I've been doing a bit of digging into use of lab animals in research and the
related issue of "animal rights" types (to use a neutral term--some would be
called "activists" by their allies and "terrorists" by the ones on the
receiving end). Might anyone have ready references/examples/experiences dealing
either with (1) utility of lab animals in research; (2) the debate over whether
there are adequate substitutes for the same; or (3) animal-rights motivated
break-ins or infliction of damage?

--  
Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!109!104.0!David.Hardy

While undoubtedly animals are often used improperly and inhumanely, they
are indispensible to many types of biomedical research.  It will be
many years before our computer simulations will reach the point where
they can be used instead of animals, if ever.  Obviously humans could
be used, but at the present time, restrictions on human use are much
more stringent that those on animal use.  I do not forsee society
changing sufficient to allow human experimentation along the necessary
lines to replace animals in the near future (nor do I advocate it).  
The other alternative is to cease doing this type of research (largely
pharmaceutical, but often structural and anatomical and physiological) with
a subsequent slowing of scientific and medical progress.  The break-ins have
not been frequent or widespread but have been very destructive.  They
have been effective in discouraging use of dogs and cats mainly, since
these are the two animals that are targeted most by the animal-rights
activists.

-----

I have always found it curious that people who protect animals on
the grounds that our use of them is anthrocentric focus on the
animals that are dear to *human* sentiment.  Hardly anyone
complains about the wholesale slaughter of roaches and fleas.
Cute puppies and cats get much more attention than pigs, to take
one example, despite the fact that pigs are a more intelligent
beast.

Russell

For the most part, the animal activists are inconsistent and illogical.
Some, however, are vegetarians and probably even make attempts to
avoid stepping on bugs.  If you really want to enrage one, try
bringing up the research (probably bogus) a few years ago that
seemed to indicate that plants were capable of suffering.  I suppose
you could get by eating fruits and vegetables that were produced
by plants with the purpose of having animals eat them and thus
disseminate the seeds, but very few have gone to those philosophic
extremes.  But I feel that such persons are as much out of harmony
with nature as are those who eat steaks every day and use rabbits
for research in cosmetics.

I would suggest you rethink this statement.

Why not let the market govern.  Let some vendor advertise that their
product has not been tested, but is being released without test, or
uses only technology that needs no testing.

Those that want no animals destroyed by testing would then purchase
only those products, suffer only those operations on themselves that
need no testing, wear only those fabrics that use no material,
whatever they believe in.

I judge that most companies would see no sales in the untested, or
unsupported products.  If I am wrong, then just fine!  The customer
would vote with his/her dollar and testing would end.  Operations
would cease to improve.  No new hair die, lipstick, face paint,
contact lenses, and the like would appear.  If that is what we want,
that is what we deserve.

Just a modest proposal.

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From a philosophical point of view, Dr. Levine's suggestion does not
answer the question adequately.  As a test case, I suggest that one
consider whether the same argument would have carried much weight
among opponents of slavery.  I.e. had critics of abolitionism
suggested that some cotton producer could use only free labor and
advertise that fact and then let the consuming public decide, I don't
think that that would have satisfied the abolitionists as an adequate
solution to the problem.  The reason is that once one believes that
human beings ought not, _as_a_matter_of_moral_principle_, to be
enslaved, then the popularity or lack thereof of that point of view,
as manifested in the marketplace or elsewhere, ceases to be a
relevant consideration.

To the opponents of animal testing, the argument is entirely analogous.
Personally I have no sympathy with antivivisectionism, but I think that
we need better philosophical arguments against it than Dr. Levine's.

The m{*filter*}position that I am comfortable with is that animal testing is
OK for finding cures for human (or animal) illnesses, but not OK for
cosmetics if it involves lots of animal pain and suffering.  To me,
cosmetics are essentially a frivolity, and the imposition of suffering
on animals should be in some way proportionate to the benefit that we
humans (or other animals in our care) obtain from it.  Before somebody
argues that I am implicitly sneaking the criterion of the marketplace
into my own position by using the word "benefit", which could be taken
as a purely subjective thing, I'll say right now that I think that it
is the essence of a m{*filter*}question that it not be simply answerable in
terms of subjective preferences, but that it somehow reflect some sort
of societal understanding.  What the exact relationship should be
between the amount of suffering it is OK to inflict on animals and
the benefit to us is something to be determined by the society as a
whole.  I am arguing that there should be a relationship and that it
should be consciously considered.  My particular opinion of what this
relationship should be is merely one of many.  If opponents of animal
testing want to demonstrate peacefully and to publicize the existence
of animal testing, let them -- it at least raises the relevant
questions.  Of course, if they choose to destroy research, I think
they're going beyond the bounds of raising public consciousness of
the issue and should be dealt with like any other vandals.
--

Daniel M. Rosenblum, Assistant Professor, Quantitative Studies Area,
   Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University (Newark)

-----

I have seen complaints from animal rights groups about the
lobsters that are eaten in restaurants.  I have yet to hear a
single animal rights group complain about the roaches that are
exterminated in the same restaurant's kitchen.  Pray tell, how
are the lobsters more easily integrated into a good environment
for them than the roaches who are being exterminated in an
environment that suits them just fine?  

