Animal Writings on Animal Research: The Problems and the "Glimmer of Hope"

Gary at Animal Writings has been paying special attention to vivisection--animal research--issues for the last few months; you may recall that I linked to some of these posts in December ("Animal Writings: Scientific Flaws of Cancer Research on Animals") and January ("Colossal and Consistent Failures Using Chimpanzees to Model Human AIDS"). And although all Gary's posts on this topic and on his blog are worth checking out, I direct you now specifically to two of the most recent ones:

"Carnival Against Vivisection: A Glimmer of Hope" begins,

Here are two anecdotes from friends of mine who have worked in medical research laboratories, mostly on NIH-funded projects, for years...

"Roger" had worked on studies with and without animals. He took pains to be gentle to the animals, even to insects and worms. Even those creatures have tasks they seem to want to accomplish, and perhaps even with their relatively primitive systems they have the ability to sense not only pain but well-being. After a period of ambivalence, he told his boss that he could no longer experiment on animals. Now he does only non-animal research, and is almost totally vegan.

"Laurie" has also worked in medical research for a long time, and indicated to her supervisors quite a while back that she will not do any research that harms animals. She became an ethical vegan mid-way into her scientific career. She contends that the only thing standing in the way of total non-animal research in medical labs is the will to make that conversion.

Follow the link to read the rest of the post.

And then read Gary's "Carnival Against Vivisection: Wrap-Up (Almost)." Again, just an extract from the beginning:

The vivisection industry is rife with experiments that inflict substantial pain and suffering on animals, ostensibly to find cures for diseases that we largely bring ourselves. Government health agencies spend scant resources on true prevention campaigns, which would produce a wealth of benefits for relatively little cost. Due to inherent differences between species, and the contrived methods by which vivisectors imitate human disease in animals, many if not all animal model exercises are of dubious scientific value. Notwithstanding the questionable reliability (if not proven unreliability) of animal models, a relatively tiny portion of health research funds are allocated to developing non-animal alternatives.

Many animal experiments do not even pretend to be an effort to cure AIDS or heart disease or cancer. They are studying yogurt-tasting preferences, or trying to induce gayness in sheep, or concocting hideously crude models of PMS. In product testing labs, scientists and staff pour caustic chemicals into the skin and eyes of restrained animals—for profit, not because of scientific or regulatory reasons.

When we treat animals—sentient beings with profound interests, an intense will to live, and an enormous capacity for suffering—as expendable trash, to make a buck, or out of moral laziness, or due to apathy, something is brazenly wrong with society.

And from toward the end:

I think I understand the strategy of many animal activists to concentrate almost entirely on farmed animals and promoting vegan diets: Since around 99 percent of animals bred and killed at the behest of humans live and die in the animal agriculture industry, by getting people to change their diets, we can save the most number of animals and reduce human-caused animal suffering most quickly. I have no qualms with that, and for the most part I follow that same strategy.

But I can't ignore individuals who are suffering and being killed just because they're not in the category at the front of the line. The monkey wasting away alone in a tiny cage in a vivisection lab suffers as intensely as the sow stuck in a maddeningly tiny gestation crate. Each individual's pain and suffering is overwhelmingly important to them. I feel that way with humans, too. I understand attending to crises that affect a great number of people, such as populations starving from drought, war, or corrupt despotic governments, or victims of massive natural disasters that impact population centers. But I can't forget about the political prisoner rotting in a concrete cell in some small, little-known (to us) country. I can't, in essence, say to him or her, "We'll get to you later, once we're done fixing the situations in Darfur and the Mideast."

Read the rest of this post.