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According to USDA inspections at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine, violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act resulted in the deaths of rabbits and dogs. According to the Tribune:
Three inspection reports of Loyola's biomedical research from 2006 and 2007 obtained by an animal rights group under the Freedom of Information Act revealed poor veterinary care, inadequately trained personnel and sloppy record keeping. Rabbits died from bacterial infections, and dogs died after they were not sufficiently monitored after surgery, the agency found.In an October procedure, a rabbit suffered a fracture during a bone marrow transplant and died the following day, according to the reports. In another case, a rabbit was observed as not doing well on Oct. 3, but laboratory records failed to indicate it was given any treatment or considered for euthanasia before it died Oct. 9.
At least five other rabbits also died from bacterial infections or "significant lesions" after medical procedures, according to a November inspection report.
Michael Budkie, of the Ohio-based group Stop Animal Exploitation Now, says the school's medical lab was cited for 22 violations during the three inspections from March 2006 through November 2007. "We would call them the worst laboratory in the state of Illinois and possibly one of the worst in the nation," claimed Budkie.
Loyola responded to the charges in a statement, saying that "treating research animals in a humane fashion is a top priority," and that research studies "in which animal health or welfare was at risk" have been discontinued. The USDA noted that in their most recent inspection of the lab there were no violations. "Any time an animal is in an uncomfortable position or dies, we take that very seriously," USDA spokeswoman Karen Eggert said. "They have corrected their issues."
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how else are they supposed to get a post-secondary education in mad science?
FYI, the picture is of Loyola's Roger's Park location, which is about 22 miles from the Medical Center/School in Maywood...just a bit of a difference.
I wish that this stuff wouldn't get reported on. Because I think it is OK to like use animals if it will make people better, but this just makes me sad. Bun-nays!
i just don't understand what we're going to learn from dogs that will apply to humans. i mean, we can't get the same viruses, etc. gah.
smussy,
this is exactly the faulty logic that allows groups like PETA and this one to stir up fear and hate in the general populace about medical research.
mice and rats take the majority of the reserch burden, but dogs pigs and rabbits are closer, primates even more so. you'd be amazed at how similar most mammals actually are. even though they can't get the same viruses (actually they can share many), it usually is just a very minute change that makes the difference...bird flu anyone?
we can't start basic research on humans, so we start with individual cell cultures, then move to rodents, then larger animals, then primates, and finally, maybe humans. Even with all this and the decades it can take for a drug to get to market, companies and researchers still get flack when a human therapy runs into problems (viox?)
Animal abuse is not funny, and this probably resulted from carelessness and was not intentional harm. But these organizations piss me off. the people that run them sure benefit from all the research that gives them their viagra, prozac, birth control, contact lenses etc...
i love me a medium rare filet mignon, staticfritz. and my dad's had a kidney transplant since 1985 and done several human medical trials.
so, let's not get too crazy about deciding what i'm all about. but much like you don't like what PETA's all about, i also think there's a group of people who are ready to sacrifice animals without real thought as to whether not it's really necessary or beneficial. i've just never heard of any research being done on rats or dogs that has led to any real scientific discoveries that have revolutionized the medicinal world. i'm sure i'm wrong. but as in your vioxx example, we often find out that once tried on humans for just a little while, we don't really know what was what after all.
shit, i think we're arrogant to think we really know what most of the things we're taking are really doing ... that includes some of the medicines i count on daily to keep me relatively sane. what effect will they have on me 40 years from now? who really knows? and just because it doesn't kill a rat, doesn't mean anyone else knows either.
sorry, smussy, didn't mean to target you specifically, but more as an illustration of a general mentality:
"i've just never heard of any research being done on rats or dogs that has led to any real scientific discoveries that have revolutionized the medicinal world."
most americans have no clue as to the number of basic science discoveries that have be made to even come close to identifying a potential compound, biochemical/cellular signalling cascade, or neurological pathway that make your day to day drugs even a dream
viox was tried for a long time in humans actually, and far far longer in animals. most of what we use day to day and depend on are not things that revolutionized medicine, they were small incremental discoveries made after years or even decades of basic research, much of which required animals.
animals aren't thrown around willy-nilly in research. every animal used must be justified. proposals must explain why fewer animals can't be used, or why a more basic animal can't be used (ie mice vs dogs, or flies vs mice).
animals aren't thrown around willy-nilly in research. every animal used must be justified. proposals must explain why fewer animals can't be used, or why a more basic animal can't be used (ie mice vs dogs, or flies vs mice).
