In Defense of Animals Part 5 pdf

Speciesism in the Laboratory

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Animals require a varied and stimulating environment with plenty of

space and opportunities for social interaction. The RSPCA considers that the

minimum standards laid down in both UK and European legislation are

inadequate to satisfy what is now known about animals’ psychological,

social, and behavioral needs. The RSPCA is also opposed to the import and

export of laboratory animals because of the additional distress this causes,

has many concerns about conditions for primates in overseas breeding cen￾tres, and does not believe that the search for alternatives, the cost/benefit

procedure, the focus upon welfare and the relief of pain and distress, all

emphasized by the Act, are being given sufficient emphasis in practice. Nor

is the Act operated with any real transparency. Huge sums of taxpayers’

money continue to be spent on animal research without the concerned

taxpayer gaining real access. Unnecessary testing is rarely questioned by the

government and no effort is made to explain to the public exactly what is

being done to the animals in their name and allegedly for the public benefit.

Like all legislation, this law needs to be intelligently and competently

enforced.

In 1994 accredited training courses for license holders were made com￾pulsory in Britain and, in the following year, a British ban was proposed

on the use of great apes in laboratories and a near ban on the use of any

wild-caught primates. In 1997 and 1998, at long last, there were bans on the

use of animals to test cosmetics, cosmetic ingredients, tobacco, alcohol, and

offensive weapons.

The Use of Great Apes

The UK (since 1997), New Zealand (since 1999), and Sweden (since 2003)

now exclude the use of great apes for research and testing purposes.

Although the Netherlands still has six chimpanzees on a hepatitis project,

they will be the last, as the country has recently announced its intention not

to allow further use. In Japan, academics have halted invasive chimpanzee

research and are pressing for a total ban.3

The U.S. has no such ban and

currently there are 1,200 chimpanzees housed in laboratories in the U.S.

(according to a recent survey cited in the July 2003 edition of IAT Bulletin).

By contrast, the Republic of Ireland has a policy not to license projects

involving the use of any primate species.

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Richard D. Ryder

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Alternatives to Experimentation

with Live Animals

The concept of the 3 R’s of replacement, reduction, and refinement became

a useful trinity in the scientific and reform communities of the 1990s. The

3 R’s refer to:

• those techniques which replace experimental animals; the use of cell

cultures generally or of sophisticated models and novel materials in

some trauma research (e.g. car crash studies) are some examples of how

imaginative scientists have created new techniques;

• those techniques which reduce the numbers of animals used;

• the reduction or abolition of pain or other suffering through the refine￾ment of husbandry and procedures. This is now extended to include the

positive concept of improving laboratory animal welfare.

All three approaches have some value, although replacement and refine￾ment are generally accepted as being more morally important than mere

reduction in the numbers of animals used.

Computer models of bodily function, physical models or films for teaching

purposes, tissue cultures (i.e. growing living cells in a test tube), organ cul￾tures, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are all examples of techniques

which have had the effect of successfully replacing some animals in research.

Many of these techniques are more accurate and less expensive than using

animals. Others need further research and development. Some, like the

simple culturing of human cells, are inexpensive, while others require the

purchase of new equipment, which can be costly.

One of the great drawbacks of tissue culture, as a method for testing

chemical substances, drugs, or vaccines, has been the need to test new sub￾stances on all the systems of the body working together. A substance which

is not poisonous to cells alone may become so after it is transformed by the

liver, for example, into a new substance. On the other hand, what is poison￾ous to one species of animal may not affect another species. Rats and mice

can react quite differently to the same substance. So can the human animal.

As long ago as 1980 Professor George Teeling-Smith pointed out some of

the problems of the statutory toxicity (poison) testing on animals, as it was

at that time, in a paper entitled “A Question of Balance” (published by the

Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry):

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