How They Know to Put That Skull-and-Crossbones on the Bottle
It is never good to be afraid of the truth, but some people are. They call themselves "animal lovers," yet, when someone else describes the horrors of vivisection, they exclaim that it is too horrible; they don't want to hear or even think about it. Well, here is a solution for them: instead of having to hear about it, they can read about it instead. No matter how much the truth scares you, you have to find out eventually -- even, as here, if it involves"scientific" procedures that are usually excruciatingly painful for the experimental subjects, whom we are torturing simply because they do not bear the name Homo sapiens. This even includes chimpanzees, who are 98.5% genetically identical to us and have been proved to be extraordinarily mentally capable. Besides being unethical in that it requires millions of animals to suffer and die, often in tests flawed in some way, vivisection is also bad science in that what is medically true for animals is not necessarily true for humans as well, and unnecessary because there are alternatives that do not require suffering by animals.
The most common issue raised in the debate over vivisection is whether scientists should kill animals to save the lives of humans. Either way, lives are going to be lost. "Modern society is too diverse, too complex, too changeable for moral discourse to be codified as authoritative" (Wuthnow 674).However, in this case, the in all likelihood, more animals will be killed than humans saved -- and that's if the test results are appropriately used. Up to 200 million animals are used per year in various experiments, including those for medication, stress reactions (as if we didn't already know that stress is bad for you), and effects of various toxins. The population of the United States is 300 million. What is the probability that terrorists will suddenly afflict two- thirds of the population with some fatal disease with no cure? Currently, 0.000003 percent of that population (approximately 10 people) has contracted anthrax since September 11. Of that 0.000003 percent, 30 percent have died of it. The result: 0.000001 percent of the entire population of the United States has died of anthrax -- and we have antibiotics to treat it. Even if we didn't have Cipro, how much sense does it make to kill millions of animals, some of whom are even pets who were let outdoors without supervision and stolen -- for the sake of ten people? Not much. If patients need tests, it's quite certain that those who have anthrax would be more than happy to be used as experimental subjects. There are many reasons why they would be better subjects than rabbits. First, animals' medical incompatibility with humans: "�Animal tests have a host of problems besides animal suffering with them . . . There are so many species to test on, and so many doses that can be administered, that scientists can theoretically come up with whatever they're looking for'"(Pardue 79). Also, if a cure were found, then the victims would be cured that much more quickly, since it would be found by being tested on them in the first place. If a cure wasn't found, they'd feel better for at least having tried, and that boost in self esteem might just be a cure, after all. And, surely, they would receive much better treatment than nonhuman lab animals.
In many laboratories, especially those conducting toxicity tests on household products, animals are treated abominably. The two most common tests are the LD50 (Lethal Dose 50%) and the Draize tests. In the LD50, substances such as laxatives, household products, and food additives are force-fed to various species, including cats, dogs, mice, and rabbits, and the victims are observed for two weeks. The substance being tested is designated "highly toxic" by the FDA if 50% or more of the test subjects die within 14 days. Apart from being incredibly upsetting for the animals (how would you like it if you were forced to drink Windex literally until your stomach burst?), the LD50 is incredibly imprecise, since, as mentioned before, many of the animals die of damage to their internal organs rather than from toxins. The Draize tests, or "manipulations" as they are sometimes called -- an eye version and a skin version -- are, if anything, worse, since the effects are external and the animals can see what is happening to them as well as feeling the agony. In the Draize eye test, "Conscious albino rabbits are immobilized . . . and a chemical is dropped or sprayed into one eye, using the other eye as a control . . . over a period of days, and typically without pain relief." (Fano 26). In addition, Corvino points out that rabbits have no tear ducts, so cannot wash the substance out in that manner. The Draize skin test is just as barbaric. According to Corvino: "Skin testing on animals demands that hair or fur be cleared away . . . by applying a strong adhesive tape and then quickly tearing it off. . . . Once the skin's been stripped clean, test irritants are applied, wrapped in gauze and covered with a patch of adhesive plaster" (129). Can things get any more painful? Yes. The tape is sometimes applied more than once so as to strip off even the upper layers of skin, which are then treated with formaldehyde so as to increase sensitivity even more. Of course, no local anaesthetic is administered at any point in this process . Even though they're not in space, no one can hear them scream -- because they can't. "Many animals -- dogs specially -- get treated on arrival to a nifty piece of surgery that decimates their vocal cords . . . so the victims can't cry out their agony and alert neighbors nearby to the devilry going on inside, or distract the �researcher' from his �work.' . . . Side effects of this include: chronic bronchitis, laryngitis, pneumonia and severe hemorrhaging"(Corvino 116). So much for man's best friend. If this were the lab workers' real best friend -- that is to say, their human one -- be sure they would not chop or burn out their vocal cords, or rub acid into their skin.
