
HOW TO WIN DEBATES
WITH VIVISECTORS
Vernon Coleman
Many supporters of the
anti-vivisection movement are concerned that they do not know what to say when
vivisectors make specific medical or scientific claims about the value of the
work they do. Vernon Coleman debated many times with vivisectors (including
several television debates). He never lost a debate when the audience was asked
to vote. Today vivisectors refuse to debate with him and so you won't see or
hear Vernon Coleman allowed to discuss vivisection on television or radio.
Producers of programmes who invite Vernon Coleman to debate are quickly told (by
the vivisectors) that they must find someone else if the debate is to go ahead.
(When Vernon Coleman was invited to debate vivisection at the Oxford Union in
the UK not one vivisector or vivisection supporter in Britain would debate
against him. Oxford Union subsequently withdrew their invitation to Vernon
Coleman and found someone else to oppose vivisection.)
This article is
designed to help all anti-vivisectionists understand exactly what to say when
faced with the false arguments put forward (often with apparent scientific
logic) by the vivisectors and those who defend vivisection. The article also
includes details on how to win debates when discussing moral or ethical issues.
The vivisectors say: Those who are opposed to animal experiments should
not accept drugs that have been produced after animal testing was done.
Dr Vernon Coleman Says: It is difficult, probably impossible, for
patients to take drugs that haven't been tested on animals because just about
all drugs are, at some time, tested on animals. But just because drugs have been
tested on animals doesn't mean that the tests were relevant, useful or valid.
The drugs would have been produced more speedily and more safely without animal
tests. Clinical developments may have followed animal experiments but that does
not mean that there is any connection between the two. Medical progress
continues despite - and definitely not because of - animal research.
The
vivisectors say: Animal experiments are useful because they enable scientists to
check out observations made by clinicians. Dr Vernon Coleman says: Animal
experiments delay progress unnecessarily. After doctors had observed that people
who smoked tobacco seemed prone to developing cancer, animal experimenters spent
years making dogs and monkeys smoke cigarettes in an attempt to establish a link
between tobacco and cancer in animals. Much to the commercial profit of the
tobacco companies this proved extremely difficult and doctors and politicians
were discouraged from providing warnings for many years. As a result, millions
of people died.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments must continue
until we have effective and reliable alternatives.
Dr Vernon Coleman
says: Animal experiments are neither effective nor reliable. Indeed, animal
experiments are so unpredictable and unreliable that continuing with them does
great harm to people as well as to animals. Human patients would be better off
if drug companies did NO tests at all. Those who argue that animal tests are
necessary because alternatives are not yet comprehensive are missing the point
that animal experiments are not just useless they are dangerously misleading. A
few years ago the big cosmetic companies were all saying that they couldn't
manage without performing animal experiments but today more and more cosmetic
companies are publicly boasting that they no longer test their products on
animals.
The vivisectors say: New processes such as cell and tissue
cultures are all very well but the whole living organism is essential for proper
tests.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Cell cultures have been available for over
a century. In organ cultures small pieces of whole organs can be kept alive and
enzyme and support systems maintained. It is true that whole organisms are
necessary before conclusions about the efficacy and safety of a treatment can be
reached but this requires human patients not animals.
The vivisectors
say: Many drugs which have been tested on animals are useful. This proves that
animal tests are essential.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Just because
scientists perform experiments with animals that does not mean that animal
experiments are essential or even useful. Most experimenters wear white coats
and drink coffee. But that doesn't mean that experimenters have to wear white
coats and drink coffee in order to make useful discoveries.
The
vivisectors say: Animal tests can be so misleading we should be doing more not
less animal tests.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: More tests would simply mean
more unreliable results, more confusion and more unnecessary deaths. Many useful
drugs cause problems in some animals but not in others. It is impossible for
anyone to know which tests to take notice of and which to ignore.
