面對動物實驗的神話 (下)

We discovered that the research community also keeps the public in the dark about the many inconsistencies that exist between animal and human physiology. In many cases, testing on animals rather than computer models or tissue cultures makes absolutely no sense from a scientific point of view. For example, rats and mice are the most common test subjects. Millions are used each year. Yet when human physiology is compared to that of rodents, the differences far outweigh any similarities.

Most importantly, the three year lifespan of rodents requires that massive doses of drugs be used for testing, more than a human would ever consume in many lifetimes. Certain drugs used for cancer chemotherapy that cause kidney damage in humans do not in rodents. Imuran, a drug used to treat certain serious diseases by suppressing the immune system, causes birth defects in mice, but not in humans. Rodents eliminate drugs from their bodies in three hours, compared to 72 hours in humans. Rodents get Vitamin D by licking their own fur while humans can only get it through exposure to sunlight or diet.

Rodents have no gall bladder and digest fats very differently from humans. There are many more examples of drugs and procedures that kill rodents but do not harm humans and vice versa. These examples extend to other species as well.

So why do animals continue to be used when alternatives exist? Because it is an industry, not a science, and huge businesses exist to breed or acquire animals destined for research, sometimes through very brutal methods. Parents of baby chimpanzees in Africa are still murdered by those acting on behalf of animal research supply houses, and the young chimps are kidnapped to sell into research facilities in the United States.

Sound familiar, like another period in U.S. history involving beings from Africa and slavery?

Animals are relatively cheap and, if you cast morals and ethics to the wind, you can brutalize them, throw them away if you make a mistake or the results are not to your liking, and just get more.

Many researchers are addicted to research grants, renewing them every six months even though they have no results to show – and the granting agencies do not require any - for all the animals that have suffered horribly and died.

The time is long overdue for the public to rein in medical researchers who practice poor, redundant, or unnecessary experiments on animals that have been proven to have feelings very similar to humans.

While some medical advances have been made using animals, in many cases the same results could have been more effectively obtained using alternatives. The double standard of morals and ethics must end. How can we expect our children to end the cycle of violence in our culture if those we look to for leadership and hope brutalize and torture forms of life we should consider our neighbors, not our slaves?

RESOURCES 

1. The U.S. National Institutes of Health own investigator said in a 1998 report that 25 percent of the animal research they fund turns out to be fraudulent. Send an email message to the Director of the NIH at: director@nih.gov, saying that you want the funding requirements tightened up.
2. Most animals are not like humans and testing human drugs on them is ludicrous. If guinea pigs had been chosen as the animal subjects for penicillin tests, that drug would never have been released - penicillin kills guinea pigs. Learn about this aspect of the issue from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at: http://www.peta-online.org/
3. Many charities support animal research. For a list of charities that do not, visit: http://www.geari.org/charitiesdonttest.html 
4. Keep up with the pound seizure issue and find out what is done in your community at: http://www.banpoundseizure.org/home.shtml
5. Learn more about the issue of animals in research at: http://www.aavs.org/laboratories01.html
6.  See a comprehensive list of websites addressing the issue at: http://www.aavs.org/relatedSites.html 
7. For a good list of companies that do not test on animals, visit: http://www.peta.org/mall/cc/ccdonttest.html 
8. Visit the Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal testing at: http://altweb.jhsph.edu/ 
9.  Visit the site of the Medical Research Modernization Committee at: http://www.mrmcmed.org/critcv.html
10. Visit Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at: http://www.psyeta.org/

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle and the author of "Healing Our World, A Journey from the Darkness Into the Light," available at: http://www.xlibris.com/HealingOurWorld.html and “Of This Earth, Reflections on Connections,” available at: http://ofthisearth.org/ . Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at: jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com/}