Some scientists deny that these conditions even exist. Jessica Symczyk, a lab technician, says:
"Let me tell you the extent of the �cruelty' my dogs undergo. In the first study, they play with a lab technician for an hour every day. The other experiment requires that they drink a tiny amount of an extremely diluted drug, about a fifth of a teaspoonful, a day for eight days and have some blood drawn. When I draw blood, the dogs are happy to see me and they romp around like bouncy pups." (35)
Apart from the fact that Ms. Symczyk does not know how to use commas properly, her argument is also flawed logically. Although she is most likely telling the truth about the conditions at the laboratory where she works, that laboratory is not necessarily a representative sample of allresearch laboratories. To be sure, there are some laboratories like that, but there are ample eyewitness accounts, photographs and videotapes from visitors to say positively that this is not true of most laboratories which conduct experiments on animals. In fact, it is practically impossible to conduct, say, toxicity tests in such an animal-friendly environment, and the conditions described above are all too common. Would that all laboratories were like that which Symczyk describes, but unfortunately, she refuses to acknowledge that most are not.
We even do this to chimpanzees, almost our own kind, because they are just 1.5% different from us. Of a visit one of her friends once made to a laboratory with Jane Goodall, journalist Deborah Blum recounts, " [He told me,]�It was a nightmare there. They had those chimps in metal boxes. One . . . was just lying on the floor of her cage. . . . And the vet said . . . "See, she's not screaming . . . See, she's just fine." They were holding her like she was a typewriter . . .'Afterward . . . Goodall sat silently in the back of the car. . . . She was crying, tears dripping off her chin." (24) Goodall herself says, "If we ascribe human emotions to non-human animals we are accused of being anthropomorphic . . . But is it so terrible? If we test the effect of drugs on chimpanzees because they are biologically so similar to ourselves . . . is it not logical to assume that there will be similarities also in at least the more basic feelings . . . ?" (306)
The first possible antidote to all of this is, obviously, to use testing methods that d not require suffering on the part of animals. One alternative, as described above, would be human volunteers, people willing to contribute to a good cause (not to suffer for it; humans, one can be sure, will receive sufficient painkillers). With today's technology, it is not even necessary to use complete organisms. It is possible to grow live human cells, store them for months or years, then grow them into human organs. (This is called experimenting in vitro and is similar to the process used by egg and sperm banks.) These make substantially better test subjects than animals. If heartburn medication, for example, is being tested, then a human digestive system will provide better indication of its effects than will a mouse's. In addition, in vitro organs do not require anaesthetic; how convenient for the researcher who never administers it anyway? Going even further, if only one organ must be tested on, say for psoriasis, than the researcher would be able to simply use a culture of skin cells, instead of a complete human skin. It takes less time to grow, and is also a great deal easier to work on -- imagine doing delicate tests on a full human skin! It would be awkward to carry around, and would also take more time -- and money -- to grow than would a small culture of skin cells, which will work equally well for testing purposes.
There are also several different methods that are partially or wholly mechanical rather than relying on human error. There are two tests which use cell cultures, but the results of which are measured and interpreted by computers rather than by people: the Neutral Red Assay (NRA), and the Light-Addressable Potentiometric Sensor (LAPS). The NRA "categorizes a substances toxicity on the basis of the damage it causes to . . . cell cultures" (Fano 159). It is far more precise than the LD50 test, and is also far more economical. The LAPS does the opposite, in a sense; instead of measuring the damage to a cell culture, it "uses a silicon chip biosensor to measure cellular recovery (or lack of it) from injury, as well as changes in cellular metabolism" (Fano 159). The LAPS test will likely be used to replace the Draize eye and skin manipulations.
At the extreme of mechanized testing, there are tests that are entirely computer-based and require no cell cultures at all, using mathematical models instead. The Computer-based Structure- Activity Relationships (SARs) are mathematical or statistical models which describe various biochemicals based on weight, molecular structure, and electric charge. These are fed into a computer, which analyzes the models and predicts any harmful biological effects each chemical might cause, with 85% to 97% accuracy. The Computer-Optimized Molecular Parametric Analysis of Chemical Toxicity (COMPACT) works similarly. COMPACT analyzes chemicals' molecular and electronic structure, then predicts which are most likely to be toxic. Since it predicts only the presence of symptoms, not their nature, COMPACT is less precise than SARs, but, for the same reason, it is more accurate, with a 94% accuracy rate based on its analysis of Salmonella. An almost identical system, TOPKAT, has a 97% accuracy. "Both TOPKAT and COMPACT draw from animal data for comparison, however, and critics maintain that such software programs should only be considered as valid replacements for animal tests when they use human data (Fano 159)." It is even possible, with a computer, to create mathematical models or images to replicate entire organ systems, and such models can be used medically as well. One type, physiologically based bio-kinetic models (PBBKs), represent biological processes as mathematical equations. These equations can be solved in systems to study various metabolic processes within the body, but also to predict the effect of chemicals on specific processes; for example, how one's digestive system is affected by Tylenol, or by Snor-Enz, or cocaine. There are also graphic models, which a computer creates by analyzing equations that describe a particular organ and turning them into a three-dimensional image of the organ. Such models are often used in hospitals, since they are far easier to interpret than PBBKs. One kind of graphic model, often used by the EPA to monitor disease progress, is the ED01, named such because it is capable of detecting a change in cancerous activity as small as 1%. On the extremely ambitious side, for those who enjoy writing a lot of complicated computer code and equations, there is Project Da Vinci, at the University of Illinois. The aim of Da Vinci: to create a three-dimensional computer simulation of the entire human body. (Star Trek's holodecks can't be far behind.)
