This week my students (the ones who you already know are so smart) and I talked in class about the ethics of research with animals. One thing that came up in these discussions is the likelihood that a lot of people hold internally inconsistent views when it comes to how we ought to treat animals.
It’s true that there are folks who try hard to be completely consistent: they’re not only against animal experimentation, but they don’t eat animal flesh, or eggs, or milk, or honey, don’t wear leather, don’t kill the ants that have taken up in their kitchen, etc. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, they’ll not only eat any animal product, but will happily wrestle it to the ground and kill it themselves, and have no problem with the use of animals in research, whether the aim of the research is curing cancer or developing a new eyeliner color.
But between the No Animal Use Ever camp and the Any Animal Use You Desire camp, there’s a whole lot of people in the middle. And, at least one notable position in the middle seems to be: “Scientists ought not to use animals in research, but eating meat is perfectly fine.”
How do we make sense of this position?
Is this based on some sort of unconscious appeal to what is natural and what is not? In the state of nature, those animals would be preyed upon. Eating meat is part of our nature (look at our teeth!). But the neat cages and the white coats and the lab notebooks — none of that is natural. (You’re playing God.) Besides, all those food animals are having a perfectly lovely existence until the moment they get killed, whereas the lab animals are poked and prodded and made to suffer (or to be uncomfortable or nervous).
It’s not clear this view comports well with the available facts. Anyone who has driven by the “Cowschwitz” feedlot in Coalinga, California (if you have, you’ve smelled it) will have a hard time buying the happy-lives-for-food-animals story. And, lab animals may be getting better medication for their discomfort than are people with no-frills medical coverage.
Another possible explanation is that people holding this position value meat more than they value scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge seems … somehow elitist. It’s nothing the regular person has any call for. Shooting gerbils through supercolliders (or whatever it is those pointy-headed scientists do with animals in their research) is frivolous. In contrast, we need to eat our meat; there’s nothing else that could nourish us.
Now, there are certainly bits of scientific knowledge that don’t have as many obvious practical applications. And, it may be hard to sell the public on the value of such basic research. But, do the hamburger-munchin’ folks who think it’s bad for scientists to use animals in research refrain from using any medicines, devices, or other applications of knowledge obtained with animal research? Do they even know what those would be so they could refrain from partaking in them?
I’m not saying we ought to make life hard for anyone who is the least bit inconsistent in his or her beliefs or actions. But, when you want your views to be binding on someone else’s actions, making sure your views are binding on your own actions might be a useful first step. Maybe there is a persuasive argument that using animals for meat is morally defensible in a way that using them in research is not (and if you have such an argument, please share it). But, as one of my students put it, “Some of these people who want to shut down the animal research facilities should put a sock in it while they’re still eating meat.”
What we really need is for the protocols (if that’s the right word) for both lab research and for raising livestock require humane treatment. We certainly do a really poor job of that in the meat industry, and I expect its spotty in the research world as well.
So: if my meat can come from a farm where the animals are allowed to flock/graze, fed properly, and killed humanely; and if my meds were developed using animals that had room, decent bedding, minimized suffering and humane death, I’d consider that okay.
Goals to work toward. Is that consistent?
We were having a similar conversation at lunch today. I was eating chicken and Mr. Geeky said, “That could be cat.” And I said, “Eww gross.” Which then devolved (or evolved, if you want to look at it positively) into a conversation about how to draw distinctions between what meat is okay to eat and what meat isn’t. Personally, I have no problem with animal research. It does make me a little squeamish to think about “cute” animals being poked and prodded and likewise it makes me a little squeamish to think about the conditions under which most of our food animals live before they become food. But I’m not of a good enough constitution to go vegetarian and I haven’t seen any real breakthroughs in research without animals, so I’ll live with my positions for now.
I’m actually an inconsistent vegetarian who experiments on mice. I don’t like using animals for research, but the benefits seem to far outweigh the cost, whereas the benefits of eating meat don’t seem enough to justify it. I know the cost/benefit ratio is different for different people, but I think that, in general, animals are much more easily replaced as food than as research subjects.
I have seen it seriously suggested that we do not need animal experimentation because we can simulate that resarch on computer, as if we had a working model of all populational variants of organisms, let alone a complete simulation of a mouse.
Thanks for the last couple of good posts on this topic. I am acting on the motto “If you cannot say something nice, don’t say anything at all” (translation: I refuse to be baited into another angry rant LOL).