The
vivisectors say: Drug companies have to do animal tests to defend themselves
against possible charges of negligence.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: When a
big drug company was taken to court under the UK Medicines Act, charged with
producing misleading advertising for one of its products, the drug company's own
defence expert witnesses testified that data from animal experiments could not
be extrapolated safely to patients. After an American girl suffered eye damage
when she had used a shampoo, she tried to claim damages from the company
involved on the basis that the drug also proved to be an irritant when tested on
animals. However, the court ruled in favour of the company on the grounds that
there was no evidence to show that tests done on rabbits could be used to
predict what would be likely to happen to humans. Or consider the case of a
woman who took a major international drug company to court because the drug she
had been given had damaged her sight and paralysed her. She produced evidence
showing that the company had known for twenty years that in experiments the drug
had damaged the eyesight of rabbits, had blinded and killed calves and grown
cattle and had killed or paralysed dogs. The drug company denied negligence,
saying that they knew of no evidence that the drug had adverse effects on human
beings and apparently dismissing the animal research as irrelevant.
The
vivisectors say: Alternatives to animals are expensive and would put up the
price of products.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: It might be more expensive to
begin with - because laboratories would have to be altered, animal cages would
have to be dismantled and scientists would have to be retrained. But in the long
run the alternatives would be far cheaper than using animals.
The
vivisectors say: Vivisection is backed by 1000 scientists from around the world
who have signed a petition declaring that animal experiments are essential and
should continue.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Many of the scientists who
support vivisection earn their living doing animal experiments. They stand to
lose everything - including income and reputation - if animal experiments are
stopped. Even so there are 20,000 scientists with licences to perform animal
experiments in Britain alone. Why do the other 19,000 not support animal
experiments? In contrast, when doctors are questioned about vivisection they
overwhelmingly agree that vivisection is misleading and unnecessary and should
be stopped. These are medically qualified doctors with experience and
understanding of patients' needs and they have no vested interest in stopping
animal experiments.
The vivisectors say: Vast amounts of money are being
spent on looking for effective non-animal ways to test drugs and medical
treatments.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Very little money is being spent on
looking for alternatives.
The vivisectors say: Drug companies will never
dare agree that animal experiments are pointless because if they do they will
expose themselves to massive lawsuits from patients who have been disabled by
inadequately tested drugs.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: It would be possible
to introduce a moratorium on past liabilities to encourage companies to stop
using animals.
The vivisectors say: Very few animal experiments are
performed each year.
Dr Vernon coleman says: The people who use and
authorise the use of animals in laboratory experiments do not care enough to
count and so no one knows for sure how many animals are used in laboratory
experiments but informed estimates put the world-wide figure at around 250
million a year. This works out at between 100,000 and 125,000 an hour. Or,
approximately 2,000 animals a minute.
The vivisectors say: Vivisection
is a very small business. Dr Vernon Coleman says: It is a multi-billion dollar
business. Apart from the grants, fat salaries and expense accounts received by
the scientists who actually do animal experiments there are many large and
profitable industries supplying animals, cages and restraints. Individual mice
can cost huge sums. Monkeys usually cost tens of thousands of dollars each
because they have to be captured in the wild and this means that many die while
being shipped over to the laboratories.
The vivisectors say: Since there
are not enough non-animal tests available to enable us to assess all the
existing carcinogens in our environment we should allow scientists to carry on
doing experiments with animals until more tests become available.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: Animal tests used to assess possible carcinogenic
substances are misleading because they are based on inaccurate ideas about how
cancer develops and about the degree to which data gained from high doses of
chemicals can reveal anything about the effects of low doses. The original
theory was that if substances damage the DNA then they will cause cancer. But in
some tests cancer can develop because the high doses of chemicals kill cells,
provoking cell division which produces the risk of cancer. According to animal
tests coffee, tomato puree, peanut butter and alcoholic drinks all appear to be
stuffed with naturally occurring carcinogens - up to 200 times as dangerous as
the carcinogens in banned chemicals. The most absurd evidence of the futility of
animal tests is surely the fact that tobacco smoke has been cleared of causing
cancer in standard tests on rats. Rats can also consume vast quantities of
alcohol without suffering any liver damage. Only seven out of 19 known
carcinogens were properly identified using the standard National Cancer
Institute animal testing protocol in the USA. In-vitro testing is more
sensitive, more accurate and less expensive.
