Protests escalate as work resumes at animal lab

This is posted as a reply to every post that there has been about the Oxford Animal Lab, and is an argument in favour of its completion, and animal testing for disease prevention in general.

I would like to see a lot of (reasoned) debate to follow this post.

Follow this logic:

1. We need more medicines
- To fight diseases that affect HUMANS. Due to the nature of our nasty profit-focussed drug companies, these are primarily drugs that will make them richer, which are not always the products which are most needed. e.g. I would like to see more research into cheaper AIDS drugs and TB drugs to fight diseases which are huge killers in the developing world. However, it is surely better that some research is being done at all to fight disease in whatever form it may come.
- I am convinced that testing on animals saves lives of people. For me, the ends justify the means. If animals were being tested on at Oxford to research a new type of hair dye or something, I would be on the demonstration with you, but as it stands ARNOLD and HARRY, the results of these tests could save YOUR child/mother/brother/wife... would you change your tune if it was one of these in hospital. I would expect that you are principled enough to say no. HOWEVER, would you and your activist friends agree to be tested on yourselves in the place of the animals? I would be interested to see a mass-movement of animal rights activists campaigning for their right to be tested on instead of the animals. Or do you dispute the fact that drugs should be tested at all?

2. Animal Rights ARE important
- I am the first person to be arguing against the terrible conditions on battery farms. Yes, I am an occasional meat eater (maybe once a week), but I only eat organic and free-range meat, both "marks" which carry high standards of animal welfare.
- I see no fundamental problem in rearing and killing animals for food, you may disagree, but this is besides the point. Personally, I have no problem with eating an animal if it has been reared in a "normal" way. I think industrial farming is a MUCH greater evil than animal testing.

3. Where should you focus your protest?
- This brings me onto my main point, why do you not focus your ire on things you can actually change? A recent survey in a student newspaper revealed that something like 90%+ of students agreed with the new lab. This does not make us evil people; as I argued above, animal testing is NECESSARY. I would be interested to see the results of a nationwide survey on the issue, but I expect you are fighting against 90%+ of the entire country.
- What you can change, is the British attitude towards animal rights are being abused unnecessarily, e.g. on battery and dariy farms in Oxfordshire and nationwide. Would your efforts not be better spent on campaigning on these issues, which a lot of people would support if they only knew more about the huge crime that is battery farming? Many students who buy their tesco-value chicken breasts might reconsider if they knew more.
- The problem is, that now many students are alienated by frequently being called "scum" by you lot. I attempted to ask a lady on one of your demos why "vivisection kills humans", but she just screamed something about me being ashamed of myself. These sorts of activists are only in it for the "buzz" and bravado. I was lucky that someone else noticed her bigotry, and stopped to explain the issues to me. I have to say, I was not convinced, but at least he made an attempt.
- Furthermore, many of your reports seem focussed on self-importance, e.g. "animal rights protestors centre of attention in Oxford City". Being an activist isn't about being looked at, admired, or in the papers, it is about CHANGING THINGS. And I can safely say you will NEVER stop this lab being finished.

4. Retorts
- There are issues of animal cruelty that are HUGELY more prevalent than one animal lab that will test on a insignificantly small number of animals compared to the battery farming industiry.
- Although these animals being tested upon is, how to put it "unsavoury", it is to my mind necessary. I have friends who work in the zoology labs; they do NOT "torture" animals. Yes, animals are killed, but for the advancement of science towards the cure of disease, and I consider this a fair swap.
- I'm trying to anticipate arguments that someone will advance to counter my views, one may be "what if it was your pet". I admit, I have a cat who I love very dearly, and I would not like to see her cut up. However, it ISN'T her being experimented on. This may be a rubbish argument, but it is how I deal with it. We turn a blind eye to the thousands dying of AIDS, TB, Malaria, malnutrition and everything else every day. I consider human rights to be HUGELY more important than animal rights, and I would hope that most animal rights protestors would agree, or do you consider a mouse's right to life to be equal to a child's, even if that child may be in Africa and out of your sight?

