People who oppose animal experimentation usually do so on scientific or ethical grounds, or both. The issue is often made confusing by lots of facts and figures, or emotional images of animals in painful experiments set against pictures of sick children, but the basic arguments are quite simple. Vivisection is opposed on scientific grounds because it is nearly impossible to take data from experiments on one species and apply those results to members of other species. Ethically, people oppose vivisection because, just like humans, animals feel pain and suffer. It is this ability to suffer that is the foundation for which we grant rights to humans. Why is it not the basis for us granting rights to animals as well? This section explains the scientific and ethical basis for opposing animal experiments.
The Moral Issue
People who base their argument against animal experiments on moral grounds are generally referred to as animal rights activists. Many people are confused by the term and think that these people want equal rights for animals and humans. This is not the case. Obviously, animals have different attributes and capabilities than humans, but every sentient (having the ability to suffer) creature has inherent value and the right a life free of being subjected to suffering. So, while animal rights activists feel that animals should not be subjected to painful experiments they do not feel that they should have the right to vote or be able to drive a car.
The moral argument for using animals in research generally hinges on the concept that animals are not as valuable as people because they are not as intelligent or that they do not have the capability to reason. This argument is flawed because if we were to follow it to its logical conclusion, we would be able to justify experimentation on mentally disabled people or even children. We do not grant rights to people based on their level of intelligence. We grant people rights based on our empathetic knowledge that to not do so could potentially cause them great harm and suffering.
As people spend more time exploring our relationship to animals, and the fact that we don't grant them basic rights, they find that they cannot justify animal experimentation or other forms of animal exploitation. Just as we would not intentionally harm a person who lacks certain qualities, we should not limit our circle of compassion by not including animals who may lack some of those same qualities. While animals may not be able to communicate in ways, or do things, like humans can, they do have emotions and can feel pleasure and pain. As the well known philosopher Jeremy Bentham stated, "The question ... is not can they reason? nor can they talk? but can they suffer?" Morally we have an obligation to recognize the possible harm we cause to
animals and we should do our best to end their suffering.
The Scientific Issue
For over a century medical science has been relying on the use of animal experiments in its search for cures and treatments for disease. For just as long, portions of the scientific community have been criticizing animal research as a misleading or fraudulent methodology. Over the years, the numbers of scientists who question the applicability of animal experimentation has grown steadily.
These scientists are questioning the ability to take data gained from experimenting with an animal and applying those results to human beings (cross-species extrapolation). While humans have some of the same characteristics as many of the animals used in laboratories, our differences are striking and significant. Even when the species being used in an experiment is very similar to us the results can be very different. For example, chimpanzees have up to 99% of the same genetic material that we do, yet they are not susceptible to many of the diseases that afflict humans (including AIDS), nor do they have the same reaction to drugs and procedures as we do.
This difficulty in relating data gained from animal experiments to human beings has caused enormous suffering over the years. Through false assumptions based on the incorrect results of animal studies, people have been killed or their diseases have gone untreated. For instance, results from experiments which exposed a variety of animal species to cigarette smoke led researchers to believe that smoking did not cause cancer. Because of this, warning labels on cigarette packs were delayed for years, and cigarette manufacturers still use animal data to refute the overwhelming evidence of the harmful effects of their products.
There have been other dramatic examples of animal data causing great harm to people. The drugs Oraflex, Selacryn, Zomax, Suprol, and Meritol produced such adverse side effects in humans (including death) that they were removed from the market, though animal experiments had predicted all of them to be safe. In fact, the General Accounting Office (the investigative arm of Congress) did a post-market study of drugs marketed between 1976 - 1985 and found that 52% were found to be more dangerous than pre-market animal studies had indicated, with adverse side effects including permanent disability and death. Recently, the hepatitis drug Fialuradine and the diet drug combination Phen-Phen cause serious injuries and deaths in humans because animal tests failed to show the potential for danger. And for the past thirty years since the announcement of the war on cancer, our reliance on animal models has led to no advance in the life expectancy of cancer patients in all but 2% of cases. In the last decade, the National Cancer Institute abandoned their animal-based drug screening program and replaced it with non-animal alternatives because the animal methods had been such a failure.
As a result of these and countless other instances where animal research has led us astray from truly significant health care solutions, a growing body of the medical community is asking that we focus on modern alternatives to animal research and to actively promote the prevention of disease. AAVS has a wide array of literature on the scientific problems associated with animal research. Their premier publication on this issue is the
In Focus Scientific Series. These five booklets discuss alternative methods, the flaws of animal experiments, and the role which prevention must play in a good health care system. You can order the
In Focus Series by checking out AAVS's
on-line catalog under "Publications."
