Gill Langley corrects some misconceptions

Corina Hadjiodysseos says that antivivisectionists argue against animal experiments on the basis that they are not ‘necessary’ (Sounding Off, SPA March 2007).

As a scientist who has campaigned professionally against animal research for 30 years, I believe she has mischaracterised our opposition.

Those who oppose animal experiments do so primarily for two reasons. The first is that it’s unethical deliberately to cause pain or suffering to sentient individuals (humans or animals of other species) without their freely-given, fully-informed consent, and when the affected individual is not expected to benefit personally from the intervention. This moral framework is widely accepted for the human species.

Since there is no logical or biological justification to distinguish morally between all humans and all other animals, the position is also valid for other sentient species. Most animals cannot give consent and will not benefit from experiments conducted on them.

Assumed benefits

The second argument used by many antivivisectionists is that the validity of medical research on animals has largely been assumed rather than proven. The government’s own advisory committee agreed that animal research ‘has to be judged case-by-case and subjected to detailed, critical evaluation’.(1)

There has been little such evaluation, but very recently a number of systematic reviews have revealed certain animal experiments to have been badly designed and poorly predictive of human outcomes.(2)

References

1. Animal Procedures Committee (2003). Review of cost/benefit assessment in the use of animals in research, p25-26 (PDF). 
2. P Perel et al (15 December 2006). British Medical Journal doi:10.1136/bmj.39048.407928.BE

Dr Gill Langley is Science Director at the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research