I guess that the general public is unaware that laboratory animals are continuously monitored (often by cameras and radiotelemetry), cared for by trained professionals, and pampered way beyond what is neccessary for their normal life and health. In that respect, that are much better cared for than the pets of the most conscientous owners, or even Olympic horses.
Most experiments do not involve much “prodding and poking”. There may be an injection of something (hey, we get shots all the time) at one point, and a painless euthanasia at the end. The number of animals that undergo invasive surgery is a miniscule proportion of the lab animal population. And animals that do undergo invasive surgery have it performed under anesthesia and sterility conditions at a much higher level than what you and I get as patients in a modern US hospital.
My problem is with IACUCs that, by not listening to PIs, insist on animal care that is actually detrimental (or at least not optimal) for the species in question. The husbandry and care of standard lab animal species (e.g., mice, rats, rabbits) is well researched and developed and it is probably the absolute best way to do it, although improvements are constantly added to the protocols. The problem arises when the IACUC insists on using rodent methods of care on other kinds of animals. Treating a bird, a sheep, a frog or a fish just like a mouse is often bad for those animals, but IACUC members are unaware of this and very difficult to persuade.
I know a PI whose lab was shut down because the water in fishtanks was murky. It took weeks for the IACUC folks to be persuaded that this particular species of fish has spent the last 500 million years in murky water and is STRESSED when placed in clear water.
This example brings out two observations I have made about the usual IACUC members: 1) they do not know much about evolution, and 2) they apply anthropocentric esthetic values in determining what is important in animal husbandry and care (e.g., it is more important that the room and the cages look spotlessly clean and pretty to human sensitibilities, than what is really comfortable to the animals – I wish I could give each of my quail a sandbath – it is an important aspect of their life and adds to their psychological well-being, but IACUC just laughs the idea off).
Most members of the IACUC are either veterinarians or molecular biologists. Neither gets much biology, let alone evolutionary training during their graduate education. I know a prominent molecular biologist, a member of the Academy, who, after 40 years of research (in vision fo all things!) learned that mice are nocturnal animals!
Molecular biologists tend to use standard models (e.g., mice, or rabbits for development of antibodies) and tend NOT to want to care for them themselves. Animal care is not considered an important part of student training either. The animals are viewed as tools, and are not the object/subject of the research itself. Thus, they are perfectly happy to have the professional staff at the University take 100% care of their animals. The staff does a great job taking care of mice and rabbits.
The clashes start when actual biologists do research on non-standard animals for the purpose of study of those particular species. On our campus we have people studying a couple of dozen of species of fish, about a dozen species of birds, Xenopus, several species of salamanders, several species of lizards, several species of venomous snakes, pigs, sheep, woodchucks, horses, dogs, ground squirrels, as well as mice, rats and rabbits. Each of those species requires very different methods of housing, feeding, husbandry and general care – something that the PI is probably the world expert on and definitely knows more than a typical vet or a biochemist. The standard mice protocols do not apply, yet the IACUC keeps trying to do exactly that.
Other examples of illogic abound. My birds are continuosuly monitored by a computer: it displays activity data (continusous) and body temperature data (every 10 minutes). We check the data every day. We know if a bird is getting sick about 3 days before you can see it by observing an animal – birds are notoriously sneaky about not showing any outward symptoms of disease until they are right about to die. Yet, the IACUC insists that we visually observe teh animals every day. In some cases that is fine, but in most cases animals are kept in the dark and disturbance messes up with the data. In the end, we had to buy infra-red military goggles (circa $30,000) in order to visually observe birds every day (as quietly as we can). Where’s sense and logic there?
I’d guess that “instructors ought not to harm animals in pedagogy, but eating meat or using them for true research is perfectly fine” might be what more students truly believe. It’s slightly more defensible, but still wrong.
Another variable in the discussion: are we talking about generic animals or individuals. Ask yourself if you would give up your beloved family pet to medical research.
As someone who works (volunteer) with chimpanzees, including former research subjects, I have very strong feelings about the use of great apes in medical research. I know chimpanzees as individuals. I also know them as inteligent beings with … yes, feelings and the ability to communicate.
I do experience some ambivalence about animal testing if it is done for serious medical research, but I am hoping that it will not-so-gradually be replaced as other equally or more effective research methods become available .
Now don’t get me started on the use of great apes in entertainment.
From this entry and the comments, it seems this particular debate is far deeper than anything I could cover in a short school debate.
coturnix,
I have limited exposure to labs where animal testing is done; I used to be an engineer and now I’m a geologist. But way back in the ’70s, when I was an undergrad, my boyfriend worked as a lab tech and I had the run of the lab. (Animal rights activists weren’t so active then, and security was minimal.)
