February
1995
What
to Say When Someone Asks...
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Q: Are there any real alternatives
to the use of whole animals in research and testing?
A: Animal based research is the science of the past. There are a number
of alternatives available to modern researchers which are less expensive,
more reliable and ethically sound. In vitro studies have a number of
advantages over animal experiments. They provide results rapidly, experimental
parameters are easily controlled and their focus on the cellular and
molecular level of the life process provides more useful information
about the mechanisms by which chemicals and drugs work, and ways in
which they may cause damage.
Clinical and epidemiological studies are a vast source of data. They
have provided us with more useful information about the nature of disease
in our world than any other source. Unfortunately, animal experimentation
has drained funding away from this avenue of research.
Tissue cultures, CAT, PET, and MRI scans, and in-depth computer modeling,
are some of the modern approaches to research available to the scientist
of today. We must ask ourselves if we still need to rely on the science
of yesterday.
This passage is Point 4 of a pamphlet called Point/Counterpoint
published by The American Anti-Vivisection Society. For more information
about this pamphlet and the AAVS write to them at 801 Old York Road,
#204, Jenkintown, PA 19046-1685. Tel: 215-887-0816.
Q: Is confinement so terrible? After all, farmers protect
their animals from bad weather and predators and provide them with
food, water
and shelter. Isn’t that better than being in the wild?
A: Slave traders and slave holders argued that it was better to be
a slave in a “civilized, Christian” society than to be at
liberty in a heathen jungle. This same rationalization is used to justify
expropriating and subjugating other species. Producers tell the public
that farm animals prefer “three meals a day” to a life in
the wild. In fact, the “wild” is a human projection onto
areas of the earth and modes of being that are alien and inhospitable
to our species. The wild isn’t “wild” to the
animals who live there. It is their home. Animals in wall-to-wall confinement
are forced to live in a situation that expresses human nature, not
theirs.
If they preferred to be packed together without contact with the world
outside, then we would not need intensive physical confinement facilities,
since they would voluntarily cram together and save us money.
It is illogical to argue that humans protect farm animals from “predators.” We
are their predator. Moreover, by confining them we subject them to
many
more nonhuman predators in the form of parasites and other disease
organisms than they would otherwise encounter. By locking them up,
we prevent
them from using their natural fight/flight abilities, so that when
a predator (such as the farmer) comes along, they cannot escape. Millions
more animals die of heat stress and other climactic conditions in intensive
confinement facilities than they would in nature. The inability of
confined
farm animals to exercise their natural defenses and self-assertion
induces pathological stress leading to immune-system breakdown. Only
by twisted
standards can apathy and atrophy be regarded as benefiting an animal.
This passage is taken from the pamphlet “Don’t Plants
Have Feelings Too?” Published by United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
If you would like a copy of this pamphlet or more information, write
to Karen Davis, UPC Inc., P.O. Box 59367, Potomac, MD 20859. Tel.:
301-948-2406.
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