Do They Look Like They're "Enjoying" Life to You?

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-07-11 11:08:00 UTC
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NYT again:

Dr. Weindruch and his statistician, David Allison of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, said the dieting monkeys were expected to enjoy a life span extension of 10 percent to 20 percent.

And later:

Dr. Weindruch joined the rhesus monkey experiment in 1990. He said he was used to being introduced as a man of incredible patience by biologists who study aging in laboratory roundworms, which live about three weeks. Dr. Weindruch will need the patience: he says he has another 15 years to go before the last monkey is expected to die.

Decades. Decades--an entire lifetime--in that horrible lab. No one is "enjoying" these 75 monkeys' "life span extension" (or life in general) except the researchers raking in money to put these animals through captive hell for up to (or even beyond) 40 years, for an entirely unnecessary experiment.

From WebMD:

Samuel Klein, MD, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who was asked by WebMD to review the study, described the study’s findings as "remarkably positive" and "very good news." . . .

He says he’s "very impressed" that the study showed that caloric restriction reduced brain atrophy (brain shrinkage) in monkeys that were studied. Such studies can't be done in humans for ethical reasons, "so this is getting as close as you can get to that," Klein says.

Newsflash: the studies in animals aren't ethical either. Humans think this is important research for their own benefit? Fantastic. They can volunteer to be the subjects.

This isn't "remarkably positive." It's inhumane. It's inexcusable.

Researcher Weindruch is quoted in Science thus:

"If we reach the 40-year-old life span, the study could continue for another 15 years," Weindruch said. "That would probably round out my career."

And that's what it's about for these researchers. Career. Money. Publication.

I hope you'll forgive me if I hope these caged animals don't live 15 more miserable years.

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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