Scientist Protests Animal Testing

Protestors gathered at the Society for Neuroscience Convention in San Diego Saturday the 13th to voice their discontent with the state of animal testing in the neuroscience community.

About 32,000 people attended the convention in San Diego. Protestors numbered around 30.

Among the protestors was a neuroscientist named Dr. Lawrence Hansen of UCSD. He stood outside of the convention center in his lab coat holding a sign showing a monkey with a probe attached to its brain.

Dr. Hansen is among a growing number of professionals in the medical and scientific fields with serious misgivings about the legitimacy of vivisection. A recent survey showed that 82% of European physicians worry that information from animal tests may not be applicable to humans.

Many, however, don’t see the whole picture. Many scientists may have misgivings, but they see the situation as a kind of balance between risk and reward, between the harm they do and the potential benefits for humanity they might achieve. Dr. Hansen wrote an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about vivisection wherein he condemns some animal tests, but says others aren’t so bad.

The truth is that vivisection isn’t a discussion about what is best for humans, and taking an ends-justifies-the-means approach to medical research leads us down a slippery slope. I can make myself richer by robbing another person, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.

No more acceptable is the process of torturing animals in the hopes that eventually, if we kill enough of them, under the right circumstances, with the right tools, we will eventually learn something that might be relevant to animal medicine, which more often than not, doesn’t even correspond to human physiology.

It isn’t a matter of how much we have to gain, it’s a matter of right and wrong. We can no longer guide our scientific and medical policy solely on self-interest. The safeguards to secure animal welfare in laboratories are irrelevant. As long as we think that an animal’s life is expendable if it might possibly benefit us in the long term, we will be capable of greater and greater cruelty.

Scientists like Lawrence Hansen have already seen the scientific shortcomings of vivisection. What is needed however, is for the medical community to become moral vanguards by rejecting all animal testing unconditionally.

By refusing to torture animals we can not only augment the development of alternative methods of testing, which will prove to be more accurate in relation to human physiology because they don’t rely on biological information from non-humans, but we can begin to break away from the paradigm of self-interest and cruelty in our culture.

Photo: -Bert23 www.aerosolplanet.com-

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Brian G.

8:57AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

ANIMAL TESTING PICTURES YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO SEE!

www.animalexperimentspictures.com

send a green star

Sheri D.

4:32AM PST on Mar 9, 2012

We need more scientists and physicians to support the anti-vivisection cause.

antonia m.

3:54PM PST on Mar 5, 2012

These are not scientists, they are criminals!!!!

Alan R.

5:23AM PDT on Jul 22, 2011

I am staunchly opposed to vivisection. Fortunately sites like this exist, so that with the combined might of our voices, we can begin to correct some of the injustices in this society and implement change.

Judy C.

5:02PM PDT on Apr 25, 2011

horrific torture ------ there is no other word for it. Why don't they experiment on themselves ????

Brian M.

8:29AM PDT on Apr 17, 2011

Every bit of progress, even if compromised, is still progress.

colleen p.

10:26AM PDT on Apr 10, 2011

what if they test on animals for animals? some people would rather their pet dog go without medical treatments, or just put them to sleep because another dog shouldn't suffer for the benifit of their pet.

people in prision for drugs? not use them? "fark them, dey sold meth to a child...maybe. I dun care"

we used to do that, but them some bozo said criminals are still humans.

maybe everyone here can pay me to plant child porn on people's computers so we can save a bunny.

and for killers, what about those stupid children that kill? wasn't there an 8 year old who murdered his dad in 1st degree? he'd make an excellent subject, considering he could live to 80.

and if those computer programs to simulate life exist. what a shame home computers cannot work as well.

Pauline C.

2:41PM PST on Feb 18, 2011

I do not support animal testing/vivisection in any way shape or form. God never gave us these animals to abuse in this way. I could not trust anyon who treats animals in this way.

Lisa Z.

3:20PM PST on Feb 5, 2011

Shared on Facebook!!! :(

Silvia D.

2:38AM PST on Feb 5, 2011

This is very delicate subject. The World Health Organization should have reglaments for all product testing all over the world. Many companies offer their products free or also pay for humans to try them and see their symptoms.
Both solutions are not the best either with animals or humans. But they need to know if their products really help or are effective and are safe. Some one has to find the right solution to continue with research in a safe manner.
Animals are not humans and their reactions are not the same. But we need to be assured that our daily beauty products are safe to be used as well as the medicines that we take.