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The Animal Research Debate

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The Animal Research Debate The Animal Research Debate SIMON FESTING Animal experiments are highly contro- analysis of these issues and has injected versial.A massive debate has gone on in a calm, reasoned and balanced perspect- the past few years about the issue.Ani- ive into an otherwise highly polarised mal rights extremism has encouraged the debate.It is yet another in a series of media to take a long hard look at the reports which builds on the middle bene®ts of animal research to see if ex- ground and sidelines the extreme views periments are justi®ed.There has been of animal rights groups. signi®cant progress, with broad support for animal research from the scienti®c Morality or science? community and from government. In Parliament, however, the issue is Throughout the world people enjoy a stuck in a rut and seems to be going better quality of life because of advances nowhere.The same groups of MPs who made possible through medical research have been hostile to animal research for and the development of new medicines years are still agitating against it.And too and other treatments.A small but vital many MPs are taking an ill-informed and part of that work involves the use of irrational approach; they should look animalsÐsomething that is strongly op- again at the issue, and examine the facts posed by anti-vivisection campaigning more carefully. organisations in a bitter struggle that The discussion has been much aided has gone on for well over a century. and enlightened by a recent report from a The use of animals in scienti®c and working party of the Nueld Council on medical research may be controversial. Bioethics,1 which released the lengthy But there is no doubt that mainstream report of its two-year investigation into medical and scienti®c organisations agree the ethics of animal experimentation in that it is essential for medical progress. May 2005.The working party, which For example, a Royal Society report2 included scientists from academia and stated in 2004 that: `humans have bene- industry, representatives of animal pro- ®ted immensely from scienti®c research tection groups, philosophers and ethi- involving animals, with virtually every cists, attempted to de®ne and expand medical achievement in the past century the middle ground to see where agree- reliant on the use of animals in some ment could be reached.They noted that way'. issues raised by research involving ani- Anti-vivisectionist groups, however, mals had aroused intense debate in the argue that it is morally wrong to use UKÐindeed, it was described as the most animals in research, and that it is bad controversial issue the Nueld Council science.These two arguments do not al- had ever studied. ways sit well together: if it is morally Their report sets out the main argu- wrong to use animals, then it does not ments on the science, ethical and welfare matter what the science is; and if the issues of animal use.Although it lacks science is ¯awed, then it should cease any particularly novel insights, it pre- anywayÐthere is no need to invoke a sents a very complete and detailed moral argument. # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co.Ltd.2005 568 Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA When a House of Lords Committee UK.Yet anti-vivisection groups try hard examined these issues in 2002,3 they con- to make their allegations stick.They use cluded `that it is morally acceptable for very carefully edited ®lm to give the human beings to use other animals, but worst possible impression: in one case that it is morally wrong to cause them they assembled ®lm footage to create a unnecessary or avoidable suering'.The sequence of events that did not actually Nueld Council working group took a happen.And they invariably use highly less clear-cut line.Overall, the members emotive language and images, and oer concluded that animal experimentation simplistic arguments that paint a dis- creates a moral dilemma.They thought torted and inaccurate picture of research. that it is morally wrong to in¯ict suering Their publications create the impression on animals for human bene®t and that brain surgery on monkeys is typical morally wrong to let humans suer by of research using animals, whereas re- not using animals in experiments to de- search on monkeys, dogs and cats com- velop better treatments for disease.How- bined is less than 1 per cent of animal ever, dierent members of the working research.Most experiments involve ro- party had dierent views about the best dents or ®shÐmedical research in the ways of resolving this dilemma. UK actually uses 25 times more ®sh The most prominent allegation by anti- than dogs.5 vivisection groups is that animal research It would be wrong to gloss over the fact is cruel.Many claim that animals are that some animals do suer in research. tortured, and another frequent complaint The idea that thousands of vets, animal is that animal research is all about pro®ts. technicians and researchers go to work But it is hard to see how anyone would every day to perpetrate cruelty to ®sh make a pro®t from torturing animals, or seems far-fetched.But, just as a person why medical research charities, who are suers when they get cancer, so an ani- trying to ®nd cures for debilitating ill- mal will get some of those symptoms. nesses like diabetes, cancer or AIDs, This is where we have a duty to maintain would spend their money torturing the highest animal welfare standards and animals. reduce suering.Every year thousands of To support their claims of cruelty, anti- visitors, including schoolchildren, visit vivisectionists point to information from animal research centres in the UK.What undercover investigators acquired dur- they mostly see is mice running around in ing so-called in®ltrations.In one of these, cages, and the people they meet are workers were punching beaglesÐa clear trained animal welfare technicians who example of mistreatment.This incident, have chosen to work there because they now ten years old, was widely con- want to look after animals. demned by the scienti®c community.To say that it re¯ects all practice in a modern research centre is like saying that all Medical progress and animal lovers are violent just because independent inquiries some extremists lob bricks through win- dows in the middle of the night.Detailed The aims of the scienti®c community are and time-consuming investigations of to gain the bene®ts from animal research their more recent in®ltrations have found with minimal suering and distress. than none of their major contentions has What are those bene®ts, and what about been true.4 anti-vivisection claims that there are The very rare instances of poor practice none? do not re¯ect the exceptionally high ani- Animal research has played a vital mal welfare standards that exist in the role in most major scienti®c and medical # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co.Ltd.2005 The Animal Research Debate 569 advances.It continues to aid our scienti®c basis of research.Also, from understanding of a variety of medical time to time various media commentators conditions, ultimately leading to the de- pick up on suggestions that animal velopment of new preventions, treat- research is bad science and write ill- ments and cures.It seems bizarre that informed articles on that basis.Anti- the anti-vivisectionists argue that all ani- vivisection groups have therefore mal research is bad scienceÐthe bene®ts devoted considerable resources to cam- are so clear cut.For example, over 70 per paigns to undermine the scienti®c basis of cent of Nobel Prizes in medicine have animal research.There are even anti- involved the use of animals.And the vivisection organisations, usually with scienti®c consensus is so strong that ani- the word `medical' in their title, devoted mal research is a valuable method: there to arguing against animal research on is no credible scienti®c or medical organ- scienti®c grounds. isation anywhere in the world that agrees Those MPs who have an inherent dis- with the anti-vivisectionists. like of animal research adopt the idea that Examples of medical advances that it is bad science with great enthusiasm, have been dependent on the use of ani- because it provides an easy way to avoid mals at some point in their development the ethical issues.Any debate about include safe anaesthetics, blood trans- whether the medical bene®ts of medical fusion, penicillin and other antibiotics, research are justi®ed can simply be dis- vaccines against polio, measles and missed, since they can claim that there are meningitis, and drugs to treat asthma, no such bene®ts.These same MPs are hypertension and leukaemia.Animal often to be found calling for a full scien- research remains essential today because ti®c inquiry into animal researchÐas if we face many unsolved medical prob- we haven't had enough of those already. lems.Our children suer with life- There have been three major independ- threatening genetic conditions such as ent inquiries in the UK into animal re- cystic ®brosis or muscular dystrophy, search in the past four years Icarried out our friends may die prematurely from by a House of Lords Select Committee, cancer or heart disease, and our old age the Animal Procedures Committee6 and may be blighted by Alzheimer's and most recently the Nueld Council on Parkinson's disease.And in poorer coun- Bioethics).None of these committees tries, millions are still dying from malaria had a vested interest in animal research.
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