The first dog I ever had was a beagle; she’d been liberated (or stolen, if you prefer) from a research laboratory. It wasn’t me in the balaclava (honest, officer) — my venture into animal rights activism didn’t stretch much beyond wearing a ”Rats Have Rights” badge to biology class — but I did briefly attend meetings at which footage of screaming monkeys was shown and vivisection was earnestly denounced.
I was fully committed to cruelty-free mascara, but the blanket opposition to research on animals was troubling. It would be lovely if testing on animals were useless and unreliable — but I secretly suspected that medicine owed a lot to mice, guinea pigs and other endearing, sentient beings.
The fact that animal research makes me, and many others, uncomfortable doesn’t make it bad science.
Nevertheless, the idea still leaves me queasy. When I heard that the London-based Coalition for Medical Progress was teaming up with members of the British Veterinary Association and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to ”highlight the need for more experimental research on animals to discover new veterinary medicines”, my instinct was to hide behind the sofa.
But then I got one of those cute cartoon cards from the vet, reminding me that the dogs needed a vaccination booster, which shook me out of my moral slumber. My pets have every advantage the pharmaceutical industry can offer, but what is being done to other animals so mine can be healthy? Can we ever justify sacrificing lab cat No 6430 for the benefit of Smudge?
The United Kingdom’s Animal Liberation Front (ALF), unsurprisingly, thinks not. According to its website, ”the immorality of rights-violative practices is not attenuated by claiming that the victims and beneficiaries are of the same species”.
In fact, more than 80% of veterinary drugs were developed for use on humans — pets are spin-off beneficiaries. Those elusive figures who gave me my first dog believed that animal research was flawed because humans aren’t like rodents; DNA suggests otherwise. It turns out we’re quite a lot like mice, and dogs, too.
Research into areas such as canine cancers and the dog genome is also proving useful to humans, and there is an increasing exchange of knowledge between veterinary and medical scientists.
Research on animals isn’t necessarily gruesome, either; if a vet takes a blood sample for use in a project that does not directly benefit that particular animal, they need a licence, so it counts as experimental research.
I’m not suggesting that research on animals is always a good thing, but neither is it all sadistic bunny torture, so let’s have a less hysterical debate.
The Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments acknowledges that ”immediate abolition of all animal experiments is not possible” and advocates the ”three Rs approach”: refine experiments to minimise suffering; reduce the number of animals used; and, ultimately, replace animal research through the development of effective alternatives.
If you’re still in a quandary about the issue, take comfort from the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection: ”It is an entirely coherent position to take such drugs and yet firmly believe there are safer, more reliable and humane techniques for developing and safely testing medicines.” — Â