The other possible antidote, which in fact leads almost automatically to the first, is to strengthen anti-vivisection law. Although there are a few laws regarding cruelty to animals, reports Joseph Corvino, "[Animals] aren't �legal person's in the eyes of the law in the way that adults, children, cities, corporations, and ships are. Instead, animal are property. . . . If someone kills your dog, he's committed a crime against you, not against your dog"(359). The laws that do exist are weak and have more holes in them than there are in an economy-size box of doughnuts. They include such words as needlessly and unnecessarily, thus, in theory, exonerating all research laboratories. Other examples of such loopholes are deliberately, intentionally, maliciously, purposely, viciously, or willfully. In other words, anyone filing suit on behalf of an abused animal will have some trouble proving that it was actually a crime, since it is difficult to prove that something was done intentionally. In addition, the perpetrator -- i.e. the person involved -- is highlighted rather than the victim -- that is, the animal. Also, most laws do not consider lack of proper care to be abuse.
Many people will cite the Animal Welfare Act (1966; updated 1970, 1975, 1983) as a paragon of legal animal protection. However, it is fairly pathetic. The Act requires licenses for those who sell animals to research establishments as well as the establishments themselves, but not for individual vivisectors; covers cats, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, monkeys, and rabbits, while "counted out, astonishingly enough, are cows, donkeys, goats, horses, mice, pigs, poultry, rats, sheep, all cold-blooded animals, and all other farm animals (Corvino 361)";fails to make any stipulations whatsoever regarding the actual experiments that occur inside the laboratory; and "does not require laboratories to report the number of [rodents] they use in research . . . because those animals account for approximately 80--85 percent of the animals used, it is virtually impossible to produce an accurate figure"(Fano 23).
The law has a history of excessive laxity regarding science, which does not stop with its failure to properly limit practice of vivisection. Says Marcia Angell of science in the courtroom, "It is sometimes said that the reason plaintiffs in court may be awarded damages without good scientific evidence is that the legal standard is more liberal than the scientific standard. According to this argument, all the plaintiff has to do is show preponderance of the evidence [that is, that the claim has a probability greater than 50 percent of being correct], whereas science requires 95 percent confidence about a finding (53)." Angell refers to the possibility of "scientists" who testify in the courtroom having insufficient credentials. However, it is possible that vivisectors with genuine credentials could take advantage of this laxity to manipulate the Supreme Court into leaving them plenty of elbow room in which they can still test on animals.
However, most vivisectors are probably not dishonest or evil. If they want to have inflated egos and think that the rest of the universe was created for the sake of humans (a belief which generally went out of fashion two hundred years ago), that's their business. However, there is no reason why that should be so. In fact, there are now many alternatives to using animals for various things; these alternatives range from faux fur to soy milk, tofu to PBBKs. In the long run, it may be "better science" to use alternative methods of testing drugs, since these alternatives show effects on humans instead of on rabbits. In his novel The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, Douglas Adams observes that we humans see ourselves as more intelligent than dolphins because we have so much wonderful technology and they just goof around all the time -- yet, Adams proposes, maybe, oddly enough, dolphins think that they are more intelligent, for the same reasons. I'm with the dolphins on that.
WORKS CITED
Angell, Marcia. "Science in the Courtroom: Opinions Without Evidence." Miller 51-63.
Blum, Deborah. The Monkey Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Covino, Joseph Jr. Lab Animal Abuse: Vivisection Exposed! Berkeley, CA: The New Humanity Press, 1990.
Fano, Alix. Lethal Laws: Animal Testing, Human Health and Environmental Policy. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1997.
Goodall, Jane. "Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe." Miller 303- 319.
Haugen, David M., ed. Animal Experimentation. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2000.
Miller, Richard E., and Kurt Spellmeyer, eds. The New Humanities Reader. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Custom Publishing, 2001.
Pardue, Leslie. "Alternatives to Animal Testing should Be Pursued." Haugen 78-80.
Symczyk, Jessica. "Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals: I Love Animals, and Can Still Work with Them in a Research Laboratory." Haugen 34-36.
"Vivisection." Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. :Microsoft, 1996.
Also see Eva by Peter Dickinsen and The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams.