All Research on Animals is an Affront to Human Dignity

Dr Vernon Coleman




If animals shave their whiskers then their brains don't develop properly.

Isn't that interesting? I bet you're glad I told you that. I know this fascinating fact because a team of research scientists working at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine has just completed a research project designed to find out what happens when rats' whiskers are shaved. During the experiment a technician shaved the rats' whiskers every day with a pair of tiny scissors. And the researchers then found that the rats' brains didn't develop properly. When I was researching my book Paper Doctors (in 1977) I was horrified by the number of medical researchers who spend their time and our money on research projects which have no practical value. There was the Cambridge psychologist who deliberately blinded a monkey and studied her behaviour for six years. There were the researchers who kept their animals in terribly cramped and inadequate conditions. And there were the researchers who maimed and destroyed hundreds of animals simply so that they could test new cosmetics. Some researchers deprived animals of food and water. Others subjected their defenceless victims to terrible pain. While researching this book I was horrified to learn that every year British scientists still conduct an enormous number of entirely unnecessary experiments. The latest figures show that there are still well over four million animal experiments conducted every year in Britain. Most of those experiments are performed on cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats, hamsters, and monkeys. Many of those animals are kept in terrible conditions. Hundreds of thousands are subjected to dreadful pain and fearful suffering. (For example, in February 1985 the Royal College of Surgeons of England was found guilty and fined £250 for causing unnecessary suffering to a laboratory monkey. The court was told that monkeys used in experiments were kept in three-foot square aluminium cages. Because of an inadequate heating system the temperature inside the cages had soared from 85°F to 92°F.) The lucky ones are the ones which are killed during the early stages of an experiment.

The researchers who conduct these experiments usually argue that their work will benefit mankind. They dismiss protestors as ignorant and unreasonable. They claim that it is necessary to maim, torture, and kill animals in order to push back the frontiers of medical science.

To try and assess the value of these claims I took a long, hard look at exactly what medical-research workers are doing with animals these days. I was not impressed by what I found.

In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, for example, I found the following three papers:

a) 'Effects of Vibration, Noise and Restraint on Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and Renal Blood Flow in the Pig.'

It is difficult to see the point in this particular experiment. If you happen to be a pig and you happen to operate a road drill then this sort of research work is probably useful to you. Otherwise I fail to see its significance.

b) 'Exercise in Non-mammalian Vertebrates: A Review.'
In case you, like me, are not too sure of the purpose of this research, I'll quote the final sentence of the author's conclusions: 'Because of their oxygen-conserving response that can be brought into operation when under water, tufted ducks can vary heart rate by a factor of twenty or more, depending on whether they are flying or whether they are trapped under water.'

c) 'Effect of Experimental Hypothyroidism on Hearing in Adult Guinea Pigs.'
I suppose this paper might be of great significance if you happen to be a guinea pig with a thyroid problem.

Those three papers seem more comical than threatening. So let me continue with an account of the work of one of Britain's most respected scientists, Professor Colin Blakemore.

Blakemore leads a research team at Oxford University and for some time his work has been sponsored by the Medical Research Council. For the best part of the last twenty years he has been conducting research into vision.

For example, in 1986, Blakemore and a colleague published a paper entitled 'Organization of the Visual Pathways in the New­born Kitten'.

These two intrepid researchers used thirteen new-born kittens in their experiment. Each kitten was injected with chemicals. Some of the kittens had the chemicals injected directly into the part of their brain that helps to provide sight. Twenty-four hours later the kittens were killed. And their brains dissected.

Blakemore and his colleague concluded that they 'had gained further information about the organization of the visual pathways in the new-born kitten before the onset of visual activity'. At the end of the paper the two scientists listed no less than eighty-eight presumably relevant references - most of them dealing with similar experiments with cats and kittens. This experiment was similar to many conducted by Blakemore and his colleagues.

For example, in 1985, David Price, who works with Blakemore, reported on an experiment in which a total of seventeen kittens were used. Five of the kittens were reared in complete darkness from the day they were born. As far as I can see the conclusion Price came to at the end of his research was that kittens do not develop normally when they are reared in the dark.

In 1985, the journal of Neuroscience published a paper by Blakemore and Price entitled 'The Postnatal Development of the Association Projection from Visual Cortical Area Seventeen to Area Eighteen in the Cat'. As usual the experiment was funded by the Medical Research Council.

In this experiment eighteen domestic tabby kittens were used at various ages. Two of them were binocularly deprived by suturing the conjunctivae and eyelids. For 'binocularly deprived' you can substitute 'blinded'. Albeit temporarily. Their eyes were sewn up.

Also in 1985, Blakemore and two colleagues published an article in the Journal of Comparative Neurology. For this research project they used fifty-nine golden hamsters. In about half the animals the left eye was removed on the day of birth. (The authors seem to me to be rather sloppy scientists - they actually say 'about half'.) The eyes which remained were injected with chemicals.

And so it goes on. I have a huge file of papers by Blakemore and his colleagues. They sew up the eyelids of animals. They inject brains. And to what end? I don't know. I have read many of Blakemore's papers and I cannot think of any excuse for what this man does in the name of science. Indeed, Blakemore claims that his work does not have to be justified in clinical terms. The Medical Research Council funds Blakemore's terrible experiments, but I challenge either the MRC or Blakemore himself to point to a single human being or animal and say that that person has benefited because of his work. Personally I despise such scientists. I do not believe that this work has any clinical value. Human beings have little in common with animals and the results of experiments such as these cannot easily be applied to human beings. Even if I were prepared to accept that such experiments helped further medicine, I would find the experiments difficult to accept. I do not believe that such experiments have made any valid contribution and I am appalled that the Medical Research Council should support such work.

Finally, as evidence to support my claim that animal research is irrelevant to human beings, I will just mention a story which illustrates only too vividly the uselessness of animal research work.

In 1959, a Scots doctor told the drug company E. R. Squibb and Sons that a drug that they had prepared for the treatment of diarrhoea damaged the eyesight of rabbits. Squibb's own scientists then subsequently found that the drug blinded and killed two calves. In 1963, they found that the drug blinded and killed grown cattle. Also in 1963, they found that the drug killed or paralyzed dogs. Nevertheless that same year Squibb launched the drug on the market and in 1965 they obtained approval to sell the drug for use in humans.

When in the early 1980s Squibb was taken to court by a woman who lost her sight and became paralyzed after taking the drug, the drug company denied negligence saying that they knew of no evidence that the drug had adverse effects on human beings.

They apparently dismissed the animal research as irrelevant since animals are different to humans. I rest my case. All animal research is an affront to human dignity - let alone that of the animals.

Taken from The Health Scandal by Vernon Coleman, first published in 1988. A new paperback version of The Health Scandal is now available. For details CLICK HERE

Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2025





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