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Had
the poet foreseen the unending arguments between
animal advocates, and their opposition, he may have said: 'be
aware when you speak on behalf of animals, that from no point
in
time can the unknown horrors that they suffered be made known,
because the invisible cannot be made visible.' That insight
would bespeak a continuum from prehistoric times to the
ubiq-
uitous tyrannizing of animals in our time, the year of 2004.
Thus any brief for animals must be a severely trun-
cated account of realities and there can be no Nuremberg
day of reckoning. “Probability,” as noted by Bertrand Russell,
“is always relative to relevant data.” The data with which we
are here concerned is the human abuse and killing of billions
upon billions of animals, which will probably continue un-
abated sans rational humane intervention. As noted above,
there can be no tribunal for animals, but that doesn’t pre-
clude the dissemination of truth, and responsible opinion
based on the quest for justice, to counter fallacy; and irre-
sponsible opinion.
We shall, in the following dialectic, “quietly hear both
sides” in a manner calculated to accurately reflect the thoughts
of persons, whose identities (with some exceptions) will not
be made public.
1
Unfortunately, truth is not always a corollary of sin-
cerity, a
disparity exemplified by Mr. Journalist’s frequent de-
fense of
vivisection.
His use of
the testimony of the famous and knowledgeable
Dr. Partisan is
impressive, but such evidence is not
always
irrefutable. Dr. Partisan dogmatically claimed that "there
is no
substitute for the use of animals in medical research."
His claim is
not a value judgement, but a judgement about a
matter of fact
that is either true or false. It is not only false,
but reveals an
unscientific attitude because it begs the ques-
tion, and
speaks with certainty, which is contrary to the sci-
entific spirit.
That spirit eschews certainty in favor of
probability in
view of known facts.
My concern
about the biomedical research that pre-
ceded
successful coronary bypass graft surgery prompted me
to contact
former vivisectionist John McArdle Ph.D., member of
the advisory
panel to the Congress of the United States Of-
fice of
Technology Assessment. In his response June 26,1987
he wrote:
" All of
the others did use animals, but that was a reflec-
non of how
primitive biomedical research was at the time,
and does not
prove that animals are needed to answer bio-
medical
questions today. The real alternatives for such work
today are
clinical studies on sick animals and humans, and the
use of
clinically brain-dead human cadavers, which are avail-
able and are
being used at some university hospitals."
“I am
troubled,” wrote Irwin D. Bros Ph.d., by a para-
dox in
cancer research today On one hand, we have sophis-
ticated
scientific instruments, computers, and the elegant lan-
guage of
modern mathematics available for medical research.
on the other
hand, the ritual slaughter of animals continues
to be
practiced. ‘This ritual slaughter can serve little or no
scientific
use for mutagenic diseases such as cancer.”
"We
are,” claimed
The New England Journal of Mcdicine, “los-
ing the war
against cancer."
The
foregoing testimony by Dr. McCardle and Dr. Bross,
as well as that
of the New England Journal of Medicine, does
not prove Dr.
Partisan’s contention to be erroneous. But such
evidence does
serve to underscore the lack of complete ac-
cord by
respected authorities on a question of vital impor-
tance. The
criterion for determining the validity of Dr. Parti-
san testimony
lies in the investigation of its literal truth. One
counter
instance proves it to be false. Section 8 below
provides
considerably more than one counter
in-
stance, and
makes it clear that Partisan testimony is not valid.
We can best
understand the graveness of such error, in terms
of the horror
rituals that endorsement implies.
These rituals
are more than an important controversial
issue. They are
the source of mutilation, suffering, and kill-
ing of animals
on the one hand and the constant anguish of
grief inflicted
on concerned people on the other hand. The
latter anguish,
which is of secondary importance, will termi-
nate only when
the former ritual of horror is no longer toler-
ated:
Abolished.
2
How can a
sane person object to and to do away
medical testing
that is in the interest of people? Thus
agonized Mr.
Jones. His attempt to characterize a humane
and moral
outlook as something irrational is a paradigm of
self- deceptive
obtuseness. He is certain of the rightness of
his beliefs,
and implies that A advocates have no moral right to
speak or act as
they do on behalf of animals, and that there is
one, and only
one method of medical testing in the interest
of people. We
don’t have a moral right to be crusaders for
what we believe
to be the true and the good? Mohandis Gandhi
wouldn't agree
with Mr. partisan; neither would Moses, Mar-
tin Luther, or
the late Martin Luther King Jr.
“Like man,”
wrote Jones “animals are unique, but
does that
logically lead to the conclusion that they are sacro-
sanct, that
they must be totally protected from man?”
The logical
conclusion that animals (or man) are sacro-
sanct, cannot
be derived from facts apparent or real, because
of the
unbridgeable logical gulf between empirical facts and
moral
judgements. : contrary to what is dogmatically
claimed-we
can’t logically conclude that animals do or do not
have soul.
To cite the
obvious, animals must be protected from
man, by man,
for the same reason that the environment must
be his constant
concern: because there is no alternative other
than the agents
responsible for the wrongdoing. That the ob-
vious must be
cited, is another of the dismal facts of life.
3
The argument
for vivisection as presentcd by Alfred
Partisan and
other advocates of vivisection is based upon the
generalization
that the practice is an unmitigated blessing.
Such arguments
seek what in the very nature of the case can-
not be
obtained: unqualified scientific affirmation and moral
sanction.
According
to Partisan, animal research is by and large
a humane
practice in which animals are treated well. The pe-
rusal of
relevant literature will convince one with an open
mind that this
partisan’s testimony is outrageously mislead-
ing.
Anesthesia is incompatible with many post-operative
observations:
With experiments on the nervous system.
Or
pain or behavior or stress.
Or
all experiments of long duration.
Or all those that induce any disease,
for the purpose of studying it.
Or with the preventive efficacy, and
toxicity of all new drugs.
Anesthesia
is usually administered to animals prior to a seri-
ous surgical
procedure and mainly to keep them still. But since
the animal is
totally immobilized by a restraining device, and
solidly
muzzled, or surgically devocalized, there is no way to
show any
discomfort or severe pain. And nobody knows bow
effectively,
and for how long the animal is unconscious.
Arguments
to defend such barbarism are calculated to en-
sure acceptance
and avoid censure. Thus we are told that
nearly all
discovery in human and animal health care, can be
attributed to a
great degree on animal research. Such words
can mean
anything proclivity wishes them to mean. My read-
ing of medical
history is less ambiguous. It is there that we
learn that
clinical observation and epidemiological studies
account for
most of what we know to sustain human health
and prolong
life.
The
unspeakable things we have done to billions of ani--
mals as if they
unfeeling stones did elicit some knowl
edge, which is
not to say there was no other way But an~
other way was
not an attractive option in a world with no
shortage of
helpless animals and people who could benefit
academically
and economically from their vile exploitation,
as uninformed
publics silently consented to what they could
not, and would
not bear to witness.
4
Professor
Edward Loin’s article “Animal lovers and
Misanthropes”
is in the main at odds with the facts, but the
facts exist
regardless of what anyone thinks of them. “It is a
commonplace of
biological research,” the Report of the
British
Pharmaceutical Industry’s expert committee on drug
toxicity has
admitted, “that information from one animal spe-
cies cannot be
taken as valid for any other.”
Loin has
characterized animal advocates
as "man
haters,” which is an ad hominem (name calling)
attack. "The
animal rights movement is based on the premise,
claims Loin,
that animals must be protected even if it means
that people
must suffer and die." Can we believe that many
thousands if
not millions of A- advocates and Albert
Schweitzer, who
admonished the world to not impose suffering
on animals, can
be credibly classified as misanthropes?
Myth refuses to
be eluded; here we find it in a professor’s
irresponsible
words.
Loin the
professor is also a prophet. He predicts that many
human beings
will perish if vivisection is terminated. The
prediction is
not in the form of a well qualified opinion but
of irrefutable
dogma. He can not know that many people
will perish
because of the termination of vivisection because
that knowledge
is not logically derivable from any combination
of facts.
Animals
are crying and screaming all over the world
because of such
speculation and the inertia of a world that
perceives it as
unquestionable truth.
5
Ms.
Journalist is allegedly an animal lover, and her lat-
est rhetoric
makes one question the validity of that claim.