In this lab, they were looking at how certain environmental effects increased susceptibility to illness or increased illness mortality. Mostly, they experimented on rats. I like rats, and I never felt that the rats were mistreated; cages were large enough, care was excellent, and geez, everybody has to die from something.
But then, in our last year at that school, they started experimenting on monkeys. They put several of them in each cage, and the cages were very small, especially for animals that climb and jump around. I understand they’re social animals, but _nobody_ is that social — they spent their lives in each other’s laps, whether they wanted to or not. They were bored and afraid and I felt very sorry for them.
I’d love for someone who works in a lab to tell me that such things are no longer allowed. It’s been 27 years and I still see their faces, stuffed in those tiny cages.
No, such thing has not been allowed for a long time now. Very few people work on primates any more – only those who really HAVE to, and they have as stringent standards as people who work with humans (if not more!).
Very few people work on primates any more
Case in point: I started my postdoctoral work in HIV biology, and I wanted to continue in that field. For personal reasons, moving to the US meant moving here to Portland, OR, which in turn meant abandoning HIV research — precisely because there’s a primate research center in Oregon. Such centers are so few, so far between and so expensive to run and use that if you work near one, it tends to dominate your research — so nearly all of the HIV research in Portland, apart from one EM ultrastructure lab, focuses on the primate model. I didn’t want to work with primates, but more importantly I didn’t want to get into the vaccine field (primarily because my immunology-fu is very weak). So now I work on transcription factors in cancer, but the point is that primate work is both rare and stringently regulated. (Obdisclaimer: I have not been to the primate center in question and cannot speak to how the animals are treated.)
I have little difficulty in being consistent in the raising of food animals vs. raising of research animals issue – given appropriate standards, I’m fine with both. (This is of course not stating that I believe that the right standards are always enforced today.)
I have more difficulty with some forms of hunting. Not the “traditional” get-a-deer-for-the-freezer hunting – I’ve never done that and have no desire to try, but I have no issue with it. Trophy hunting and game farm hunting I find somewhat problematic, but I have difficulty being precise as to the reasons. In my opinion, neither reflects well on those who engage in it, but that’s not necessarily a reason to be against it or to want to stop it.
When I comes right down to it, however, I guess that I’m not against either in strong enough terms to want the activity stopped. Not supportive really, but willing to let it happen …
Immunokid: sounds perfectly consistent to me!
coturnix: that sort of overreaching of authority, is why I don’t trust abolutists.
All:
The basic justification for animal experimentation is benefit for humanity. To forbid animal experimentation altogether would be to declare that *no* possible benefit to humanity would be worth harming any other species. This is contradictory to the practice of most of humanity, who blithely continue eating meat (when/if they can get it). At the same time, consider that various data gathered by the Nazis, via experiments on prisoners, was destroyed unpublished by the scientific council assembled for the question. That excludes the other extreme — that is, there are “harms” that are flatly not justified by scientific progress.
Between those two, it’s a matter not merely of choosing your boundaries, (and respecting those of your patrons!) but also of accepting the tradeoffs between your moral choices, and your goals as a scientist. For me, that first rabies vaccine exemplifies the justification for animal experimentation; the “safety testing” of cosmetics et al exemplifies the abuse. But that still leaves a lot of room for argument and disagreement….
various data gathered by the Nazis, via experiments on prisoners, was destroyed unpublished by the scientific council assembled for the question
Got any references for that? It’s an interesting case, I’d like to know more.
Bill Hooker: Sorry, I do not have references on the Nazi stuff, just something I picked up while growing up Jewish (and scientific).
“But, as one of my students put it, ‘Some of these people who want to shut down the animal research facilities should put a sock in it while they’re still eating meat.'”
This suggests that your classroom discussion created a false impression in your students, perhaps due to your own false assumptions.
I’ve campaigned for ten years to end harmful biomedical and behavioral research with primates. I’ve been involved along the way in campaigns to shut down studies using other species as well.
Consistently, and with only very limit exceptions, the people I’ve worked with and met around the country working on this matter have been almost uniformily vegetarian and frequently vegan.
You seem to have left your students with a misunderstanding of the realities of the modern antivivisection movement and confused them regarding just who it is out on the sidewalk holding the sign.
My comments regarding the consistency of ethical position held by those antivivisectionists you spoke about with your class is probably more true in the San Jose, CA area than many other places; which makes the story you tell about your class discussion all the more troubling.