Animal rights activists complain about mice used in labs (some of
which would probably not last long in any natural environment
because of their special breeding), but many more rats and mice
are killed in people's homes and businesses using traps and
poisoned bait.  The latter group (like roaches and fleas and
other "pests") is already in its natural environment.  Why do
animal rights groups not boycott stores that sell traps and bait,
whether for roaches or mice?  Why do they target scientists
instead of professional exterminators?  Is killing a mouse for
knowledge somehow more evil than killing a mouse because it eats
the cooking.net">food in your pantry?

I have no doubt that some animal rights activists are more
consistent and have a more thoughtful agenda than others.  But
many of them display anthropocentric baises.  If ease of
integration into a healthy environment was the criterion animal
rights groups used in determining which animals to save, pests
would be on the top of their list, rather than almost totally
ignored.

Russell

Unfortunately you are out of your depth here. I doubt if you will
find many animal rights activists who have this anthrocentric focus -
it is more a problem with your man in the street.

As for the reason that dogs and cats are targetted for liberation
raids - it is quite simple if you had stopped to think about it
for more than two seconds. Simply put, it is easier to reintegrate
the liberated animals into the community, and easier to treat any
induced medical problems they may be suffering from. Try keeping a dozen
liberated monkeys in your backyard or getting veterinary treatment
for them.

That said, groups such as the Animal Liberation Front have often
rescued other research animals ranging from rats right up to the
larger primates.

You have failed to support _this_ statement with any facts. Does that
make you inconsistent and illogical?

Todd

If Dr. Levine was at all aware of the world around him he would know
that this is already happening.  Cosmetics, cleaning products, personal
hygiene products and others are available that contain no animal products
and have not been tested on animals.  This is a fast growing area of
the personal products market and as the products become more easily
available the market is feeding itself.  Check out products by:

Aveda
Paul Mitchell
Nature's Gate
Mill Creek
Kiss My Face
Tom's of Maine
KMS Laboratories
Beauty Without Cruelty
etc.

All this products proudly and clearly state that they contain no animal
products and have not been tested on animals.

--
Jim Nusbaum, Computer Research Lab, Tektronix, Inc.  
[ucbvax,decvax,allegra,uw-beaver,hplabs]!tektronix!snowbird!rjn

(503) 627-4612

Hardly.  Look at the publicity material animal liberationist groups put
out; lots of pictures of monkeys with electrodes in their heads (or lots of
copies of the *same* picture, usually) and soulful puppies in the arms of
their rescuers.  Do they produce leaflets depicting suffering rats or
aplysia slugs?  Do they hell.  They are cynically working on the attitudes
people have towards stereotypically cute and fluffy little doggies, and
seem not to care a damn if their materials also reinforce those attitudes.

To take one typical kind of propaganda: scare leaflets about pet
{*filter*}ping.  Evil scientists trying to take your little Moopsy away
and drip toilet cleaner in her eyeballs.  The mindset these things
exploit is straight out of a McCarthy-era B movie.

--
--  Jack Campin   Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland   041 339 8855 x6044 work  041 556 1878 home

        I don't buy into the propaganda but I do worry about pet-nappers
sometimes, frankly.
        I've worked in a research environment before, in a large,
well-known teaching hospital with lots of animal research going on. I
learned, for example, that while large dogs are often used to practice
new surgical techniques (mostly for hearts), cats are used for many
other kinds of research because they tend to come in a fairly limited
size range. Well, I adore cats, but I can see that there is useful
research being done and all that. What I see as being really bad is the
animal procurement process. Animals are graded by quality and priced
accordingly. "Cheap" cats are in worse shape healthwise than more
expensive cats. Someone Iknow doing auditory research had to destroy
half the cats who came to him because his grant administrator refused to
spring for more expensive cats who would not, for example, all have ear
mites. This is another problem, and that is the conditions under which
the animals suffer before they get to the researcher. They are often
crammed into tiny quarters with little cooking.net">food or water and disease tends
to spread very quickly. The animals injure each other because of the
conditions, and some animals come into heat and all sorts of things. How
do the animal dealers get their animals ? Sometimes, for example, the
city pound is required to turn over strays for research after a certain
time period. The animal suppliers themselves may not be nabbing pets,
but who can assure me that they don't buy animals from "free-lancers"
who are helping themselves. When so many cats get lost out of my
neighborhood, almost in waves it seems, you can't blame me for getting
paranoid.
        I've rambled more than I intended to, but the gist of it was
that I worry more about the treatment by the animal suppliers than by
the researchers and I wish that researchers were more quality oriented
in order to use as few animals as possible.

--

Are your otters big and fluffy?  Do they like to sing and dance ?
Do your wombats sleep in tophats?  Do your muskrats leap and prance?