Answers to Typical Questions about Animal Experimentation
Using animals for medical experimentation,
product testing, and in
education is a controversial subject that often leads to heated debate. The issues are complex, but the suffering and waste involved in animal experimentation are painfully obvious.
The following answers some of the questions most commonly asked by people who support vivisection and by those who are confused about the issues. The detailed, comprehensive answers are intended to provide clarity and leave no doubt about why animals should not be used in experiments.
If you are uncertain about how you feel about animal experimentation, it is important that you learn as much as you can before you decide where you stand. Those concerned about animals should become as well-versed as possible on all relevent subjects in order to most effectively communicate their viewpoints.
The American Anti-Vivisection Society will be happy to answer your questions or further explain any of the issues raised here.
1. Are you against all animal experiments?
There is no ethical objection to experiments designed to help the animal or animals involved, such as untried veterinary techniques used to save the life of the animal in question. Studies which observe the behavior of animals in their natural habitat, such as Dr. Jane Goodall's revolutionary work with chimpanzees, are equally acceptable. All other types of experimentation and testing simply cannot be ethically justified.
While this ethical position stands on its own, there are serious scientific and health issues involved as well. Vivisection has led us down countless scientific dead ends, while detracting attention and funds from more applicable scientific techniques. The practice of animal experimentation and testing continues, not because it has been shown to be an accurate and reliable means of research (which it has not), but rather, because of tradition, peer pressure, and enormous promotion from those with strong vested interests.
2. Isn't it true that every major medical advance in the last century was a result of animal experimentation?
No. Since the inception of the Nobel Price for Physiology and Medicine in 1901, two thirds of the prizes have been award to scientists using various "alternative" technologies, not animal experiments. In fact, results derived from animal experiments have had a very minimal effect on the dramatic rise in life expectancy in the 20th century. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the rise in life expectancy can be attributed mainly to changes in lifestyle, environmental factors, and improvements in sanitation.
It is true that mortality rates have dropped considerably during this century. However, 92% of this decline occurred prior to the introduction of vaccines and treatments derived through vivisection. Medical historians, McKinley and McKinley of Boston University, report that vaccines and drugs introduced to fight infectious diseases account for only 3.5% of the dramatic decline in mortality rates between 1900 and 1973.
While vivisection has received more attention and funding, clinical and epidemiological (studying the natural course of disease within human populations) studies have had a much more profound impact on human health. For example, the connection between cholesterol and heart disease was first established through epidemiology. Analyses of human populations have proven to be much better indicators of the factors contributing to cancer than have animal experiments. In fact, clinical and epidemiological evidence linking smoking to lung cancer was established long before warnings of the dangers of smoking were released to the general public. Because animal experimentation failed to reach the same conclusion, warning labels on cigarettes were delayed for years! During that time hundreds of thousands of people died from lung cancer because the results of animal experimentation were considered more valid than studies of human patients.
3. Wasn't the development of the polio vaccine dependent on the use of monkeys?
Although those who promote vivisection often point to the polio vaccine to support animal experimentation, the truth is more complicated. The most import advance in the development of a polio vaccine came in 1949 when Enders, Weller and Robbins showed that the polio virus could be grown in human tissue. They were awared the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Despite this breakthrough, Salk and Sabin - who are usualy credited with the polio vaccines - continued their reliance on traditional animal models and the use of monkey tissues. They feared that human tissues would harbor dangerous human viruses. We now know that monkey cells harbor dozens of viruses, some of which have shown to infect humans, and are probably at least as dangerous as human tissue, if not more so.
Sabin himself made an impressive argument against vivisection when he testified to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs in 1984 saying, "...work on prevention [of polio] was delayed by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease, based on misleading experimental models [of polio] in monkeys." Just because some scientists used monkeys doesn't mean they had to, or that monkeys were a good choice. Indeed, by the experimenter's admission, it was an impediment.
4. Are there any real alternatives to the use of whole animals in research and testing?
Animal-based research is the science of the past. There are a number of alternatives available to modern researchers which are less expensive, more reliable and ethically sound. Studies performed in the test-tube (
in vitro) have many advantages over animal experiments. They provide results rapidly; experimental parameters are easily controlled; and their focus on the cellular and molecular levels of the life process provides more useful information about how chemicals and drugs work or cause damage.