"People" she
says, "don’t like to torture animals this way." What
way, did a
paragraph get lost?
By “this way;”
the lady means: Take a few albino rab-
its, confine
them to restraining hutches with only their heads
showing, and
pull the lower lid away from the eyeball of each
rabbit to form
a cup. Into this cup drop a few milligrams of
whatever it is
to be tested for toxicity, hold the rabbit’s eye
closed for one
second and then let it go. A day later come
back to see if
the lids are swollen, the iris inflamed, the cor-
nea ulcerated,
or the rabbit blinded in that eye.
Alternatively their eyes may be permanently held open
by the use of
metal clips, which keep the eyelids apart, in which
case the
rabbits can obtain no relief at all from the burning
irritation of
the substance placed in their eyes. As Ms. Jour-
nalist
explained, people don’t like to torture animals in this
way. And I must
ask, why do they? one must have reasons to
not condemn,
but defend such procedures, and Ms. Journalist
did have two
reasons.
She
believes that in the foreseeable future there will
probably be
improvements in various cosmetics and house-
hold products.
Kids tend to eat cosmetics and even drink
shampoo or
cologne.
We can be
sure that unrelenting competition will fos-
ter
improvements, but how that can justify what they do to
animals is
perhaps clear to Ms. journalist, but not to this
A advocate. It
is quite clear however that giant corporations
would not spend
huge sums of their precious money to torture ani-
mals, if they
did not deem it to be in their interest to do so,
i.e., interest
defined as necessity in a litigious world. The ani-
mals can only
scream, and struggle, but a scream that is not
heard can’t
awaken a somnolent world.
Concerned
A advocates however, could he heard and seen
when they
demonstrated, as reported in Peter Singer’s “Ani-
mal
Liberation,” second edition.
And, it is
very clear, Ms. Journalist, that what was once
a routine
ritual of torture by Mary Kay,
Avon, Amway, Revlon,
Faberge, is
apparently no longer deemed necessary, from which
it follows that
our mercenary, vain, caustic, toxic one-way
trip through
hell for animals exemplified the power of the
untrue plca of
necessity.
6
One of our
persistent beliefs is that we humans are mor-
ally superior
to all other forms of sentient life that, in self
contradiction,
we routinely brutalize. Thus proponents of vivi-
section often
have their day in the mass media, which cannot
be said for
their frustrated opposition.
“I’m a
lover of dogs,” says Detective Jones, “but not an
antivivisectionist. I think experiments on animals is a neces-
sarv evil.”
“Perhaps,” replies Officer Plennik, “but not on my
poodle.”
Is
vivisection “evil,” and “necessary” as Jones claims~
The cop is not
entirely wrong. If it’s “evil” to sometimes burn,
cut, crush,
poison and microwave live animals, with and with-
out anesthesia,
then vivisection is “evil.” But the relevant
contrary
evidence tends to refute the claim of “necessary” as
a condition of
medical discovery and knowledge.
Jones is a
good cop, but betrays his ignorance of the
contradiction
entailed in his declaration of love for dogs, and
sanction of
vivisection as a “necessary evil.” From the time
of the tyrants
of Rome until the tyrants of our not so brave
new world,
necessity has been an instrument of persuasion
and influence,
and the concept still works. Officer Plennik’s
emotional
display of selective concern for his poodle is a para-
digm of stunted
and seemingly moral concern.
A stray
dog, or cat, or unloved pig trapped in a labora-
tory cage, can
be subjected to as much agony as a beloved
poodle.
However, to perceive an animal to which we have a
strong
emotional attachment as something special,
not to be
sacrificed to the
research
mill is
a common,
if not the
predominant attitude.
But,
should another animal that we have ner seen,
whose cries we
can’t hear, not also WARRANT our concern and
compassion? Is
that which we don’t experience but are vaguely
aware of,
nonexistent and not worthy of our concern and compas-
sion?
7
Dr.
