in order to stop it from evolving. The reason why we are not capable of preventing new diseases to develop is simply: We don’t know what weapon to use to kill them until they appear. This is why you have to get a new flu shot every year. The snowball certainly doesn’t slide down, just like the evolution doesn’t climb a ladder. Things simply change.
Right, George. Evolution is never-ending. When we develop a new antibiotic, we are also putting selective pressure on bacteria to develop resistance to that antibiotic. And we still really don’t have any effective treatment for viruses. Anti-viral drugs are barely effective. Indeed, human civilization is one bad virus away from complete collapse. No joke.
BTW, the Skeptical Inquirer article on this topic was quite eye-opening.
Well, it wouldn’t be online yet anyhow. There’s always a several month lag. Whether they will eventually include it with their online offerings I have no idea.
BTW, the list of online articles available from Skeptical Inquirer is HERE.
I wasn’t able to access the article via the Skeptical Inquirer web site. I’ll have to visit Barnes & Noble.
I should add that I have heard strong arguments, put forth by scientists who work in animal research laboratories, to the effect that any regulation of medical experimentation on animals at all could significantly inhibit medical progress. That main point being that the red tape of getting approvals for each and every experiment through some sort of bureaucratic body could severely impede the speed in which progress is made, and even prevent much needed research from being conducted. On the one hand, I am inclined to wish for the involvement of ethics committees to secure more humane treatment of animals. On the other hand, I also desire to expedite the development of human life saving medicine.
P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker (authors of the Skeptical Inquirer piece in the OP) responded via the Forum in SKEPTIC magazine [Vol. 13 No. 4, 2008] to an extensive essay printed in SKEPTIC [Vol. 13 No.3, 2007].
The essay Conn and Parker reacted to is…
~ Animals and Medicine: Do Animal Experiments Predict Human Response? By Shank, Greek, Nobis, Swingle-Greek.
The above essay originally printed in SKEPTIC is now offered online by the Animal Liberation Front
This article by P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker is actually the first I’ve read out of Skeptical Inquirer. I agree that animal testing for medical purposes is a needed service for many humans, but the way that these men frame their article is completely inappropriate. I agree that scientists shouldn’t be attacked for doing their job, but - as a previous post stated - they should acknowledge their part in animal suffering.
The article also makes animal activists out to be an ill-informed and ill-tempered group, which is not necessarily the case. They make it seem that this small group of terrorists represents an entire segment of society Many animal activists simply want a better a quality of life for animals and want to stop the unnecessary cosmetic testing and factory farming systems that systematically torture and kill animals for food and products that could be delivered in much a much more humane fashion.
These men also choose to ignore the positive aspects of the animal rights movement. It is scientifically proven that there are environmental benefits to decreasing our meat production and consumption. Other animal rights groups such as the Humane Society and the ASPCA offer a less extreme approach to animal rights but instead, the authors solely focus on the negative aspects of a few radical animal activists.
The extremist tone of their article completely eradicated any credibility that these two may have possessed. The authors make the same mistakes that the radical animal rights groups make in their campaigns by oversimplifying and vilifying people related to a very complex and important issue.
The first of the two articles that jholt posted seem to illustrate, in my view, a rather extreme position against any form of animal experimentation. While I agree that there are gratuitous experiments that go on, I simply don’t believe that all animal experimentation does not assist medical research. I have a friend who does cancer research involving the use of mice. He is deeply saddened by the manner in which the mice that he works with are exploited and often made to suffer. He has told me that he struggles with the issue every day, but that he does what he does because he sincerely wants to help others and believes that his research requires animal experimentation. He is both a vegetarian and a vocal critic of animal research being conducted by some others as unnecessarily inhumane. I also know a scientist who does Parkinson’s research, using animals, and another scientist who does Alzheimer’s research. Having debated the matter with both of them, they assure me that the experimentation that they do is integral to the progress of their work. They are both motivated by the most altruistic of ambitions and none of these three scientists take the slightest pleasure in the pain of their animals.
The second of the two articles that jholt posted illustrates that there is an extreme faction of animal rights activism, an echoing of a point made by several members of this forum in the prior thread on vegetarianism. I agree with this central point, but I think that the article goes clearly overboard by suggesting that all animal rights/welfare activism goes in this category. Clearly, the sort of investigations performed by PETA have nothing at all to do with the sorts of death threats and such that the article accuses ALF of being involved in. PETA tends to put on some dramatic and shocking stunts, and does run undercover investigations. But the nature of their stunts and investigations is not such that it physically hurts anyone. PETA investigations have made great strides in uncovering illegal animal cruelty by obtaining evidence that has led to the prosecution of criminal offenders. I would be curious to know if Conn & Parker would consider the sorts of legal advocacy campaigns enacted by The Humane Society of The United States or The American Humane Association to be terrorism.
