I agree with the headline given to Bhaskar Raman's polemic against vivisection, Moral obligation overshadows science (Feb. 2), but his polemic reveals his ignorance of science and his shallowness of moral reasoning.
He makes the absurd argument that animals are so different from humans that research on animals has no bearing on what is good for humans. In fact, research on animals has provided the knowledge that forms the basis of western medicine. Our understanding of and ability to treat all endocrine disorders, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even neurological diseases are based on animal research. I have some sympathy with Raman's argument against the use of animals in cosmetic research, but that is because I don't have much use for cosmetics. But some of my friends do, and for them, I do want cosmetics to be safe. When new chemicals are introduced either as drugs or cosmetics, it makes sense to me to test their toxicity on animals before testing them on humans. Chemicals that are toxic to animals, especially mammals closely related to humans, are generally toxic to humans, too.
As to Raman's moral argument, he seems to lump all animals together in claiming that humans have a responsibility to nurture and care for animals. I wonder if he nurtures and cares for insects he encounters and parasites that might enter his body. These are animals, too. Perhaps he does, but then, he surely doesn't drive a car at night in the summertime when every highway trip leaves the front of the car decorated with the carcasses of flying insects. And surely he would eat no food produced with the aid of pest-control insecticides, i.e, he would only eat organic food and, of course, no meat.
Certainly, to protect and prolong the life of every individual animal is not a moral imperative. Perhaps tragically, our society doesn't even do that for people. In my view, we do have a responsibility, a moral imperative, to avoid cruelty and to minimize suffering of people and animals. With regard to animals, that does not mean refusing to take animal lives for human purposes. But it does require humane treatment in the service of some greater good, as we humans judge it.
Choosing not to eat meat or to consume only organic foods is a luxury we have in wealthy societies today. Through most of human evolution, eating meat for protein and essential vitamins, like B12, was essential to survival.
Surgery done in every hospital is vivisection. It is cutting into a live animal, including a human animal. I am grateful for the surgery that removed a large abcess from my wife's abdomen several years ago. I am grateful to all of the animals whose lives were used in the development of the medical knowledge that made that possible. Raman doesn't seem to understand that the use of animals in medical research is done under the same conditions as human surgery is done, namely with the use of anesthetics to render animals unconscious and analgesics to minimize pain. Through the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), the university sees to that.
Raman appears to want to take his case to IACUC. It is fine to debate the merits and morality of the use of animals in research in public forums such as the pages of The Post, but IACUC is not the place for that debate. If the university decides to stop using animals in research, the IACUC will be laid down for want of a function. But IACUC will not make that decision. It may seem innocuous to permit outsiders to observe, as long as they don't seek to disrupt, but I can think of at least one reason not to. Investigators like to keep their research plans confidential until they complete the research in order to prevent being scooped by other investigators in the same field. Investigators are required to submit their plans to IACUC, precisely in order to ensure that the animals will be treated humanely, in ways consistent with criteria agreed to at the federal level. IACUC members take this responsibility very seriously in order to avoid any risk of having the university's animal research program shut down by the feds.
-John N. Howell is an associate professor of physiology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Send him an e-mail at john.howell@ohiou.edu.
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