5. Conclusion
- SPEAK should stop harping on about the Oxford Animal Lab. It is GOING to get built whether you like it or not. It is GOING to save the life of YOUR baby daughter who was born with a disability, or YOUR older brother who has got AIDS. So deal with it.
- If you must fight for animal rights, your energy would be better spent focussing on the huge evils of industrial farming, which you COULD actually CHANGE with the right amount of national pressure in the right places, with the absence of your laughable hyperbole and bullshit. (Is it me, or are articles by animal rights activists ALWAYS badly-written and over-the-top? Even if your arguments made sense, they would still turn most people off)
- There are greater evils in the world than animals being tested on. PEOPLE are dying every day due to hugely unfair trade rules, crippling debts placed upon them by OUR government, and CUREABLE diseases which OUR drug companies do not target because they are not profitable. These issues are more important than one animal lab, full bloody stop. Get over it.

Right.

Could people reply to this in a reasonable way, with no calling me an "evil vivisector" and stuff like that? If you want to convince people you are right, do it without your hyperbole and name-calling.

Also, if you agree with what I've said, voice your agreement!

Thanks for reading, sorry this was so long, but a lot of things needed saying.

Okay, here is the reasoned debate you requested. I have not included references here, but you can look through my home page for scientific references by myself and others.

Firstly, animal experiments are not necessary for improving human health. At the cellular and physiological level, which is where drugs and toxins have their effect, differences between humans and animals make extrapolation meaningless. This is predicted by complexity theory and confirmed by numerous empirical studies and systematic reviews. In fact, the president of Glaxo even stated that differences in the physiology of human patient made drug testing on humans problematic.

As for the moral issue; it is considered immoral to test on humans without their informed consent. Certainly painful human vivisection is universally condemned. The reasons given are generally that humans are capable of suffering, self aware, have future preferences, have emotions etc. All these attributes are shared by animals, and in fact an intelligent dog may have more cognitive ability than a brain damaged human. If you are opposed to factory farming you must already realise this.

Asking how I would feel if my son/daughter was dying is not a fair question. Certainly if someone close to me was dying and I thought they could be saved by taing a pig's organs, I would take the pig's organs. But by the same token I would take YOUR organs. Does this mean I should be allowed to? Since when have we based societal morals on the actions of grief crazed and desperate parents who would do ANYTHING to save their children?

I agree with you on factory farming, but so what? Most Animal Rights activists oppose ALL forms of animal cruelty. I would certainly encourage you to join CIWF if that is where your inclinations lie. If you become involved with them, you will probably spend most of your free time campaigning against factory farming and have no time for anti-vivisection activities, and there is nothing wrong with that. Similarly there would be nothing wrong with being too busy with Amnesty International or other human rights groups to have time to spare for animals. All of us concerned with fighting injustice have our own preferences on how to tackle the problem.

I would suggest however that there is plenty wrong with criticising the campaigns of those who choose a different way than yours. I am sure most CIWF members agree with the sentiments of SPEAK, and vice versa.

Lastly, if you are seriously concerned with animal abuse, then the best thing you can do is stop eating them. Meat is not necessary for human health, quite the reverse, it is the cause of a number of diseases. There are now plenty of delicious vegan alternatives available, so even the excuse of taste and convenience is no longer valid.

First of all, thankyou very much Michael, you have restored my faith in the AR lobby. I am convinced by a lot of what you have said, but not all. First of all, I am aware of the body of opinion that considers that animal tests are pointless. the speak website at  http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk/badscience.php/ says what you've said pretty much.

As a non-scientist myself, I don't feel qualified to comment too much on this, but consider the following. Why would they carry out these experiments if they were pointless. Unfortunately, like everything else in this world, research boils down to money. Where can a researcher get funding from etc etc. I refuse to believe that they are just torturing animals for the hell of it, as some would have us believe. There must be a point, and there must be some kind of commerical way to make a profit out of it.

Now, I would argue, with my extensive (hmm...) knowledge of science, that there must be a *sufficient* similiarity in DNA between primates and humans for these experiments to have some sort of medical use? I've read all about the asthma drugs having one affect on monkeys then killing humans etc, and the other examples of the SPEAK website, but surely these are just exceptions. The (probable...) 95% of substances that have the same effect on animals and humans surely outweighs the chances of them not, and speak aren't going to list that on their website are they? (e.g. oh look, cyanide kills monkeys, let's not put that in our cough medicine...)

As far as I can tell, the main research that SPEAK object to is the brain damage research carried out on monkeys  http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk/primateresearch.php/
This doesn't appear to have any bearing on what I've been going on about (e.g. curing AIDS or whatever) but surely it must have some bearing on treating brain-damaged people? You say that the differences between animals and humans "make extrapolation meaningless", but then why would they do it? Surely if we can better understand how an animal's brain works, then this can improve (or lay the way for improving) the way we understand the human brain? That aside, when this research facility is completed, I sincerely doubt it will be used solely for giving monkeys lobotomies. There will be lots of other (perhaps even more distasteful) stuff going on; I have to admit I don't know what this will be, but what else could it be than for medical research? I return to my argument about profit... You talk of "empirical studies and systematic reviews" but there are always two sides to every argument, and science can be made to prove anything. My main point is, there must be ENOUGH similarities to make SOME conclusions possible, otherwise the research would be pointless and not get funding. As it is, big pharmaceuticals are funding Oxford in this, they wouldn't unless they could make money out of this. I dislike this as much as you might but it's the fact. It is especially bad when this theory is translated onto humans, e.g. in the film "the constant gardner", which isn't a true story, but I'd say such things very probably happen.

I've just said this research is "distasteful", don't get me wrong, I DO find removing parts of animals brains "problematic", as you say, and it is clear the animal undergoes physical and mental stress during the process. This saddens me to think about, but I see it as *necessary* It's a question of whether the ends justify the means. If we can stop or cure brain damage in babies/people as a result of hypotheses founded on research with monkeys, then I would say that the ends have justified the means.

Now I'm not religious or anything, but I consider humans a "higher" form of life than animals (even though we are "animals"). Of course I wouldn't agree to human vivisection, and if my son/daughter were dying, I *wouldn't* kill you to take your organs. I don't really believe you would take mine, that was a clever argument you used, but it doesn't work in practice. Therefore I think it IS a fair question to ask whether you would use drugs/brain operations that had been tested on animals to cure yourself or your loved ones, and it is a FUNDAMENTAL question. You wrote "Certainly if someone close to me was dying and I thought they could be saved by taing a pig's organs, I would take the pig's organs." Doesn't this contradict everything you're campaigning against? On your argumentation, why does your child have more right to life than the pig...? etc etc

you say, an "intelligent dog may have more cognitive ability than a brain damaged human". Maybe so, but it is still, nevertheless, a dog. If you believe that a dog has more (or the same) right to life than a brain-damaged human, then this is an area of ethics where we will clearly disagree irreconcilably.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the meat-eating argument, because it opens a whole can of worms concerning my own personal beliefs which aren't relevant to the animal testing issue. I know vegetarians who are pro the lab, and I know vegans who aren't campaigning against it, so I will ask them their opinions about it next time I see them. I suppose I only brought up the "organic/free range" thing to prove that I do actually care about animal welfare (despite eating them), and I'm not just some "evil bastard vivisector". To reiterate, I simply consider humans to be "above" other animals, and see testing upon them for our own benefit as ethically unproblematic, providing that some good comes of it, which it will.

You can go back to the fundamental principles of science: I can't remember the name of the guy, but he who first put a bell jar over a mouse, and realised it died after a few minutes due to oxygen starvation. He wouldn't have done that with a human! If we'd never tested on animals, then medically, we'd still be in the dark ages. fact. And so the principle will continue.

I may well get involved with CIWF at some point, but right now I consider environmental concerns to be paramount. If our world is rendered uninhabitable by disaustrous climate change, then there will be no animals to experiment on, and no humans to cure! Obviously I completely agree with you that "all of us concerned with fighting injustice have our own preferences on how to tackle the problem." I don't have a problem with people campaigning against the Oxford lab, as long as they are as well-informed as you are, and in my experience this is not often the case. I was not suggesting that people should NOT oppose the lab, simply that they would achieve much more (i.e. more than nothing, because however much you oppose it, this lab *will* be built *somewhere*. Your resistance is ideological and I salute that, but it will achieve nothing), by opposing systems of animal cruelty that more people would support, e.g. factory farming and bad dairy farming. If every SPEAK activist (and ALF loon) put the same amount of energy into opposing battery hen farms as they did in opposing the Oxford lab, something might change, and you would drag along SO many more people (like myself) out with you. But as you say, each to their own, and "All of us concerned with fighting injustice have our own preferences on how to tackle the problem."

I would love to get bogged down in a discussion about why I eat meat etc, but it's late, I'm tired, and this reply is too long already. I'm sure that there are flaws in what I've written, and I'm sure you have more to come back on, so *please* do, and indeed anyone else.

The problem of why vivisection continues, when it is scientifically questionable is one that puzzled me as well, which is why I did not accept scientific anti-vivisection arguments for a long time, and based my opposition purely on the ethical arguments. Certainly the standard reply that it is based on money is an EFFECT of its popularity as a scientific method, not a CAUSE. Whenever any superstition takes hold, someone will make a buck out of it, but the buck-making is not the cause of the superstition.

