Animal Research—A Balanced View
THOUGH the price paid may be controversial, most people believe that animal research has resulted in tremendous good for humankind. Even those who advocate violence against the use of animal testing have been the beneficiaries of new medical knowledge and operational procedures as well as disease-fighting drugs.
Martin Stephens of the Humane Society of the United States said: “We have to be honest and recognize that there have been some benefits from animal research. But our ultimate goal is the complete replacement of animals.” (Parade Magazine, October 9, 1988) “I do admit,” said Vicki Miller, president of the Toronto Humane Society, “that some good use was made of animals around the turn of the century. The control of diabetes legitimately derived from animal research. But there is no necessity for it now that we have all sorts of alternative technologies.”—The Sunday Star, Toronto, Canada.
This same critic was asked how she would answer those who put forth the argument: If a rat has to die to save a baby’s life, it’s worth it. If animals are kept out of research, babies die to save rats. Her reply to the Toronto Globe and Mail was: “It’s such an emotional issue, and from that point of view it’s been nearly impossible to overcome . . . There’s the rat-or-the-baby thing and you lose every time.”
The question was asked in the preceding article: “If research on an animal could save you or a loved one from an excruciating disease or death, would you refuse it?” John Kaplan, law professor at Stanford University, California, wrote an answer in the November 1988 issue of Science magazine: “Those opposed to research with animals have seldom stood on principle and instructed their physicians not to use the results of biomedical research on animals when it would benefit their loved ones or themselves. Nor have they been willing to forswear for themselves the advantages of any future advances from animal research. We can admire the principles that impel Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse blood transfusions . . . and those who object to the hunting of fur-bearing animals not to wear furs. But we must vigorously combat the ideology that leads those who oppose animal research to pursue their cause not by example but rather by fighting through dishonest arguments to deprive everyone of the benefits.”
“The public should be informed,” wrote the editor of Science magazine of March 10, 1989, “that research on animals also benefits other animals. In fact, a vaccine for rinderpest, a virus that kills millions of cattle slowly and painfully, was developed by animal experiments; the vaccine is now applied by the World Health Organization to millions of cattle in Africa.”
Biblical Viewpoint
Following the global Flood in Noah’s day, Jehovah God issued this edict to Noah and to his offspring, which includes our generation: “Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat.” (Genesis 9:1, 3, 4) Animal skins could also be used for clothing. This would not violate man’s God-given dominion over the animal kingdom.—Genesis 3:21.
“If animals may be used as food to sustain people’s lives,” wrote the Awake! magazine of June 22, 1980, “it seems reasonable to use them in medical experiments to save lives. However, this is no license for unrestricted and often valueless, repetitious experiments involving intense suffering.” Certainly, from the Biblical viewpoint, heartless cruelty to animals cannot be justified.—Exodus 23:4, 5, 12; Deuteronomy 25:4; Proverbs 12:10.
Many doctors and scientists admit that some good has come from the radical movement of those opposed to animal research. “An awful lot of the points made by the animal welfare movement are extreme but right,” admitted one scientist. “The lives and suffering of animals must surely count for something,” declared American scientist Jeremy J. Stone. “Some knowledge can be obtained at too high a price,” agreed British physiologist Dr. D. H. Smith. “We agree with the desire to make research less painful, to take good care of and to reduce the number of animals in experiments,” said Dr. J. B. Wyngaarden of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. And one animal activist admitted: “It used to be almost macho to use animals and not think anything about it. Today, thinking about alternatives is considered the thing to do.”
“Alternatives” is the key word. Scientists admit that they may never get to the point of total elimination of animals in research, but where possible they are constantly looking for alternatives. For example, rabbits are no longer used to confirm human pregnancy, since a chemical procedure is now available. Guinea pigs are no longer used to isolate the tubercle bacillus. Culture methods are now saving the lives of these animals who would otherwise die. Other tissue-culture procedures have replaced the testing on some mice. And many rabbits slated for the painful Draize test may be spared because of the alternative use of hen-egg membrane as a testing surface. Certainly, people sensitive to animal suffering hope that there will be many more alternatives found, and soon.
The greatest alternative to animal testing, however, will be that long-awaited earthly Paradise for which true Christians have prayed. Jehovah God, the loving Creator, has promised that all diseases and death itself will be abolished forever. In God’s promised new world, man and animals will be forever at peace with one another, and nothing will make them afraid. And there will be no more diseases and thus no more need for animal experimentation. Cruelty will be a thing of the past.—Isaiah 25:8; 33:24; 65:25; Matthew 6:9, 10.