Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy

Five. From Object to Subject: Animals in Scientific Research

NOWHERE IS THE DEBATE ABOUT HUMAN USE OF ANImals more incoherent than in the domain of invasive somatic research on animals, also known as vivisection. Scientific researchers and their advocates claim that using live animals in experiments is absolutely necessary to the advancement of science, that without animals, we would not have developed vaccines, antibiotics, and almost all the drugs and products on the market today. Without animals, they say, research and development in medical science would come to a complete halt.1 Animal rights activists disagree. Some argue that we actually learn very little from experimenting invasively on animals; indeed, these activists say, much of the information we do gather is either not useful or just plain wrong.2 Others argue that even if we do advance our own knowledge of human medicine through animal experiments, the cost in terms of animal suffering is much too high.3 Scientists claim that because animals do not have any legal standing, we can and should use their bodies to learn more about the natural world and ourselves. Activists counter that all animals have inherent value and therefore have the right not to be experimented on. Researchers argue that a great deal of experimentation benefits animals themselves (as in veterinary medicine). Activists claim FIVE FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT Animals in Scientific Research 153 that animals cannot give informed consent and therefore ought not to be subject to invasive procedures. Researchers rebut by pointing out that we do not need their informed consent to give them the medicines we develop for them, from which they clearly benefit. Some activists, so upset both by these procedures and by the lack of communication between researchers and advocates, turn to violence. All research labs that use animals in the Unites States are required to appoint an internal review board known as an IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) to oversee all experiments on animals .These boards are not concerned with determining the relative value of an experiment; they are solely charged with overseeing the care and treatment of animals (for example, that their cages are big enough and clean enough, that they have necessary companionship and enrichment, proper food). IACUCs must have at least five members, including one veterinarian, one scientist experienced in animal research, one institutionally aligned nonscientist, and one community member unaffiliated with the research facility. Although research labs are federally mandated to establish IACUCs by a 1985 amendment to the Animal Welfare Act, researchers claim they are happy to abide by these animal welfare dictates because well-cared-for animals produce better results; indeed, many researchers believe that the existence and governance of IACUCs constitute a middle ground between unregulated use of animals in science and complete cessation of all use of animals. These researchers fundamentally believe that they are doing the right thing, that IACUCs provide adequate oversight, that their research may someday save suffering humans, and that the painless sacrifice of animals is a small price to pay for human health and well-being.4 Most activists feel that animals simply should not be killed or harmed for human benefit. Although rightists advocate the complete liberation of animals from the laboratory (as well as all from environments in which humans own and control them), many advocates adopt the strategy of forcing research facilities to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and their own IACUC recommendations. Thus, undercover reporters and whistleblowers set about identifying, documenting, and publicizing infringements . In the videos that come out of these labs, animals are beaten, nailed down, drilled into, cut open, burned, deprived of all fluids, thrown 154 FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT against walls, electrocuted, starved, suffocated, drowned, gassed, starved, blinded; their bones are broken and their limbs severed; their organs are crushed; and ulcers, paralysis, seizures, and heart attacks are induced.They are forced to inhale tobacco, drink alcohol, and take drugs such as cocaine and heroine; they are infected with every disease imaginable; they are irradiated and frozen; they have parts of their brains surgically removed; and they are kept perpetually isolated from all other creatures. How can this be welfare? animal activists ask.5 Activists work hard to force facilities to improve care, but according to them, the ghoulish practices only continue. They argue that this IACUC kind of welfare is not now and never will be enough. Some of those...