When it comes to research involving animals, we adhere to a three-word policy: Avoid sweeping conclusions.
There’s no denying that some research appears unnecessary or even downright cruel. Is it really necessary, for example, to resort to animal tests for cosmetics? After all, such products exist mainly to buttress the vanity of humans as opposed to improving our welfare or safety.
We even have qualms — to cite just one more example — about a project reported in The New York Times last year in which monkeys are “fattened up to help scientists study the twin human epidemics of obesity and diabetes.” While obesity has become a serious health issue, it is mainly the result of behavior that people choose to engage in, namely overeating and failure to exercise. What is the morality of inflicting the same avoidable condition on fellow primates?
That said, however, we strongly take issue with the comprehensive anti-animal testing agenda of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which last month filed federal protests over a number of animal-handling incidents involving labs at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.
We read through the same list of incidents covering the past two years, but reached a very different conclusion from PETA. Far from betraying a callous indifference to animal welfare or systemic management failure, the incidents and the remedial action documented by CU underline the highly regulated nature of animal research — which we want to emphasize is usually a good thing — and the university’s commitment to quality control.
CU also appears committed to the sort of animal testing that we believe is clearly justified in the absence of alternatives that might provide equally important information. Those research targets, according to an article in last Sunday’s Denver Post by Michael Booth, include tumors, head trauma and glaucoma.
Just this week, the Times also reported that two new studies involving genetically engineered mice have confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease “seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell,” but through “a distorted protein known as tau,” not by viruses or bacteria. This finding, which might be relevant to Parkinson’s too, “has immediate implications” for treating the disease, the article said.
Let’s repeat: “immediate implications” for the tens of thousands of victims of one of the most dreaded and debilitating diseases that can afflict the elderly.
Animal tests are also critical to tackling some of childhood’s most feared and devastating illnesses, including severe neuromuscular conditions. The morality of such tests, and many others, should be beyond dispute to those who have their priorities straight.