Clinical and epidemiological studies are a vast source of data. They have provided us with more useful information about the nature of disease in our world than any other source. Modern computer technology has vastly improved our ability to analyze the huge volume of incredibly complex data available to us by studing the course of disease throughout the world.
Cell and tissue cultures, CAT, PET, and MRI scans, quantitative structure activity relationship analysis in drug design, and chemical toxicity assays are some of the modern approaches to research available to scientists today. We must ask ourselves why we rely on the science of yesterday.
5. Would you rather see your child die than support experiments on animals?
Fortunately, no one will ever have to make this decision. Since vivisection often offers such misleading predictions, the real choice is not between animals and children, but between good and bad science. Vivisection has undoubtedly cost many children their lives. It produces inaccurate and dangerous results and wastes enormous amounts of precious time and resources on an archaic methodology while promising new techniques are ignored.
Consider the enormous wastefulness of material deprivation studies, in which monkeys are taken from their mothers and systematically abused in a number of ways. The conclusion from these studies, that abuse and neglect lead to psychological damage and social maladjustment, is hardly an earth-shattering revelation. It certainly doesn't justify the suffering of countless animals or the millions of dollars which have been spent to come to this foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, programs to help abused and neglected children are deprived of the funding which could make a very significant impact on these children's lives.
If we are to truly help our children, we must take a broad look at the factors contributing to their suffering and the means we may employ to prevent it. We must not be influenced by those with financial interests in animal research and allow them to convince us that their outdated, inaccurate methods will save the live of our children.
6. Would you rather scientists test new drugs on people?
They already do. When a newly released drug hits the market, regardless of how many animal tests have been done, those individuals who first use it are "human guinea pigs."
Animal tests are not a good indicator of what will occur in humans. The General Accounting Office reviewed the drugs marketed between 1976 and 1985. Of these, 52% were found to be more dangerous than pre-market animal studies had indicated, with adverse side effects including permanent disability and death.
The undeniable fact of the matter is that different animals vary in their response to drugs. The drug Fialuridine, designed to treat hepatitis, was shown to be safe in tests with dogs, woodchucks, monkeys and other animals, but a number of fatalities resulted from pre-market clinical screening with humans. Penicillin, the archetypal "miracle drug," is fatal to guinea pigs, but has saved countless human lives. The drugs Oraflex, Selacryn, Zomax, Suprol, and Meritol produced such adverse side effects in humans that they were removed from the market, though animal experiments had predicted all of them to be safe. The list goes on and on.
The pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, sought to determine the accuracy of lifetime rodent test (exposing rodents to low levels of potentially hazardous substances over the course of years) for carcinogenicity. Using animals to test various chemicals already known to cause cancer in humans, they obtained the correct result in less than half of the cases. They would have been better off tossing a coin!
Ironically, many patients have been denied access to experimental drugs because they have not yet been tested on animals. Numerous AIDS patients have had to sue the government to try new drugs. Famous physician Henry Heimlich had to go to China to conduct human clinical trials for a potential therapy for AIDS. People with AIDS don't have the luxury to wait for approval through the enormously time consuming animal-testing procedures required by the FDA.
We must seek a greater understanding of the nature of the mechanisms of drugs on a cellular and molecular level if we are to have insights into the probable results. Through the increased use of modern methodologies such as
in vitro assays, tissue cultures, computer modeling, and extensive molecular biological analysis, we can come to a better understanding of what effect various drugs will have on humans. Then we can all cease to be "guinea pigs."
7. Aren't animals in laboratories protected by laws?
The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was passed in 1966 and subsequently amended in 1970, 1976, 1985 and 1990. It sets standards for the housing, handling, feeding and transportation of experimental animals, but places no limitations whatsoever on the actual experimental conditions and procedures which may be utilized. The following provision allows vivisectors to do as they please:
Nothing in these rules, regulations, or standards shall effect or interfere with the design, outline, or performance of actual research or experimentation by a research facility as determined by such research facility.
In 1985, Congress passed an amendment which required dogs to be exercised and primates provided with an environment conducive to their psychological well-being. Pressure from vivisectors forced the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to issue ineffective regulations which did not fulfill the intent of the law. Compliance is now at the discretion of the institution conducting the research.
The USDA, which is charged with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act, has excluded mice, rats, birds, and farm animals (who comprise 85-90% of all animals in research and testing) from even minimal protection. Although a federal judge found this exclusion to be illegal, there is still no clear indication when new USDA regulations will be enacted.
The Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), under the direction of the USDA, is supposed to inspected by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which issued scathing reports documenting APHIS' inability to accomplish this task. Two particularly relevent passages include:
APHIS cannot ensure humane care and treatment at all facilities covered by the Animal Welfare Act and
APHIS does not have the authority, under current legislation, to effectively enforce the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act.
8. Since research grants are so scarce, isn't the research that is funded worthwhile?
Animal research has become the established standard. It captures headlines and receives big grants, unlike preventive medicine. It is easy for animal researchers to design experiments which will produce large amounts of data. The fact that this data has no real relevance is not an issue.
Walter Steward, a principal investigator from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), state that over 25% of all published research projects are "outright fraud." The scientific industry often has more to do with politics and economics than it does with science.
Here are some examples of recent findings from animal research being done with our tax money:
- Paralysed, decerebrated cats can be induced to vomit through neural stimulation or emetic drugs. The relationship to natural human nausea is unestablished. (Rockefeller University, NY Cost: $1,654,748)
- Old rhesus monkeys do not learn as quickly or remember as well as young monkeys. (Boston University & Yerkes Regional Primate Research Cent, TX Cost: $1,225,000)
- Crack cocaine is addictive and can impair complex behavior. (New York University Medical Center, NY Cost: $2,500,000)
This is a clear indication that scientific merit is not a prerequisite for funding.
9. If animal experiments are so unscientific and are such a waste of money, why do they continue?
Vivisection has become firmly entrenched in the mindset of the scientific community of the western world. It is not difficult for visvisectors to produce results, since the system is so well established. Variables are easily changed to produce volumes of data. In the publish-or-perish world of science, vivisection offers limitless opportunities for publication. Because the industry of science today is quantitative, not qualitative, the production of large amounts of data is often more important than its relevance.
There is always resistance to new ideas which challenge the existing mindset of any community, and this is especially true in science. Consider the reluctance to accept the theories of Copernicus that the Earth circled around the sun, or Galileo's demonstration that objects do not fall to the Earth at speeds proportionate to their masses. We accept these things today as common knowledge, even common sense, but they were rejected as the rantings of fools when first proposed. Vivisection continues because tradition and peer pressure within the scientific community will not allow its carefully constructed intellectual walls to be torn down.
Powerful special interest groups also work to maintain the status quo of vivisection. Consider the so-called "education foundation," Americans for Medical Progress. This organization actively attacks anti-vivisection arguments and distributes pro-vivisection propaganda. This group has been publicly exposed by consumer "watch-dog" organizations as a front group for the animal experimentation industry.
10. Don't cosmetics, household products, and other chemicals have to be tested on animals so humans don't suffer the consequences?
Thousands of new drugs, chemicals, and other household products are introduced on the market each year. Most of these, from shampoos to weed killers, are tested on animals. many of these tests are conducted without anesthesia, to minimize variable factors, but seem to ignore an even more significant variable, species differences. Consider the following results of LD-50 tests (which determine the dosage required to kill 50% of the test animals) of dioxin on on various animals:
- Female rat - 45 microgram/kilogram
- Male rat - 22 microgram/kilogram
- Guinea pig - 1 microgram/kilogram
- Hamster - 5000 microgram/kilogram
This vast difference in toxicity among such closely related animals clearly shows how preposterous it is to extrapolate this sort of data to human beings.
The infamous Draize Eye Irritancy Test is used to test cosmetics and household products. The test substance is placed in one eye of an albino rabbit and the other is left unexposed for comparison. the test proceeds for several days and is often extremely painful. Rabbits are used because they are inexpensive, easy to handle, and have large eyes for evaluating results. The rabbit eye is, however, a poor model for the human eye because of major differences including the thickness, tissue structure, tearing mechanisms, and biochemistry of the rabbit cornea.
The Draize test has been widely criticized on scientific grounds because it produces unreliable results that often bear little relation to human responses. However, many corporations still use this test because it has traditionally absolved them of liability in lawsuits against them.
Only when animal organizations began to focus public attention on toxicity and irritancy tests did several of the major cosmetic and household product companies begin the serious search for non-animal methods to fulfill their scientific and corporate objectives. The dramatic change in public attitudes about the use of animals in product testing has brought momentum to the discipline of non-animal based research and this has demonstated the value of consumer pressure for ending the exploitation of animals.
Vivisection Continued
Reference Resource:
American Anti-Vivisection Society, Jenkintown, PA USA, "Point/Counterpoint" brochure
