Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Swim, Scientists Gotta...Test? August 21, 2009
Ashley Glowinski
e-Editor
| Between fat and stressed monkeys, sleep-deprived mice, and quick sheep breeding, animal lab tests sound more like a recap of a fraternity party than a science experiment. But according to The Humane Society, more than 100 million animals are used for such tests around the world each year.
The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1997, strongly recommends scientists should follow proper protocols for experiments.
However, even the guideline creators shrug when it comes to certain situations: “Occasionally, protocols include procedures that have not been previously encountered or that have the potential to cause pain or distress that cannot be reliably controlled. Such procedures might include physical restraint, multiple major survival surgery, food or fluid restriction, use of death as an end point, use of noxious stimuli, allowance of excessive tumor burden...”
The Animal Welfare Act, originally established to protect animals in the U.S. during the 1960s, is equally vague when it comes to lab testing. Although it requests scientists minimize animal distress, practice euthanasia and avoid performing major operations on the same animal twice, it also allows them to bypass the requirements if they have a strong enough argument.
So, how necessary is this testing? While dozens of alternative methods have been scientifically evaluated, many scientists think that animal reactions are the closest thing to that of a human—despite the fact that previous experiments have proven this to be false.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, for example, found a number of experiments involving non-human primates with tests for HIV, Alzheimer’s and stroke. The experiments were all invalid because of the significant difference between humans and primates.
For those who appeal to logic, animal testing is also one of the most expensive methods after humans, costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Some efforts have been made to put the brakes on animal testing. Overseas, the UK Home Office announced in July 2009 that medical procedures in Europe on animals rose to almost 3.7 million in 2008, increasing 14% since 2007. Currently funds are being granted in order to support alternative testing methods.
An NIH publication states that the use of animals in tests is okay because “nature is extremely economical. Throughout vast evolutionary time—from bacteria, to plants, to people—the same biological processes are recycled over and over.”
If the animals died of natural causes, this statement might be accurate. But the truth is, lab animals are generally “recycled” for no honorable cause. Being there are other options available, these words are just an excuse for treating living things as if they are disposable.
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