Which is what makes this report even more disturbing.
I'm no fan of animal research, but I can be persuaded that the means justify the ends, at least in some cases.
Dogs and rabbits dying of post-operative complications because of the neglect of a university (a medical school no less) hardly supports the argument that animals are being used for research sparingly and only after serious ethical consideration, and damages the credibility of serious research that could benefit humanity.
Students need to learn and these harsh results come from inadequate human failures. The future doctors need to learn proper sanitary conditions and this time they lost a rabbit. If they don't learn that their actions can cause death they may learn on your loved one.
Thanks to studies using animals who do indeed suffer many of our health issues the world is a safer place where human life expectancy is growing longer.
Smussy you are not aware of the MANY advances in studying dogs, cats and horses that have led to improvement in human medicine.
FIV - Feline AIDS has been studied to help HUMAN AIDS patients.
GSD - Glycogen Storage Disease that retards and kills children has been studied in both Schauzer dogs and Norwegian Forest Cats to develop genetic testing.
HCM - Hypotrophic Cardio Myopathy - Studied in MANY different dog and cat breeds have led to better treatments in HUMANS.
These are just the first few off the top of my head. If you are actually interested you will find millions of other examples.
Universities have animal review boards that are supposed to review all animal research--and reject or approve it. There is serious paperwork that needs to be completed prior to, and thoughout the life of a study. Researchers constantly have to justify why they need to use animals in their research. Sometimes this process can take longer than justifying human research.
Smussy:
Toxicology studies that use a lot of non-human animals. I have been involved in studies that use rabbits to understand b-cell differentiation. I have used squid to study quorum sensing, something that has value for diseases such as cholera. I studied toxoplasmosis treatments. The researcher found that a potential treatment is toxic to animals. We had to use mice to discover that. Oh, and toxoplasmosis is related to malaria, so it had global implications. Pick up any scientific journal (Nature, PNAS, Science) and you will find that animals are important to study.
Was I comfortable killing mice? No.But I would rather have that research done on mice than humans.
And I have to agree with static: this was likely due to carelessness, grad students cutting corners, than intentional harm.
I think we should all watch the episode of 90210 in Season 4 where Brenda becomes an animal rights activist. Soooo educational.
Andrea represents the "smart" point of view...obvs. Which is that animal testing is OK.
No. 1, who cares if the animals were abused intentionally or unintentionally? Either way, they are being abused due to the fact that many people in this world just do not care.
No. 2...do any of you know, really, what goes on in these labs?
I do.
So for the purpose of this discussion anyone who thinks they can diss PETA can jump off a cliff.
No. 3, there are many 'private' labs around the world the operate under the radar of any kind of public scrutiny.
Just as we have many, many human rights abuses that continue to go on in this world. i.e. Africa, China, eastern Europe, we have even more animal abuse that continues to go on in the name of science.
"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature...and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditons?"
-The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky 1879-80
(from the sounds of your posts, don't answer that...I don't even want to know)
ingrid, do you work in loyolas labs?
i work in a lab that does animal research, and it sounds like several commentators do too or have in the past.
NO ONE said that failure to take care of animals wasn't a bad thing.
this started with reference to people wondering why animal research is done, and groups like SAEN (link above). they have a huge site condemming animal research...their 'alternatives' page has two links to possible alternatives to monoclonal antibody production...a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of animal research. and you know what, according to counters on the bottom of the page, out of the >18,000 visits to the site, 4 had visited that page.
it's very "IN" to protest animal research. unfortunately most people who do understand the issue about as well as those cool kids who wear Che Guevara shirts thinking he represents liberal democracy and don't know he was a racist murderer.
Ingrid,
I have appreciated the discussion that we have had in the past regarding animal rights and research. Without intelligent activism/advocacy, we would not have institutional animal review boards and other groups to oversee animal research. Mice may still be killed by cervical dislocation by untrained people, animal living conditions may be substandard, and social animals in laboratory situations would not be socialized properly.
Now, yes, I acknowledge that there are things that we as a society need to improve upon. I have worked in animal labs. I can tell you that I, as well as the majority of people that I know that work with animals, show animals the resepct and decency that we can provide given the circumstances--that we are testing on these animals, operating on them, and maybe even killing them in the name of research. Researchers do this because they know that without these animals, we would not live the lives we have today. Surgeons know that without that pig or dog or cadaver for that matter, that they practiced on, they would not be able to save that life.
As a society, we (Americans, human beings) in general have chosen to put human life above other animal life. We live longer as humans because of the testing we have done on other animals. We live better lives because we decide to sacrifice other animal life in the name of ours. I know that you think about that every time you or your child gets an antibiotic, enters the hospital, receives diabetes care, puts in your contact lenses, gets an injection of a lifesaving medication while on the table getting surgery, or when you are going under anesthesia and the surgeon is cutting you open. I know I have thought about it. And I am sure that you have taken a medicine or have had a surgery that has been tested using animals. I hope we can find better models so we do not have to use animals in research. I would argue many people feel that way.
I, for one have been in a human clinical trial. Without clinical trials we would have nothing either. People have died in clinical trials in the name of progress and discovery, too. That is also a sacrifice we have been willing to accept in our society.
PS. I would be curious on your stance on abortion, environmentalism and capital punishment. I am not asking for the answer, in fact, I don't really want to know. I just wonder if you have a consistent message.
staticfritz,
I absolutely protest animal research and I have done so for many, many years and have done so NOT because it is cool or the 'in' thing.
No I do not work in a lab, but I have known several scientists over the years who work in labs and have gotten the inside scoop on what really goes on.
I do my own research and what my conscience tells me to do, I go with that. If those animals had a choice, and they agreed to be tested on then I would be ok with that. But they do not have a choice to have poisons dropped into their eyes, or surgery done on them with no anesthesia, or helmets crash tested on their heads til their skulls crack open, or to be lying in cages with oozing open wounds til they die from infection, or to be kept in cages til they go crazy i.e. monkeys. Have you seen footage of chimps that have been in solitary confinement for their lives? And you can tell me you're ok with this?
I don't care what medications have come out of animal research. There are no human beings worth the torture of millions and millions of innocent animals. You are not that important and neither am I.
p.s. yep...those Guevara t-shirts are cool, but I haver never been tempted to wear one because I do know his history.
poisons dripped in their eyes...
crash test helmets...
and what exact research organizations were these? could you point me in their direction?
animals getting surgery get anesthesia...another common misconception. they also get antibiotics and pain killers after surgery
social isolation experiments are very rare these days. most of them were decades ago, and helped develop treatment for depression, anxiety and understand childhood development.
these are classic extreme examples of uncommon types of research. protesting all animal research is like saying people shouldn't own kitchen knives because every now and then someone buys one in order to hurt someone else.
you don't care what medications have come from animal research?????
ever used an antibiotic? even the handsoap kind? do you plan on giving birth at home without an epidural or surgical care if anything goes wrong?
ever take a multivitamin. ever bought practically anything at a cvs or walgreens? are you not going to vaccinate your kids or give them antibiotics when they get infections?
even i can't say "I know what goes on in these labs" because i can't work in every lab at all times. you haven't even worked in one.
I respect and treat my animals humanely. there are occaisional careless people out there, but animal research is not this terrible evil it is made out to be.
Ha. Misconceptions my ass.
And yes, there are many things that I use in my life that are the result of animal testing. I use a helmet when I ride my bike for instance.
And I don't use antibiotic handsoaps and if you do, you're nuts.
I shun the use of antibiotics period, they are WAY overprescribed.
I have given birth twice...with NO epidurals or anything....totally natural. Painful? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes.
Yes, I vaccinate my kids. But the world survived without the use of them, didn't it? We are all here, aren't we? The world got to this point and for centuries without the 'medical advances' we have today. Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time, haven't they?
And like I said before...NONE of us is so important that our survival has to depend on the torture of innocent animals...and if you believe that they don't suffer at the hands of the people in the labs, then you are delusional. But if that's how you sleep at night, then go ahead.
Sparky,
Like I said, I don't believe that any of us are so important that our survival should be dependent on the torture of innocent animals.
If human beings want to be tested on, and they are given the choice...I say let them. Animals don't have that choice.
I think that prisoners, for instance, should be allowed to be tested on if they agree to it.
My stance on other issues? I am absolutely pro-choice, I am as green as I can be. Capital punishment? Sometimes I ride the fence...I think that if the crime is heinous and guilt is beyond doubt then why should resources be wasted housing someone like that for life? Am I consistent? I don't care!
I follow what is in my heart, that is the only thing I can do.
I applaud you natural childbirths, they take a good amount of balls.
I do juvenile diabetes research. on animals.
if one of those two kids you had developed type-1 diabetes around the age of 10 (1 in 400-600 do) they would die without insulin therapy. you aren't going to give it to them because of the animal research that allowed us to develop the knowledge and insulin therapies available today?
Needless to say, i'm obviously not going to convince you, nor you me.
I agree that animals do get abused every now and then in labs. in nearly every case this is not a fault of the research, but of an uncaring tech or researcher who didn't follow protocols correctly because they care about the details of their job as much as your average chicago postal worker (have you seen our successful delivery rates? no offense to those that do care).
But i'd be willing to bet more are abused in the homes of their owners every year than in the labs of the colleges and universities across this country.
I sleep well at night knowing that i don't live any part of my lifestyle in contradiction to my ethics. I get upset when people attack what i do for a living without understanding what it actually is.
Animals are abused in homes, for sure, because many people just don't care.
Look at the HUMAN rights abuses that are happening all over the world in this day and age! If human beings can treat each other as atrociously as they do, I don't hold out much hope for animals.
There is much,much research out there that will attest to the fact that we do NOT need to test on animals the way we do. We just do it because it is easy, cheap and the animals don't complain (that's why human beings have to do it for them).
Did the Dostoevsky quote mean nothing to you?
I don't hold one sentient being's importance over the importance of any other sentient being. Bringing up children with juvenile diabetes is a tactic. It is shielding yourself behind a child.
i agree with ingrid .. i believe that animals are sentient. it's hard for me to really weigh these things. if it came to kill this dog or kill my dad, i'd ask for the dog to die. but it would be with a very heavy heart.
my whole thing that i'm trying to say is that everyone's saying that all these things came from testing on animals and stuff, but i just don't know how accurate it all can be when we go on to test the same things on people for months and years and we *still* find out that we don't really know what the effects are on humans. so how good was all the testing on the cats, dogs, mice, etc.?
i get what you're all saying, i do. but i have a hard time green lighting animal research. i'm not sure where i stand with it all. and screw flu shots, anti-bacterial soap and a lot of vaccines!!
Ingrid:
Just as an FYI, prisoners can be tested on, if they so chose. However, they, like the mentally ill, children, students, the elderly, and veterans are considered "vulnerable populations" to varying degrees and must have special consideration. A review board looks at that too, and researchers must report who they recruit and must get permission to do so.
I, too sleep well at night knowing I live my ethics. I also get upset when good people are attacked for something that they are doing for the ultimate good of humanity (finding a cure for diabetes, cancer, disease, etc.)
Using lab animals is not cheap. If researchers could avoid testing on animals, they would, for all of the reasons you mention above.
If you were to walk in the thousands of animal labs across the country, I think you would find that many of them are getting socialized, treated well, fed, given anesthesia and pain medication, and are respected by the technicians that work in those labs.
How many scientists do you know that work with animals? Where do they work? I hope that if they did report this information to you, you turned the institutions' asses in to the animal boards, USDA and SPCA. You do live your ethics, right? Heck, if you didn't report these people, let me know who these scientists are and where these labs are, and I will turn their asses in for you. Let me know if you want my e-mail. I can get an inquiry. While I have tested on animals, and work in a lab that does, I think animals should be treated humanely. If they are treated anything less than humane, it is your duty as an animal advocate to ensure that they are.
I know that we are not going to change eachother's minds, and I that is fine. I like a healthy debate. And, I know that this is living with your heart, and I do not want to get into an abortion, anti-abortion argument, but I find it interesting that you do not protest a woman chosing to end the life of a fetus in her body--something that, well, to put it bluntly is the size of a mouse or larger, with limbs and a heart and neurons, depending on the development.
The fetus certainly cannot speak for itself. And yet you will defend the life of a mouse.
Sparky,
I am defending choice. It's my body. It's my choice.
And as for animals in labs being socialized and treated well. Are you serious?
Socialized? After their torture? or would that be before?
In a recent study published in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (ATLA), researchers studied more than 100 cases in the UK and US in which ice and rats were used in "surgical or other potentially painful procedures" and found that post-operative pain medication was administered only 20% of the time.
In a hideous study conducted to measure pain in mice and rats, Swiss researchers performed laparotomies (incisions through the abdominal wall) on a group of mice. the researchers gave pain medication to some of the mice after the surgery.
These animals are exempt from even the most minimal protections of the US Animal Welfare Act. There are no federal laws governing their treatment, the experimentation industry subjects rats and mice to appalling, painful procedures. Labs don't even have to keep track of how many of these animals they kill OR prove their living conditions are humane.
Very, very quickly people who work in labs learn to turn off any kind of emotion or humanity they walked in with. One of my friends, who was not a scientist but just an assistant while in college at a lab in upstate New York said that when they were done with any given rat, they would pick it up by its tail and whack it against the counter to kill it.
I have been boycotting Iam's pet food for many years now because of they way they treat animals in their 'labs'. There are people who went undercover there and came back with pictures of dogs lying in cages with open wounds, after surgery, just dying with no medication. They are in cages, no beds, no comfort against the metal bottoms of the cages. Some of them starving. If you could walk away from those pictures without feeling a thing, then there is a sensitivity chip missing in your psyche.
This is animal abuse that is starting at the top of our so-called food chain....highly educated, well paid doctors, scientists and businessmen who care NOTHING for the treatment of animals.
It trickles down to the most heinous of acts. I can't remember if it was PBS or some cable station that had a show about a young guy who went undercover to film dogs who were being sold to laboratories. I can't even think about that right now...the video is shocking. The dogs treated like pieces of meat at a butcher's counter. Laboratories buy dogs from people who go around neighborhoods dog-napping dogs from people's yards! There are people who actually breed dogs for this purpose and sell them to labs to be tested on. This is an industry that is totally underground and the kid who did this documentary was risking his life. I will try to find more information about this documentary to post.
www.hbo.com/docs/programs/dealingdogs/interview
If you can watch this without changing the way you think, then something is seriously wrong.
How many scientists do you know that work with animals? Where do they work? I hope that if they did report this information to you, you turned the institutions' asses in to the animal boards, USDA and SPCA. You do live your ethics, right?
Isn't this what happened? I mean, didn't the USDA inspect Loyola, three times? Wasn't Loyola "turned in" so to speak?
And what happened?
Kevin,
I am referring to Ingrid's conversations with other scientists about how the labs that they work in are poor conditions (post 16).
And if you read my posts, I am in favor of intelligent animal advocacy. After all, that is what has driven the ethical standards we have for animal research today. I am not defending a lab for poor conditions (although I did state that I suspect it is not intentional negligence). What I am telling Ingrid is if she has heard of poor animal working conditions in the past at other places, instead of just bitching about it on a blog, she should turn the labs in. Get a FOIA, do what these people have done, bring these issues to light. Get the media, like they did.
However, I strongly disagree with Ingrid about stopping all scientific animal testing. It is not practical. Maybe Ingrid can work with other scientists and advocates on developing non-animal models for scientific research. If she can do this, she would be saving a whole bunch of animals. Until good non-animal models have been proven, scientists will continue to use them to advance science and medicine for the good of all animals, human and non-human. After all, how do you think the vet learned how to save your beloved pet from cancer? Or how did they learn to spay and neuter them? They are not consenting to being spayed and neutered, although we do it all the time.
Ingrid.
"I am defending choice. It's my body. It's my choice."
OK, with that logic, what is in you is your property, not a living separate entity. With that same logic, I could say that the rats that I raise are my property. I bred them, they are mine. I am defending choice. They are my rats. It's my choice if I want to kill them. My rats. My choice."
See where your logic fails?
Your friend said that they knock rats against a countertop to kill them? I hope you reported it. Or she did. What she is doing is in violation of her ethics and the ethics of the AWA.
"Very, very quickly people who work in labs learn to turn off any kind of emotion or humanity they walked in with."
Your argument has become emotional and unreasonable. You are implying that technicicans that work in labs are heartless cold frankensteins ready to abuse and torture animals. That is just blatently untrue.
Ingrid, if you do believe that there are labs out there that are violating the animal welfare act, please write to the Deputy Administrator, USDA, APHIS, REAC, Federal Building, 6505 Belcrest Rd., Rm. 208, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
No. 2...do any of you know, really, what goes on in these labs?
I do....
No I do not work in a lab...
I don't care what medications have come out of animal research....
And yes, there are many things that I use in my life that are the result of animal testing....
In a recent study published in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (ATLA)...
I hope that I'm not the only one that has been entertained by Ingrid's logic in this conversation.
The problem with the animal rights (oxymoron!) crowd's reaction is that there is absolutely no middle ground. It's just attack, attack, attack those trying to better mankind through the use of animals due to no reasonable alternative - which is why nobody takes this crowd seriously.
Jimbo,
You're entertained by my logic? Glad I could make you smile.
So what would you have me do? No wear a helmet when I bike because I'm against poor treatment of animals?
And I don't ever recall saying that I am totally against animal testing. Do you people ever read and then think before you post?
I am against the poor treatment they receive while being tested.
Also, like I've stated there are alternatives to animal testing. But we live in a world were even humans, many times, are treated like the dirt we walk on, so why would I think that people would put animal welfare at the top of their list?
When our world gets to the point were animal welfare is a top priority, think about how nice that would be. Just think about it.
And Jimbo, could you watch "Dealing Dogs" and say that you
don't take this seriously? That's sad.
When our world gets to the point were animal welfare is a top priority, think about how nice that would be. Just think about it.
Would you rather have animal welfare have priority over human welfare? That is what this comes down to. Your pathetic 4th hand horror stories relating to animal research don't really help your cause.
Look, I think what sparky and jimbo are trying to say is that animal testing is important for the advances which has made life as we know it possible. Has it helped make medical advances which help humans? Definately. Has it (or can it be) abusive and inhumane if done improperly? Absolutely. Unfortunately, as with most things in life, it can be a HUGE gray area. The problem is that groups like PETA can often be extermist in their views. Saying all scientist who test on animals are senseless, violent animal killers (or that all animal rights activists are overly emotional crack-pots, for that matter) is about as absurd as saying all Muslims are terroists. The logic just doesn't follow. Animal rights are important but there is a limit. Animals aren't people, as much as they may seem to be at times.
I do feel bad that animals are used for testing and often suffer and die. But, I also think its an important step in the scientific/medical process. As heartless as it sounds, the life of an animal just isn't as important as the life of a human. Besides, isn't the only reason people are so worked up because we're talking about cute and cuddly animals like bunnies and dogs? If they were testing on cockroaches or mosquitos I doubt anyone would care. I'll be honest, if there was a roach on my kitchen floor you'd better believe I'd have the raid out without a second thought. Yet I actually enjoy having my dog around the house, and even let him sit on the couch. But logically, if animals are equal to humans, aren't all animals also equal to each other? I would be suprised if most people would think a roach was equal to a dog.
There maybe alternatives, but are any really as successful as animal testing? I doubt researchers would choose to test on animals if they had the option.
Also, its not as though advances in medicine don't also (at least some of the time) benifit the animals. For example, in doing work on FIV (feline AIDS) to find out about human AIDS, researches also make advances in the treatment of cats.
I agree that this case does not seem to purposeful, malicious maltreatment but rather just carelessness. That certainly doesn't make it right, but it also doesn't make the people at the medical school crazy, sadistic, violent people either. I'm sure the school is embarassed by the situtation and hopefully it will help stop the same thing from happen again, here or elsewhere.
Would you rather have animal welfare have priority over human welfare?
Under what circumstances? It depends. Would I choose your life over my dog's? Fuck no! I love my dog, and I don't know you from Adam. No offense, but sharing a common membership in the "homo sapiens club" only counts for so much in my book...
I'm coming out of the woodwork to side with Ingrid and Smussy on this one. I really don't see any reason why animals should, ipso facto, have any less value than humans--we're all sentient beings, right? We're all incredibly complex life forms that are miracles of nature, are we not?
Why do so many people automatically think this way, and do they ever stop to ask themselves 'why'? Is it some sort of self-preservation mechanism kicking in? Fear of mortality? Does the thought process as it pertains to survival dictate that intelligence should trump all else (because by that logic, then, what would be wrong with medical testing on the mentally retarded? Or Republicans.)? Seriously though, I'm curious as to why this is the dominant paradigm...
At current rates, we already know that the earth can't continue to sustain its ever-burgeoning and mass consuming human population for much longer, and yet we're still obsessed with prolonging and engendering human life. Perhaps it might not be such a bad thing if nature were allowed to take its course and thin the herds so to speak, know what I'm sayin'?
Pinko: Fair enough, and you make a good point about the thinning of the herd, which does happen from time to time among all life on earth, including humans. It is likely to happen again in a big way during out lifetimes, but I am a pessimist.
So, I must ask: Will you volunteer to be one of the members of the herd who just goes away, or do you intend to fight for your place? I mean, you all but support the thinning of the herd, so I assume this is an effort you will get behind in a very personal way.
Nothing against non-human animals, but in the real world--you know, the world where evolution and natural selection does happen from time to time despite our delicate emotions--there is a food chain, and there are certain creatures that are dominent over others. That does not mean we should go out of way to, say, set cats on fires, but that does mean we do have to do some ugly things to survive and advance our medical knowledge. Yeah, life's unfair. Sue the intelligent designer.
Pinko, to address some of your points:
"we're all sentient beings, right?"
Depends on who you ask. South Africa does not believe that non-human animals are sentient. Jainism believes that water has sentience. Some believe that anything that can experience pain is sentient. Some believe the Venus Fly Trap is sentient. Is a fetus sentient? Is bacteria sentient? Some believe so. There are some bacteria within squid that sense each other and create light--and are able to match their light with the light of the moon so the squid does not cast a shadow and is "invisible" to predators. Pretty smart, huh? Philosophers and religions and countries cannot agree on the definition of sentience. You make it sound so cut and dry. Certainly intelligence doesn't trump all. You've shown that.
"because by that logic, then, what would be wrong with medical testing on the mentally retarded?"
Researchers can test on the mentally retarded. Look it up. But there are incredibly strict guidelines when doing so, and there are additional protections we must give them.
"Would I choose your life over my dog's? Fuck no! I love my dog, and I don't know you from Adam."
I won't count on you to save me if it were between me and your dog. No offense taken. It would be interesting how the law would see it though. Man rescues dog, woman dies.
"Perhaps it might not be such a bad thing if nature were allowed to take its course and thin the herds so to speak, know what I'm sayin'?"
That's cool. Stop taking meds. Don't kill that insect or cockroach in your house: it may possess sentience. Better not take that advil for that headache. Stop going to the dentist. Quit cleaning your bathroom or wash your hands. Don't take vaccines. Participate in the thinning. Put your self-rightousness into practice.
You can't have it both ways.
The fact is society values human life over other life. That doesn't mean we do not respect non-human life. That's why we have laws.
You can't believe in thinning the herd and yet participate in activities that save you from that potential thinning. You believe that other animals have the same value, or even a higher value as some humans, and that's cool.
How about this. If you want to participate in activities to preserve the human species, but don't want non-human animals to be used, prevent one from being used and volunteer to be in clinical trials. They'll even take you. Of course, the researchers will provide you with extra protections and adhere to those stricter guidelines that we give the mentally retarded. :)