mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-18 04:04:34 -05:00
97 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
97 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
|
||
ANIMALS MUST DIE SO PEOPLE CAN LIVE
|
||
|
||
(reprinted from the Minneapolis Star Tribune)
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Demonstrations against the use of animals in medical
|
||
research bring out some interesting personalities. The
|
||
demonstrators are all vegetarians, because one cannot object to
|
||
killing animals for medical research while continuing to eat
|
||
them. And since more than 90% of animals used in medical
|
||
research are mice or rats, animal rights zealots should never use
|
||
mousetraps.
|
||
|
||
Demonstrators wear rubber-soled canvas shoes, and if the
|
||
weather is cold, woolen, not leather, gloves. And since research
|
||
on contraception medication involves the use of rabbits, most of
|
||
the women in the groups probably are pregnant.
|
||
|
||
None of these demonstrators would have been immunized
|
||
against polio-myelitis, diptheria, whooping cough or other
|
||
childhood diseases, or cured of potentially fatal infections by
|
||
antibiotics. Accident victims, salvaged from death by blood
|
||
transfusions, are disqualified from participation, as are
|
||
diabetics who depend on insulin for their continued existence.
|
||
Responses to these medical situations required animal research.
|
||
|
||
Anyone with a prosthetic joint, a transplanted kidney or
|
||
a cardiac pacemaker, or a history of heart surgery, chemotherapy
|
||
or immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer or of successful
|
||
treatment of glaucoma, could not, in good conscience, represent
|
||
him or herself as an opponent of the use of animals in biomedical
|
||
research. Relatives of those with Alzheimer's disease must
|
||
disqualify themselves as marchers, since current research on
|
||
monkeys may eventually suggest effective ways to treat this
|
||
disorder.
|
||
|
||
One would not expect protesters to bring along their pet
|
||
animals, since most domestic pets are protected against
|
||
distemper, infectious hepatitis, parasites and even rabies by
|
||
medications perfected through animal experimentation. And since
|
||
the 100 million cats and dogs in North America are carnivores,
|
||
requiring food obtained by killing other animals, pets must keep
|
||
a low profile to avoid the charge of hypocrisy.
|
||
|
||
For consistency, one would expect animal rights groups
|
||
picketing rodeos, where animals are mistreated for
|
||
entertainment. And why not release cattle from slaughter houses
|
||
where they are killed without general anesthesia?
|
||
|
||
The conscientious objector must also refrain from eating
|
||
animal flesh, but must also protest against others eating it.
|
||
|
||
Fourteen million dogs, more than one third of the total
|
||
dog population in North America, are destroyed in public pounds
|
||
and animal shelters. Animal pounds and humane societies engaged
|
||
in animal control kill more than 50 cats and dogs for every one
|
||
that is sacrificed for research purposes.
|
||
|
||
Although computer simulation, test-tube experimentation
|
||
and tissue cultures are gradually supplanting some types of
|
||
animal research, it would be a serious error to suppose that such
|
||
alternative techniques will soon be available for all research
|
||
that now uses live animal subjects. No other method can fully
|
||
replace the testing of a drug, a procedure or a vaccine in a
|
||
living organism.
|
||
|
||
Successful alternatives to some types of animal-related
|
||
research have indeed been developed in the last decade, with a
|
||
40% drop in the number of animals used in research between 1968
|
||
and 1978, with still further reductions since that time.
|
||
|
||
The human body, however, is far more complex than a
|
||
tissue culture, with physical and chemical interactions that
|
||
cannot be reduced to a computer programme. Just as a new type of
|
||
aircraft can be tested in a wind tunnel but must eventually be
|
||
tried out by a test pilot, a new surgical operation, a new drug
|
||
or new treatment must be tried on the first human being.
|
||
|
||
Who among healthy protesters would volunteer as a subject
|
||
for the study of AIDS? This disease must be studied in an
|
||
environment that provides for an immune system found only in a
|
||
living animal.
|
||
|
||
The dispute regarding the use of laboratory animals has
|
||
heightened the research community's sensitivity to the need for
|
||
strict safeguards against pain and suffering when conducting
|
||
experiments. Let us hope that reason will prevail, and that
|
||
these well-intentioned efforts will not bring biomedical research
|
||
to a state of virtual paralysis as it has in England.
|
||
|
||
John A. Kirchener Ph.D.
|
||
h
|
||
to a state of virtual paralysis as it |