- Anything Else -

animals have no obligation to us

In Reply to: Animal testing is beneficial posted by Quiana Haymond on May 21, 1998 at 09:50:44:

Why are animals of species other than ours obligated to give us their lives "to benefit humanity"-a species other than their own. By the same logic that allows this, I could take that doctor's golf clubs, fence them, and use the money to build resistance activities "to benefit all of humanity."

Some of these treatments are less beneficial than commonly believed anyway. For instance, if I ever got cancer, the only treatment I would ever allow would be cutting out an easily accesable cancer itself-hold the radical surgery, radiation, and especially the chemo. I'd rather die than go through that.

Similarily, If I get AIDS (a disease I must risk to enjoy my life at all) I would rather let it ride for the years average in which it will not do anything and than blow off my own head than go throught the expensive, restrictive, 35 pill a day treatments that make you sick immediately (and redistribute all your body fat to your belly. Speaking of "crix belly," this is one effect of HIV treatment no animal study ever predicted(as chimps don't seem to get it). Indeed, untill these drugs are tried on humans, we never really know.

Given that some people will do anything to survive a few more months, and given also that some of these people have exhausted other treatment options, it seems to me that many treatments could go straight from in vitro cell studies to human volunteers, starting with those who have literally nothing to lose, so if the drug killls them they lose very little time, and if it works THEY benefit - instead of some lab animal that would not have even HAD cancer without the experiment.

Of course, it would also be possible, if the treatment may work for an illnesss common to humans and animals, to try it in animals that get the disease naturally. This also keeps "cage stress" conditions from invalidating the results. For instance, anyone who raises mice as companion animals knows they all seem to get cancer after living about two years (at least all my sister's sure did). If a cancer drug shows promise in in vitro tests and is not believed likely to cause painful side effects, it could be tried in vetrinary practice, offering free experimental treatment(that might work) to companion mice who have become ill with cancer. If the study causes suffering beyond what the cancer causes, of course, it must be terminated and the mice euthanized. In short, this would apply all of the human experimental standards, save the informed consent requirement(blocked by communication problems) to experimental vetrinary medicine-including that the subjects must benefit if the experiment is a success.

Raising animals in captivity and deliberately making them sick(for any purpose) is highly repulsive. What is the difference between giving a calf anemia so you can study iron supplement absorbtion and making a calf sick so you can eat white veal? Both are sickening(to say the least).

As for organ transplants, I would never accept one while I'm alive(as I do not have the patience for the recovery time and the immunosuppressive drugs would leave me defenseless against diseases I must risk exposure to. Of course, if a surgeon wants to practice doing heart transplants on me after I am irrevocably dead, he is welcome to do so. Indeed, cadavers are probably much better for training surgeons who work on humans than members of other species who are build differently. At the very least, every doctor and researcher should be willing to donate his own body to science when he is done using it(dead). In fact, in the early days of research, it was a hallowed tradition that a researcher would try his experiment on himself first, as he did not have the right to expose others to a risk he would not accept himself. Of course, this died out just like the tradition of kings leading their troops in battle(can you see Clinton taking point for a unit of Marines in Bosnia?)

In short, experimenting on animals or humans held in captivity is not the ONLY way to make medical advances. It would probably be slower without it-but the Hippocratic oath DID say first, do no harm.

Follow Ups:

• info on scientific arguments j.citizen australia September 01 1998 (0)