But after reading more about the philosophy and sociology of science (something scientists are notoriously ignorant of) I have come to the conclusion that the popularity of vivisection is based on two false metaphysical premises, both of which are now outdated. The first is that equal effects always come from equal causes. So a human is just a rat writ large, something we now know is not true. The other premise is a relic from posititivism and that is that something is only scientifically verifiable if it is repeated under controlled conditions in a laboratory. So your example of the mouse being smothered by a bell jar is a case in point. It must have been known to humans since medieval times that people die in mines and other places where there is not enought air. The hypotehsis that there is something in the air necessary to life could have been inferred from considering these "clinical cases" but this was not considered "scientific". But the sciences of epidemiology and ecology are both based on field based "case studies" and not laboratory work.

Thus the reason why vivisection became popular. It has remained popular because as Thomas Kuhn discovered through his historical researh, science is resistant to change, and it will require a "paradigm shift" before we realise that we have been in error all these years. Part of the reason for resistance is of course that big money has now made it lucrative to maintain the status quo. So money is not a reason for its establishment, but is a reason why it continues.

Actually, I don't excuse my demand for a pig's or a human's organs if my child was dying. I am just claiming mitigating circumstances. These circumstances do not exist for most of us, and in fact the "your dog or your baby" argument does not apply,it is simply an artificial conflict invented by the research lobby.

In 1968 my sister died from cot death. At that time we were in the dark ages as far as knowing what caused this. Later I was invited to submit an application to a granting boty to conduct research into cot death using a lamb "model" to simulate brething difficulties. These "sacrifices" saved nobody. It was epidemiologists who identified the risk factors for cot death and warned parents. It was clinicians who designed monitors that would alert parents when baby had difficulty breathing. These discoveries helped reduce cot death in New Zealand from 7 in 1000 to 4 in 1000. If all the funds squandered on animal experiments had been channelled into clinical research my sister may be alive today. It was truly a case of "the lamb AND your baby".

There are numerous similar cases and it would take too long to list them. Like you I used to think these were isolated incidents. But how many isolated incidents does it take before we infer a rule? Induction is after all only the sum of a number of isolated incidences. We infer that all emeralds are green because we have observed a large number of emeralds and all have been green. Similarly I infer that vivisection is bad science because I have collected a number of examples of vivisection, and all have been bad science. When combined with the theoretical implications of complexity theory, the case seems clear cut. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but perhaps you could do some of your own research and draw your own conclusions.

hmm the cause/effect, chicken/egg problem... I would argue that since animal testing has been going on for so many years, surely SOMEONE would have noticed that the buckmakers were laughing behind science's back. I simply refuse to believe that Oxford Uni (short enough of money as they are) would waste money on this if it had no scientific benefit.

I'm sure that no scientist working in the labs really believes that "equal effects always come from equal causes", as you say. I'm sure they're only too aware of the differences between the macaques in the lab, and the effects visible in humans. What I'm trying to say, is that there are ENOUGH similarities for them to make SOME conclusions about monkeys, and then see what bearing this has on humans. SOME of the conclusions will be true, and SOME will be false. The question of whether more or true/false I don't know, but I suspect that ENOUGH are true to make it worth doing. You say "big money has now made it lucrative to maintain the status quo", this is perhaps the case, but I disagree. If vivisection had made no significant advance in medical science in the past 100 years, SOMEONE would have noticed. The fact is that it has.

You say "it must have been known to humans since medieval times that people die in mines", but they wouldn't know it was lack of oxygen, would they? there could have been all number of ideas, like toxic gases or something (some of which might have indeed been the causes of the deaths in the mines, not lack of oxygen). The point of a lab is you have a "control", where nothing is changed, and compare it to something that you do change, to see the differences, the point being that as many other factors are kept the same. Real life is not like this. You say "the sciences of epidemiology and ecology are both based on field based "case studies" and not laboratory work", what does this prove?

You say "your dog or your baby" argument does not apply,it is simply an artificial conflict invented by the research lobby." Ok... I can see we're not going to get anywhere here, I still consider it a valid argument to make. Just because you have no emotional attachment to something, why should that make any difference?

