> Animals are cool! They have rights too! They don't deserve to be killed.
> Vegetarians are the best! Animal testing is WRONG!I am not sure that animal testing is on subject for this newsgroup,
but since we talk about vegetarianism, I guess that animal rights
would appear on this list.
As a strict vegetarian for health reasons, I can agree that the
veggie diet is probably the very best choice for nearly everyone.
But animal rights activists who refuse ALL animal testing are
missing the boat.
I have mentioned before that nature is horribly cruel to animals,
and in fact could not design a more awful system for inflicting
pain on them. That is just reality. I don't contribute to that
pain because I don't eat animals, but don't object to it when
others do. (Although there are a lot of ecological reasons why
it is a bad choice). I do object to stopping animal testing.
Medical science needs animal testing for certain specific research,
for example, studying AIDS. I would agree that there are some tests
that are gratuitous and could easily be done without animals, but
it cannot be avoided completely.
When I was a surgical resident I worked on dogs, whom I loved. It
was difficult at times and required a bit of psychological separation.
It was necessary for me to learn surgical technique and frankly
in order to learn the feel of "live tissue" you need to work on
"live tissue." That is just reality. I think the key is to understand
and recognize that animals are granting the experimentor a special
"privilege." The experimentor must ALWAYS understand and realize that
the animals are not doing this by choice and are being forced to
undergo your experimentation. EVERY MINUTE SPENT ON OR WITH AN
EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL MUST BE OF PERFECT SCIENTIFIC OR EDUCATIONAL VALUE.
Whenever we put an animal down, we always did so sadly and discussed
among ourselves if there was a way we could keep it alive without
adding to their suffering. In some respects (although I wouldn't
advertise this fact) I thought that we surgical residents might have
treated the animals better than some patients. Horrible to admit and
I am not proud of it. But we were young and inexperience doctors...
and made mistates at times.
The message that animal rights activists give to doctors and
experimentors is ESSENTIAL. Their message must be to RESPECT their
experimental animals at all times and handle them as gently as
possible. A good "death" with a high dose of narcotics mixed with
short acting barbiturates, whenever possible is a gentle way to end an animal's life. Perhaps some day doctors will be as "kind" to their
own suffering patients...who knows.
(Dr.) M.M. Rosenblatt
