Xref: utzoo sci.research:625 talk.politics.misc:21429 sci.bio:1813
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!vsi1!wyse!mips!prls!philabs!hen3ry!dpb
From: dpb@hen3ry.Philips.Com (Paul Benjamin)
Newsgroups: sci.research,talk.politics.misc,sci.bio
Subject: Re: animal research
Message-ID: <43701@philabs.Philips.Com>
Date: 2 Feb 89 15:02:56 GMT
References: <593@orbit.UUCP>
Sender: news@philabs.Philips.Com
Reply-To: dpb@hen3ry.UUCP (Paul Benjamin)
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 23

In article <593@orbit.UUCP> avatar@pnet51.cts.com (Timothy Fay) writes:
>I can accept that, under certain conditions, some animal research MAY be
>necessary.  But please spare us this baloney that animal research isn't
>cruel to the animals.  It IS cruel and, someday hopefully, it will also
>be unnecessary.

Up till now I've been just observing this seemingly eternal
argument, but I feel I have to point out the extremely
simplistic position that seems to be emerging.  There is no
doubt that a lot of cruel animal research exists, and that
regulations are needed.  But to say that ALL animal research
is cruel is wrong.  There is a great deal of valuable work involving
many topics that are not cruel at all, e.g., diet (large doses
of vitamins), or biological rhythms (20-hour days, 30-hour days,
etc.), that are not necessarily cruel at all to the animals
involved, and cannot be realistically done with humans (and
certainly not with simulations).  Try controlling the daylight
and night hours of a large group of humans for a long time.
To lump all animal research together is oversimplifying, and
gives a vacuous argument.  Let's try to stick to the main point -
cruelty to animals, whether in the name of research or not.

Paul Benjamin