Adrian Morrison and Jack Botting (Letters, The Scientist, May 26, 1997, page 10) disagree with the conclusions Neal Barnard and I draw in our Scientific American article (as reported by T.W. Durso, The Scientist, March 31, 1997, page 1), and they deride our references as "puffed-up." However, these were the articles supplied to the Scientific American editors, who demanded that we substantiate every claim.
Regarding animal experimentation's role in medical science, we assert that it has been greatly overstated by apologists for the method. Moreover, we recognize that, in science, there are always many ways to address a given question. Had animal research not been an option, scientists would have used other approaches. Had that been the case, we don't know whether biomedical science would be at its present state; perhaps it would be more advanced.
We concluded in the Scientific American article (N.D. Barnard, S.R. Kaufman, Scientific American, 276:80-2, ...