The vivisectors say: One
advantage of using animals is that the age and sex of the animals used does not
matter.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: The age and sex of humans matter a lot
when drugs are being used. For example, when the drug Opren - marketed for the
treatment of arthritis - was originally tested on people it was not tested on
old people. But it was subsequently found that the drug had a much more
dangerous reaction when given to old patients. The age and sex of animals matter
a lot too. Old rats are far more likely to get cancer than young ones and there
are many other vital differences in the way members of the same species react.
Female rats are usually more sensitive to toxicity than male rats. I wonder how
many of the researchers who realise this deliberately choose to use young male
rats when testing a new drug hoping to find out that it is safe'. Another
example of variations within a species is given by chimpanzees. Experiments on
chimps invariably use chimps of differing ages despite the fact that there are
enormous differences between immature and mature animals in physiological,
anatomical, psychological and sexual terms.
The vivisectors say: The
subject of vivisection should be confined to discussion between the experts. The
experts know best.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: The experts are only
discussing this problem at all because of pressure from the general public. The
greater the pressure from the public the quicker something will be
done.
Politicians, in particular, are especially likely to act in
response to public protests about animal experiments.
The vivisectors
say: Several Nobel prize winners have expressed their support for animal
experimentation. This means that animal experiments must be continued.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: Many Nobel prize winners are, inevitably, members of the
scientific establishment. It is hardly surprising that a few Nobel prize winners
support animal experiments. I am far more convinced by the fact that a majority
of practising doctors believe that animal experiments can be misleading because
of anatomical and physiological differences. A survey of British doctors
conducted by Dr Vernon Coleman showed that 88% agree that animal experiments can
be misleading.
The vivisectors say: Why would vivisectors carry on doing
animal experiments if the evidence showed so clearly that animal experiments are
pointless and misleading?
Dr Vernon Coleman Says: The vivisectors are
committed to carrying on with what they do because when they change their minds
they will have to admit that they were wrong. This means that they would expose
themselves to some ridicule and contempt, they could expose themselves to
widespread lawsuits and they would have to admit that all the work they had done
in the past had been useless. Thousands of drugs which were launched on the
basis of animal tests would have to be withdrawn and re-tested. Many would then
be banned. The animal researchers would find that their modest skills were
worthless and their vast departments and huge drug industry pay offs would be
lost. Their apparent achievements would be devalued and it would be clear that
they had wasted their lives. I am not surprised that they are fighting hard.
Meanwhile, animal experiments are quick and easy to do. It is possible to prove
just about anything by using animals, and animal experiments lead to a steady
supply of scientific papers.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments
have led to many important discoveries.
Dr Vernon Coleman says:
Vivisectors and their supporters certainly try to claim the credit for just
about every scientific discovery ever made. Whenever animals are used in
research, vivisectors claim that it was their work which made the breakthrough
possible. Since animal experiments are so widespread vivisectors are able to
claim responsibility for almost all advances in biomedical sciences. I wouldn't
be surprised to hear vivisectors claim that animal experiments had led to the
development of the motor car, television set and pop up toaster.
The
vivisectors say: Many vivisectors are now introducing codes to ensure that
animals are well looked after.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: You can't have a
code for vivisection any more than you have a code for rape (It's OK to rape a
woman if you buy her dinner beforehand and make sure that the room is warm and
that there is plenty of straw on the floor') or murder.
The vivisectors
say: Those of us who oppose vivisection would change our minds if we were ill or
if we had sick relatives.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: We would not change our
minds because we know that animal experiments would not help us and would,
indeed, delay useful developments in the world of medicine.
