D.I.Y. vivisection.

I recently took part in a debate on whether nonhuman animals have rights at my university. The numbers of medical students present ensured that the motion that “This House Believes That Animals Do Not Have Rights” won the day but by no means overwhelmingly.

The main speaker for the motion was Professor Carl Cohen, co-author in 2001 of The Animal Rights Debate with Tom Regan.[1] Cohen’s address followed a familiar pattern [see 2], and amounted to the notion of “animal rights – at what cost!” Cohen is beloved within the biomedical community [3], and the focus of his speech was indeed animal experimentation. Cohen takes the view that ending animal experimentation is the same things as ending all medical research because “there is no other way.” There certainly is another way.

One of the medical students supporting the motion essentially asserted the same thing. There is no other way. She noted how much she valued animal research, how important it was that an experimental compound is tested in a mammalian system – computers and test tubes will just not do. “Whole system” experiments are essential. This research is essential for the sake of humanity, it was suggested with some conviction.[4]

So, what’s the problem? She wants this research. She argues for “whole system” research. She thinks it is valuable. She thinks it is essentially. She thinks humanity as a whole will benefit. Well, she is a mammal in possession of a “whole system”. In these circumstances, and given these passionately-held values, why doesn’t she consent to be experimented upon? Or just get on with it in the spirit of D.I.Y?

There is, after all, a long and impressive western tradition of self-experimentation in medical and nutritional research dating from the 18th Century to the present day. The Times of June 2006 [5] tells us that, “Many of the most important medical advances have resulted from scientists who experimented on themselves,” and reports that,

Professor John Saunders, who chairs the ethical issues committee of the Royal College of Physicians, certainly believes that there are circumstances in which doctors should be volunteers in their own trials. Having been a subject in his own research in the past, he says: “I think it is perfectly legitimate for people to say: ‘If you aren’t prepared to undergo this experiment on yourself, how dare you expect others to do so.’”

The medical student in the debate appeared to believe that non-volunteer others, not herself, should be placed in potentially harmful experimental situations. Therefore, she fully supports nonhuman animal experimentation. However, nonhuman tests are not the best way to proceed in order to assist humanity, especially if haste is advisable. Humans are suffering now, there is no time for delay; and the fact that species differences interfere with the validity of experimentation is well documented in medical literature.

Those who support using nonhuman animals in experiments on the grounds that they claim medical advances for human beings are necessary, pressing and urgent; those who claim their number one priority is the health of humanity, should put their money where their mouths are. Using nonhuman animals instead of themselves is bound to dramatically delay reliable research. Experimenting on the ‘right’ species when results are designed to aid humans will mean that experimental data from and for humans will be far more useful than information from other animal species. This means fast results, fewer experiments, and greater human health benefits. One wonders if these people really mean what they say.


[1] http://www.springerlink.com/content/x617310186233417/
[2] http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~rebert/arlectures/media/index.php?f=2&v=cohen
[3] see ‘Mapping Human Rights’ in Regan, T. (2001) Defending Animal Rights, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Pp: 66-84.
[4] I am not entirely sure that I have ever believed this aspect of the argument, especially when it comes from the mouths of those who work for – or intend to work for – pharmaceutical companies that prevent cheap medicines being used in ‘developing countries’ and would harm their share holders if people were well. Likewise, the claim about caring for the whole of humanity seems a little hollow in a world in which many thousands of human beings die of starvation-related issues every single day.
[5] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article672977.ece