You say “It was epidemiologists who identified the risk factors for cot death and warned parents,” and claim you could list similar cases, and I don’t doubt it. I’m sure there are cases in which vivisection HAS helped. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to be able to list them. I’m just an arts student who takes an interest in such issues. I admit this leaves me somewhat open to criticism, so give me a few weeks to do some research and talk to some people, and I’ll come up with some examples. “how many isolated incidents does it take before we infer a rule?” I don’t know, but it’s a question of extent. If 15% of animal experiments prove nothing, then fair enough. If 90% prove nothing, then this is when you can start complaining about it being a waste of money, but even then there’s an argument for saying that the 10% that DO prove something was worth it. I don’t know enough facts to back this up I’m afraid. There must be some kind of website with info about this? I’ll look into it.

I can completely understand your opinion on “bad science”, but as you say “I infer that vivisection is bad science because I have collected a number of examples of vivisection, and all have been bad science”, that does not exclude the possibility that there may be some that are good science, or I’ve got a red emerald in my cupboard. I would suggest that the former is a hell of a lot more likely, but (encore une fois) I have no evidence. Woops.

So it’s come down to a conflict of chicken/egg over funding, and percentage cases of good/bad science concerning vivisection. Neither of which I or you can prove either way. I’ll do some reading and get back to you.

By all means do some reading; that sounds like a very good idea. But when reading pieces by scientists try to consider who is paying their wages. If they are being paid by pharmaceutical companies or others with a vested interest in the status quo, then you don't have to be the world's greatest cynic to infer that they will be telling you what their masters want you to hear. That is not to say independent scientists cannot be prejudiced or mistaken, but the differenes is their mistakes and prejudices are their own; they are not paid to spout someone elses. They can also change their minds when confronted with evidence. Fox and Frey are two philsophers who were once pro-vivisection but who changed their views. I cannot think of any anti-vivisectionist who changed their views without being paid for it.

You say that "SOMEBODY" would have noticed that vivisection is bad science. Well "somebody" has. In fact most of the protesters outside Oxford have probably noticed. A great many books and articles by physicians, scientists and philosophers of science have been written criticising vivisection. To find most of these you will need to delve in your local academic library. Their views have not reached mainstream consciousness because it is the rich and powerful who control the established media. When Pandora Pound wrote a scathing and well referenced attack on vivisection in the prestigious "British Medical Journal" in 2004, who reported it out of the mainstream media? But any woffle about some cancer cure being "just around the corner" because of animal experiments will get front page news. In spite of the fact that not one of these promised cures has eventuated.

If you look at the history of science, you will see a number of examples, where what now appears obvious to us in hindsight was resisted bitterly. Your example of oxygen is a case in point. The presence of oxygen was not inferred by suffocating animals but from careful, controlled experiments on combustion. By burning materials in a chamber it was noticed that the weight of the combusted product inceased. At the time, the established wisdom was that there was a substance called phlogiston that was released after burning. These experiments suggested instead that there was something in the air that assisted burning and was added to the substance burned. In spite of this evidence, there was overwhelming resistance to ditching the phlogiston theory, with eminant scientists not wishing to admit they were wrong; rather like the theory of vivisection today.

As for the difference between epidemiology and lab studies I am not denying that injecting a rat in a lab is easier, cheaper and will get you more papers, kudos and professorships than laborious field work. Epidemiologists do require large sample sizes and complex statistics to overcome confounding effects. But if you are advocating laboratory animal tests over human epidemiological trials then you are no longer simply saying an animal's life is more important than a human's. What you are saying is that saving money on the cheaper experiment, at the cost of an animal's life, is more important than conducting the more ethical epidemiology experiment at the cost of some money. I.e. money is more important than lives. This is an entirely different proposition, and pro-vivisectionists need to be honest enough to admit that this what their argument is based on.

The "dog or your baby" arguments, like "lifeboat" scenarios where you are forced to say who you would choose to chuck out of a lifeboat, or "burning building" scenarios where you are forced to weigh up who you would save from a fire, are popular in pop-philosophy, but less common in real life. The most that even the pro-vivisection lobby can tell you is that animal experiments MAY lead to cures for some, as yet un-named human in the future. Again, the choice is not between an existing animal and an existing human. How can a hypothetical human, who doesn't exist, and may never exist, be given priority over the often intense suffering of a primate or other intelligent and sensitive animal, occuring right now?

And to get back to the burning building, if I had to choose between saving my son or a stranger, I would of course save my son. As would most people reading this. But does that mean strangers have no rights? That everyone can do what they like with strangers on the off chance that their sons may benefit in some way? It doesn't bear thinking about.