Letter to the Editor - October 22, 2009

It is always disappointing to learn that in the 21st century, students who are passionate about pursuing careers in science and medicine are still being taught to torment animals in laboratories and being programmed to repeat the same hackneyed and misleading mantras in defense of animal experimentation [”Student researches obesity vaccine,” Oct. 13]. Nathan Freeman’s claim that “animal research is not cruel or inhumane, it benefits us all” defies science, logic and common sense.

Animals in laboratories are forced to endure lives of terror, loneliness, pain and misery.  In experiments at universities around the country, including the University of Southern Mississippi and the University Medical Center, millions of sensitive animals are drowned, burned, cut open, shocked, poisoned, starved, dehydrated, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs and brain-damaged.  In his interview, Freeman chose not to mention that the laboratory in which he has worked conducted experiments in which rats were fed high fat diets to induce obesity and then had holes drilled into their heads, steel tubes screwed into their skulls to deliver chemicals and were killed and had their brains dissected.  In addition to the harm caused to animals by the actual experimental procedures they undergo, recent publications have found that just being confined and handled in laboratories can cause animals levels of fear, stress, and distress that are so profound that they can alter their physiology, biology, and behavior.  Needless to say, the suffering inherent in animal experimentation is immense. 

Experiments on animals are also ineffective.  Research has shown repeatedly that an overwhelming majority of animal experimentation does not accurately predict outcomes in humans and that treatments developed in animals cannot be applied to humans. The Food and Drug Administration reports that 92 percent of drugs that are safe and effective in animals fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous. Of the small percentage approved, roughly half must be withdrawn or relabeled because of side effects not predicted by animal experiments. Results from animals do not translate to humans because of differences in biology and disease development among species.  Any human-relevant knowledge gleaned from animal experiments is an exception, not the rule, and is the result of copious and disproportionate amounts of funding and energy being devoted to animal experimentation, rather than a testament to its scientific robustness.

The more than 100 million animals abused in U.S. laboratories every year experience pain, suffering and pleasure just as we do and have the right to live their lives as they please.  Imprisoning and inflicting harm on them because they are weaker, look different and because some people believe that our pain is more important than theirs is cruel and unethical.    

Justin Goodman,
Research Associate
Supervisor
Laboratory Investigations People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals