Research with animals

There are days when I imagine that I'll run out of news reports of scientists caught behaving badly to blog about. Then, I check my inbox. Today, my inbox featured a news item in The Scientist about two medical researchers caught fabricating data: Two researchers conducting animal studies on immunosuppression lied about experimental methodologies and falsified data in 16 papers and several grants produced over the past 8 years, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The scientists, Judith Thomas and Juan Contreras, formerly at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB),…
Today Americans for Medical Progress has announced three recipients for academic year 2009-2010 of the Michael D. Hayre Fellowship in Public Outreach, designed to inspire and motivate the next generation of research advocates. From the AMP press release: The importance of animal research to medical progress will be highlighted in projects by three graduate students selected as Michael D. Hayre Fellows in Public Outreach, Americans for Medical Progress announced today. Gillian Branden-Weiss and Breanna Caltagarone, students the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, and…
In case you're interested, Paw-talk, a website aimed at humans with pets, invited me over to chat about philosophy, ethics, science, and the use of animals in research. You can find that interview here. It's also worth noting that the site features a number of interviews with science bloggers you may recognize ... perhaps because the Paw-talk team has a hunch that people surfing the web for pet-related information may also have a latent curiosity about matters scientific. Good on Paw-talk for feeding that curiosity!
As a brief follow-up to my post thinking about Dr. J's view that cats are a special class of being that ought not be used in research, I would like to assert that: Some deontological approaches may be grounded in rational arguments while others are grounded in assertions. Kant, for example, offers something like an argument that your valuing anything requires that you value the rational capacity in yourself and in others. Kant's rational argument could provide a basis for the claim that you shouldn't lie to others. But you could also believe that you shouldn't lie to others because lying…
Today, at R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.E.R.S., Dr J. posted a picture of a charming looking cat with the following text: As little as I can do to push back against the sick minded evil mo-fo bastards who think animal testing on cats is ok....from now on I will post occasional photos of cats as a reminder that these animals are infinitely better than the low life scum that would put them in a lab and murder them, or would sit on an animal experiments committee and authorize their use in any such way, or cite papers involving their research or in anyway devalue them...I think you are debasing and damaging…
One of the things we'd like to be able to do with our powers of ethical reasoning is tackle situations where we're not immediately certain of the right thing to do (or, for that matter, of the reason why the plan someone else is advocating strikes us as wrong). A common strategy (at least in an ethics class) is to whip out an ethical principle or rule, try to apply it to the situation you're pondering, and see what it tells you to do: What can I do here that respects the humanity of others and of myself? or, Which of the available courses of action maximizes benefits and minimizes harms (…
From time to time, when we've talked about people who object to research with animals on ethical grounds, the claim has been made that it is hypocritical for people with these objections to avail themselves of modern medicine. Our drugs and surgical interventions, after all, are typically the result of research that includes animal research. Occasionally, a response like this is made: There is no reason to opt out of the existing treatments, since the animal suffering that went into that research cannot be undone. Given that these past animals suffered, the knowledge produced from their…
Yesterday I worked my way through the hundred's of comments on PZ's I am Pro-Test post. One theme that kept cropping up was that a great deal of animal testing is unnecessary, and that informed and attentive consumers should be able to kill the demand for it. I thought, therefore, that it would be worth returning to a question I talked about a while ago, in a single paragraph of a fairly lengthy DVD review: "Why do animal tests continue when cruelty-free products are available?" In the U.S., federal law requires that cosmetics and pharmaceutical drugs be tested in animals for safety and…
After considering the many different roadblocks that seems to appear when people try to discuss research with animals (as we did in parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series), it might be tempting to throw up your hands and say, "Well, I guess there's no point in doing that, then!" Resist this temptation! As we noted in part 7, there are good reasons that we (by which I mean scientists and the public) ought to be engaging in dialogue about issues like research with animals. Avoiding dialogue altogether would mean cutting off the flow of information about what actually happens in animal…
Remember earlier this week when we were discussing some of the positions people might hold with respect to the use of animals in research? These included animal rights positions, which held that animals have inherent rights not to have their bodies transgressed (or that, by virtue of their capacity to suffer, they have rights not to be used in ways that might lead to their suffering), and animal welfare positions, which hold that animal suffering matters -- that it is something to be avoided or minimized -- but do not ground the ethical importance of animal suffering in animals' status as…
In this post, it's time to pull back from the specific kinds of dialogue blockers we've been examining (here, here, here, here, here, and here) to start to consider other ways we might get around them. Here, I want to start with some insightful remarks from a friend of mine, philosopher Vance Ricks: When you describe "dialogue" in that post, it sounds as though you're mostly focusing on communication between A and B. One wrinkle in the animal research case (and many ethical cases generally) is that A and B aren't just (not) talking to each other; they're talking to each other AND to an…
So far in this series, we've talked about ways that attempts to have a dialogue about animal research can be frustrated by inability to agree on a shared set of facts as a staring point or by unclarity about the positions people are trying to put forward. Today's featured impediment to dialogue has less to do with the mechanics of laying out and engaging with a clear argument and more to do with reasons people might be fearful even to voice their positions: Ignoring the impact of the tactics used to advance a position. The philosopher Kant made a famous statement that he who wills an end…
Today we discuss an impediment to dialogue about animals in research that seems to have a special power to get people talking past each other rather than actually engaging with each other: Imprecision about the positions being staked out. Specifically, here, the issue is whether the people trying to have a dialogue are being precise in laying out the relevant philosophical positions about animals -- the position they hold, the position they're arguing against, the other positions that might be viable options. Why is imprecision about your philosophical position a dialogue blocker? It tends…
As we continue our look at ways that attempted dialogues about the use of animals in research run off the rails, let's take up one more kind of substantial disagreement about the facts. Today's featured impediment: Disagreement about whether animals used in research experience discomfort, distress, pain, or torture. This disagreement at least points to a patch of common ground shared by the people disagreeing: that it would be a bad thing for animals to suffer. If one party to the discussion accepts the premise that animal suffering is of no consequence, that party won't waste time haggling…
As with yesterday's dialogue blocker (the question of whether animal research is necessary for scientific and medical advancement), today's impediment is another substantial disagreement about the facts. A productive dialogue requires some kind of common ground between its participants, including some shared premises about the current state of affairs. One feature of the current state of affairs is the set of laws and regulations that cover animal use -- but these laws and regulations are a regular source of disagreement: Current animal welfare regulations are not restrictive enough/are too…
Today we continue our look at the reasons that attempts to have a dialogue about the use of animals in scientific research routinely run aground. Dialogue, you'll remember, involves the participants in the dialogue offering not just their views but also something like their reasons for holding those views. In addition, in a real dialogue, participants engage seriously with each other's positions. Serious engagement doesn't necessitate that one of the positions on offer ends up persuading everyone in the dialogue, but everyone is supposed to be open to considering each view -- and open to…
In a post last month about an animal rights group targeting a researcher's car with an incendiary device, I closed by expressing my profound pessimism at the prospects of having a serious dialogue about animal rights: As a philosophical position, the case for animal rights is not completely empty or indefensible. However, as it's being propagated "in the wild", as it were, the case for animal rights is being made with lies and intimidation. Among rational people, this is a bad way to make a case for your position. Thus, it seems to me, people arguing in good faith for the animal rights…
In an op-ed by Tim Rutten in today's Los Angeles Times: No sensible person dismisses the humane treatment of animals as inconsequential, but what the fanatics propose is not an advance in social ethics. To the contrary, it is an irrational intrusion into civil society, a tantrum masquerading as a movement. It is a kind of ethical pornography in which assertion stands in for ideas, and willfulness for argument, all for the sake of self-gratification. At the end of the day, there is no moral equivalence between the lives of humans and those of animals. I think this is essentially the point…
Again, at UCLA, a researcher has become the target of violence at the hands of animal rights activists. From the Los Angeles Times: The FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the firebombing of a vehicle owned by a UCLA neuroscientist who was targeted by an anti-animal research group for using primates in his study of psychiatric disorders. The March 7 incident involving a homemade incendiary device took place outside the faculty member's home and caused no injuries, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. ... Eimiller said the investigation of last Saturday's incident will…
I'm not a regular reader of the Huffington Post, but I received a pointer to an article there that strikes me as worthy of comment. The article, Why I Take Animal-Tested Drugs, was written by Simon Chaitowitz, the former Communications director for the animal rights group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. From the title, you might expect a defense of animal-tested drugs, or at least a coherent explanation for why the author is taking them. However, what the article actually offers is condemnation of the use of animals in biomedical research, and even a claim that animal-tested…