The
vivisectors say: They say that the drugs developed by drug companies are often
of great use to animals.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: This is the favourite
fall back argument of people who do experiments on animals. One of the big
tobacco companies argued in court that it was exposing mice to tobacco smoke so
that it could learn more about how to help mice. The argument is, in any case,
irrelevant. At the moment drugs are used to treat animals as a by-product. If
the drugs used to treat animals are tested as well as the drugs used to treat
humans, there are undoubtedly thousands of animals being killed or made worse by
expensive medicines. It seems absurd to argue that it is OK to sew up the
eyelids of perfectly healthy kittens or to deliberately try to make monkeys
depressed in order to treat another animal. What sort of logic is there in
torturing and killing animals to find treatments for animals? Most veterinary
research is designed to increase farm profits rather than cure animals. It is
possible that by treating sick cats experimenters could team enough to help
other cats. But a number of variables would have to be considered first to
produce valid and meaningful results.
The vivisectors say: Genetic
experiments on animals are likely to lead to tremendous advances in medicine. Dr
Vernon Coleman says: Three of the first `developments' produced by genetic
engineers were: a form of pest-resistant tobacco plant, a type of calf so big
that it needed to be delivered by caesarean section and a hybrid goat-sheep. If
genetic experiments really are necessary (and that is a question to be debated)
then scientists should be encouraged to use human genes.
The vivisectors
say: Animals have poorly developed intellects when compared to human beings and
can therefore be used in experiments without any fear.
Dr Vernon Coleman
says: A one-year-old year cat is more rational and sensible than a six-week-old
baby.
The vivisectors say: Animals are very similar to human beings. And
so they are suitable for experiments.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: If animals
are very similar to human beings why are we doing experiments on them? Surely
such experiments must be ethically indefensible?
The vivisectors say:
Many doctors perform animal experiments.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: They
don't. Very few medically qualified doctors perform animal experiments. The
majority of doctors who have expressed any opinion agree that animal experiments
are useless.
The vivisectors say: If practising doctors disapproved of
animal experiments they would say so more publicly.
Dr Vernon Coleman
says: Many doctors are afraid of annoying the big drug companies or the medical
establishment (which is controlled by the big drug companies). But more and more
doctors are speaking out.
The vivisectors say: Without animal
experiments surgery would not have progressed as far as it has.
Dr Vernon
Coleman says: That is absolute nonsense. Surgical experiments on animals can be
enormously misleading. Consider psychosurgery for example. The first leucotomies
were performed in the 1930s when it was thought that the frontal lobes were the
source of delusions in mental patients. American workers removed the frontal
lobes of chimpanzees in 1935 and thought that the animals were more contented
afterwards. Since then, on the basis of those animal experiments, thousands of
patients have had their frontal lobes cut out and the operation has been
performed for a wide range of conditions including schizophrenia, depression,
obsessional neurosis, anxiety, hysteria, eczema, asthma, chronic rheumatism,
anorexia nervosa, ulcerative colitis, tuberculosis, hypertension, angina, cancer
pain and drug side effects. It is also worth remembering that it was Galen's
work on pigs two thousand years ago which misled surgeons for centuries. Galen
based his writings and lectures on experiments he had conducted on pigs. It is
now generally agreed among medical historians that Galen's work held back
medical progress for centuries until religious restrictions were withdrawn and
doctors were able to cut up human cadavers and discover that there are enormous
differences between the anatomy of the pig and the anatomy of the human being.
The vivisectors say: Surgeons need to practice on animals to learn their
skills.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Surgeons in most countries - Britain for
example - learn all their skills on human patients and not on animals. Even the
law recognises the absurdity of practising surgery on animals and British
surgeons must practise their skills on people. Many vivisectors are unqualified
to perform human surgery. The basic techniques used in surgery are remarkably
simple and can be quickly and easily learned in the operating theatre by
assisting a more skilled surgeon. Differences in anatomy mean that operations
performed on animals are of no value to surgeons and may encourage a false sense
of confidence or carelessness.
