The Use Of Animals In Laboratory Research: Debate Presses Forward Experimentation On Animals Retards Progress of Science

I have found that some scientists and some of my fellow physicians have thoughtful insights about the scientific and ethical issues raised by animal experimentation. Most, however, denounce critics of animal experimentation in a way that demonstrates little understanding or consideration of positions conflicting with their own. This is very disturbing. Unfortunately, the use of nonhuman animals in laboratories has always been entrusted to people in the habit of ardently shutting out criticism. Research bureaucrats, for example-- those who determine funding priorities--regularly sidestep criticism of animal experimentation, even if it comes from within the ranks of science and medicine. But certain challenges to their position are irrefutable. Since animal models are mere analogues to their human counterparts, experiments on animals can neither confirm nor disprove any scientific theory about humans. Thus, I suggest, changes in research priorities relating to animal experimentation are in order--changes that would likely accelerate the pace of medical progress. Reallocation of funds from research depending on animal models to clinical studies using human subjects would see funds being effectively applied to investigations that stand a better chance of reliably generating and testing hypotheses about humans. In their arguments, proponents of animal experimentation tend to cite laboratory animals' lack of specific human characteristics--intelligence, language capacity, close social ties, the capacity for suffering, and so forth--as justification for excluding them from ethical or moral consideration. But the reasoning and, consequently, the ethical positions of these animal-use advocates are faulty, since none of the aforementioned attributes is unique to our species. If, for example, the human capacity to suffer gains moral consideration for humans, then this reasoning should apply moral consideration to all nonhuman animals--even those lacking other human attributes--that share with humans that same capacity. And the fact that members of all other vertebrate species, as well as innumerable invertebrates, possess the capacity to suffer is documentably beyond dispute. Some defenders of animal experimentation claim that only 6 percent of laboratory animals suffer pain. This oft-cited statistic--a product of research conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture--is based on experimenters' reports of perceived animal pain. However, judging from documentation connected with the research, experimenters often classify painful procedures, such as lethal-dose toxicology tests or nonterminal surgery, as painless. Nor does the statistic take into consideration that animals used in experimentation experience other forms of suffering beyond the purely physical, such as environmental deprivation. The utilitarian argument that the benefits of animal experimentation outweigh its costs is equally bereft for several reasons. For example, it absurdly involves weighing the benefits to one's own group (humans) against the costs to another group (nonhumans). Furthermore, animal experimentation's benefit to humans has been grossly exaggerated by those who ultimately benefit in some way from being able to continue the practice. Most important, perhaps, the rationale of utility has been offered throughout history to justify all sorts of inhumane practices, including child labor and human slavery. Utilitarian arguments do not have a good track record. While it is true that more animals are abused, suffer, and die in connection with other human enterprises--agriculture, for example--than are maltreated in laboratories, this fact serves only to indict these other enterprises. It in no way exonerates animal research. Similarly, the fact that free-living animals suffer nature's hardships in no way entitles humans to add to the suffering. In recent years, those who are directly involved in animal experimentation have enthusiastically adopted the role of injustice sufferers, ever eager to play the righteous and defensive victims of animal-rights "extremists." For most of these so-called extremists, however, the propensity for violence is greatly exaggerated; and for those few among them who do commit acts of destruction, the useless folly of their behavior is obvious. The proponents of animal experimentation have become no less sanctimonious as a result of the extremists' violent acts--and laboratory animals have become no more protected. Surrounded by like-minded colleagues, many scientists confidently dismiss, as either uninformed or misanthropic, others' concerns about animal experimentation's scientific value and moral legitimacy. Given society's large financial stake in animal experimentation and the millions of animals harmed annually, we all have an obligation to address these issues. Kenneth P. Stoller is a pediatrician in private practice in Burbank, Calif.

The Use Of Animals In Laboratory Research: Debate Presses Forward Experimentation On Animals Retards Progress of Science

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