[Ethics] Animal Research: A certainly slanted, but not invalid perspective.

Have you ever purchased food at the grocery store, then eaten it? Have you ever used shampoo? How about ibuprofin? Insulin? Anesthesia? Have you ever had a transplant? Are you glad you don't have small pox? Happy your child doesn't have polio? Looking forward to some replacement joints, cataract removal, or open heart surgery in the future? Do you like knowing what to do if your toddler drinks something toxic? Do you thank heavens for the flu vaccine every year? How about microsurgery for re-attaching limbs that have been severed?

Thank a whole lot of animals. Mostly these guys:

Thanks!

Animals have really had a vital role in every major medical advancement in the last century in both people and animals. Based on some informal polling that I've seen recently, I think that some may be without the whole picture, so I want to fill it in a bit.

About 95% of animals used for research are purpose-bred mice and rats

About 4% are fish, pigs, sheep, rabbits, frogs, etc

About 1% are dogs, cats, or primates

About 0.1% are primates.

So, truly, theirs is the face of scientific research.

I'll bet that in that list, your eyes stopped on dogs and cats briefly. Yes, these are valid research models at times. Once upon a time research labs used to pick up animals from shelters. This makes sense, since about half of dogs and about three-quarters of cats that end up in shelters are ultimately put down. This way, they could get cheap research animals and minimize waste of life at the same time. The problem, however, arose that people's pets would break free, be picked up, and shipped off. To prevent this, an animal that has been picked up must be held at the shelter for a few days in case it has owners that call after it, then it has to be held a few more days before being used for research, just to be extra safe. So don't worry- Fido, Rover, and Spot are safe, even if they escape. Truth be told, wild-caught animals aren't really great for research. Unless you test specifically, you never know what genetic abnormalities they might be carrying or what bugs. For this reason, the vast majority of all animals used are purpose-bred for research.

I don't want to get into all the boring of the regulations at you, but basically you have to prove:

• that the research is worthwhile to the world (brings some significant benefit, not "I wonder what would happen if...") and productive
• that you really need this animal to do the research (it won't work in a petri dish)
• that you can't use a phylogenetically lower species (a mouse instead of a dog, a fish instead of a mouse, a fly instead of a fish, etc) (Replace)
• that you have designed the experiment to use the fewest animals possible for good science (Reduce)
• that you are doing everything you can to make their stay a great one minimize anything bad they may experience and provide them with the stimulation they need to not go nuts with boredom. Nuts. A technical term, you know. (Refine)

One piece of legislation (Animal Welfare Act) covers all animals except purpose-bred mice and rodents. These guys are covered by other legislation (Public Health Service and USDA) as long as government money is involved. Any university will be receiving at least a small amount of public funds and will set up entire Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC- a board required to include at least scientists, a non-scientist, a vet, someone not affiliated with the organization, and someone from the community). The gap here is for purpose-bred mice and rats in private research that does not receive public funds. These are your company researchers. This concerns me, but not too much, as sick and unhappy rodents make for bad research. It is really in the researcher's best interest to take good care of their animals.

In a lab I looked at working in, monkeys were being used for some high-level neuro studies, and they were hiring someone to play (Yes, play!) with the monkeys, along with other tasks. They didn't want them getting lonely. When I was doing liver research and I had to sacrifice mice, the guy training me said that ending a life shouldn't be easy. He said that those creatures were to be respected for their gift. An additional comment on treatment of animals in research: Googling for images, I chose two that looked much like what I saw in my mouse colony. It wasn't horrific. It wasn't cuddling. It was mice in a cage. Please observe, though, when doing this that there are all kinds of primates behind rusty bars in popular photos. One of the Prof's that was talking about this dug around to find that a particular popular one was taken at a failing facility in a struggling Eastern European country. These are often not US photos.

So Who Cares?

Well, on one side of the spectrum are individuals who believe in "Human Dominion." These people don't really worry about the animals. They're only worth is as food, shelter, entertainment, work, etc to these people. Moving down the list you find Speciesists, who recognize that animals have a certain value beyond humans' resources, but consider a fish life to be worth the same as a gorilla's life. All animals are animals, period. A more central group (that I belong to) are those who support Animal Welfare. Personally, I consider all life to be our responsibily to protect, while also being for our use when necessary. As long as we use them judiciously and with the respect that another living creature deserves, I have no problem with using them for research, food, etc. More on how I came to that later.On the other end are the Animal Rights people, who beleive that the life of a mouse is equal to that of a human. They obviously believe that any right you or I have, the mouse should have. If a mouse can save your son's life by giving her's... well, too bad.

Back to all that good stuff we were using like shampoo and organ transplants. All of these (yes, even those shampoos that say "Not Tested in Animals) were tested on animals at some point or another. To be approved by the FDA, all substances have to be. The distinction is semantic. Some other company did the testing for all of those substances, so now that company can say they didn't. If someone handed you hand cream that was truly never tested on animals, how would you know it wouldn't burn your skin? So why would you purchase it?

And yet... Protests and even acts of domestic (I hate the word that goes here, so lets say "crankiness") crankiness occur, actually at an increasing rate.

The nerds, however, have their own posters and offer Animal Rights activists treatment rejection cards.

My Opinion
Where does my personal opinion come from (Animal Welfare, remember)?

My religious fanaticism:

Stewardship: In Genesis 1:28, God gave man dominion over his other creations.
In Proverbs 12:10 a righteous man is said to care for his animal.

Use: In Genesis 3:21 God gave Adam and Eve garments made of skins.
Respect: Psalm 50:10 says, "for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine."

My biomedical researcherness:
People should be taken care of. The best way we have is to develop technogogies that combat disease and disorders. We need animals to do that effectively. Anyone who has ever truey known someone who was suffering due to injury or illness would sacrifice as many mice as it took to bring them relief, and thank God every day for every single one of those precious mice.

* Information taken from presentations by Denise Capozzi, VMD and Sarah Woodley PhD. The images of the mice are from http://photos.news.wisc.edu/photos/11722/view and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090211082354.htm

20110118 Update:
http://blogs.nature.com/spoonful/2012/01/a-housing-crisis-looms-for-us-research-involving-lab-animals.html