Partisans’ article maintains that the anti-vivisec-
tionist
position is erroneous because it is sullied by emotion.
he insisted
moreover, that the vivisection issue does not en-
tail the rights
of animals, or the take-home pay of scientists,
but is simply
an issue of human health and well-being. Can
indiscriminately equate emotionalism with error? Can we
reduce the
controversial subject of vivisection solely to the
issue of human
health and well being? A mothers love for a
child, a
child’s love for a parent, the feeling of elation im-
parted by
beauty in its myriad forms -all are examples of posi-
tive emotions
that can not be classified as error. And not all
negative
emotions such as hate, fear, outrage, and rage can
be called error
because of the possibility of justification of
such gut
reactions.
Emotionalism can lead one astray, but it can also in-
tensify
understanding. A measure of emotion apropos of the
evils of
vivisection is a prerequisite, if language is to reflect
to more than a
degree the reality of such horrors. To label
burning,
blinding, gassing, poisoning, fracturing, cutting,
drowning,
crushing, and the whole hideous inventory of
cruelties that
constitute vivisection as merely an issue of human
health, and
well being, is crude anthropocentric fiction. I have
an interest in
health and well-being and I love life. But I would
not defile
myself by advocating the vivisectors’ hell for rea-
sons of health,
well being and long life, not even with a guar-
antee from the
vivisection enterprise.
Dr.
Partisan’s negative allusion to the take-home pay
of scientists
is not a self evident truth the human pursuit of
interest has
prevailed, and will continue to do so ad infini-
tum. And that
pursuit is a causal factor, that contributes to a
significant
degree to the vivisection enterprise. In the words
of George
Washington,... Few men are capable of making continual
sacrifice of all views of interest or advantage to the common
good .
It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on
this
account; the fact is so, as experience of every age and has
proved
it and we must in a great measure change the constitution of
man
before we can make it otherwise.
Such words
bring to mind what we know; but tend to
forget, and are
applicable to both saints, and sinners of medi-
cine and
science.
There can
be no denying that people often exhibit
emotion when
discussing vivisection. And there can be no
denying that
there are vivisectors working for what they be-
lieve to be in
the interest of the race, in a manner not per-
ceived as
evil. And there can be no denying, that there are
people that
have left the laboratory to crusade against it,
because they
believe it to be an immoral abomination. Be-
cause animals,
as well as humans, have a property in thcm-
selves there
can be no shirking the conclusion, that animals
have a moral
right to not be the property of, or relentlessly
tyrannized by
humans, from which it follows that they should
have a
statutory right unambiguously reflecting that fact.
8
"There is a compelling reason for using animals in
research. The reason is that we have no other choice. Virtu-
ally all medical knowledge and treatment, certainly every
medical breakthrough of the last century has involved re-
search with animals. Without animal research, all of the medi-
cal advances of the last century might never have occurred”.
Such statements are an amalgam of opinion, fallacy and im-
plied necessity, and, as we shall see are repudiated by medical
history and common sense.
It was through the use of voluntary human subjects,
some of whom paid with their lives, and not animals that we
learned to cope with:
Yellow fever
Malaria
Dengue fever
Round worm
Tapeworm
Typhus fever
Infectious hepatitis
Small pox
A “Partial listing of Advances Made without Animals,”
compiled by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medi-
cine, also serves to disprove the testimony of The Founda-
tion for Biomedical Research:
• “Discovery of the relationship between cholesterol and
heart disease, the number one cause of death for Ameri-
cans.
• Discovery of the relationship between smoking and can-
cer, the number two cause of death for Americans.
• Discovery of the relationship between hypertension and
stroke, the number three cause of death for Americans.
• Discovery of the causes of trauma, the number four cause
of death in the
United States, and the measures to prevent
It.
Elucidation of the causes of many forms of respiratory
disease, Americans’ number five cause of death.
• Isolation of the AIDS virus.
• Discovery of the mechanism of AIDS transmission.
• Discovery of penicillin and its curative effect on various
diseases.
• Development of x-rays.”
• Discovery of the relationship between chemical expo-
sure and birth defects.
• Development of hormonal treatment for cancer of the
prostate and breast.
• Interpretation of the genetic code and its function in pro-
tein synthesis.
• Production of Humulin, a synthetic copy of human Insu-
lin, which causes few allergic reactions. Humulin is widely
available and the product of choice for insulin-dependent
diabetics”.
Copyright©2000 by J. B. Suconik
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