The vivisectors say: Animal experimenters
get personal pleasure from their work and should be allowed to continue with
it.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Putting aside the obvious moral and ethical
arguments about whether or not scientists have the right to use animals for
their own pleasure there is another issue here. There is now clear evidence that
people who perform animal experiments are exposing themselves to danger. A
report in JAMA described an outbreak of lymphocytic choriomeningitis among
laboratory workers handling mice or mice tissues. There have been a number of
sarcomas and lymphomas at the Institut Pasteur in Paris where a survey showed an
increase in the number of deaths from cancers of the bone, pancreas and brain
among laboratory workers. And a report in The Lancet mentioned malignant
melanomas and cancers of the blood as well as an increased risk of cancers of
the brain and nervous system and stomach among laboratory staff. Animal
experiments should be stopped to prevent laboratory staff from deliberately
exposing themselves to unacceptable hazards.
The vivisectors say:
Without proper drug tests performed on animals pregnant women would be at
risk.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: We need to encourage doctors and drug
companies to watch for, report and take note of side effects in order to protect
patients properly. If proper drug surveillance techniques had been available in
the 1960s the thalidomide problem would have been picked up much earlier. We
still don't have proper post marketing trials in place.
The vivisectors
say: Animal experiments are necessary so that vivisectors can inject cancer
cells into animals to see what happens.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: When
human cancer cells are injected into animals the cancers produced are
biologically different to the ones that occur in humans.
The vivisectors
say: Animal experiments help them assess the effectiveness of new drugs designed
for the treatment of mental illness.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Animals do
not noticeably suffer from the same mental disorders as human beings. How can
researchers possibly know whether or not animals are suffering from delusions or
hallucinations? Mice have been provoked into fighting by being given electric
shocks and then calmed with tranquillisers - but what is the point of this?
Animal experiments also fail to produce any evidence of addiction. For example,
when the benzodiazepines were first being tested on animals, researchers
reported that the drug-tamed monkeys, dogs, lions and tigers. These tests were
used to help encourage doctors to prescribe the benzodiazepine drugs for vast
numbers of patients. But these tests did not indicate that the benzodiazepines
would turn out to be among the most addictive of all modern drugs.
The
vivisectors say: Animal experiments are very useful in the laboratory since they
enable the researcher to obtain results relatively quickly.
Dr Vernon
Coleman says: It is very easy to do research and to get it published by using
animals. All you have to do is to change the animals and do different things to
them. It is much easier to do experiments with animals than with people. There
are fewer rules to obey and when things go wrong there is less likely to be any
trouble. (Also most researchers are not medically qualified and do not have
access to human patients.) Most university departments are ruled by a quest for
grants rather than a quest for knowledge and the validity of research is
insignificant. The only thing that matters to them is the number of papers
published.
The vivisectors say: Basic research will help human patients
in the long term though it is never possible to say how or when research will
prove valuable.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: If research is going to be useful
then it has to be properly planned and relevant and it has to be reliably
performed. But most modern research is so poorly planned and executed, and so
many researchers `fiddle' their results, that no one will ever benefit. An
editorial in the British Medical Journal claimed that modern papers are so badly
written that 99% are invalid. Scientists rely on the fact that very few people
will question their work. The same BMJ editorial also reported that 85% of
medical procedures have never been properly tested. We should be spending our
limited resources on assessing existing therapies.
The vivisectors say:
Animals are kept in good conditions.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Animals are
not kept in good conditions. Time and time again evidence becomes available that
animals are kept in deplorable conditions. These poor conditions make the
results the researchers obtain even more unreliable than they would otherwise
be. Most of the committees and organisations which are theoretically designed to
ensure that researchers look after the animals they use are manned by
researchers or by people who support animal experiments. This is like allowing
criminals to police our streets.
The vivisectors say: Animals are
inferior to us and therefore it is perfectly acceptable to do anything we like
to them.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: This is the same sort of argument used
by racists, sexists and others. If we experiment on animals because they are
less well-endowed intellectually (a doubtful argument in many cases) why don't
we allow experimentation on the mentally handicapped and on babies and small
children?
The vivisectors say: Animals cannot feel pain or suffer in the
same way that human beings can - therefore animal experiments are justified and
justifiable.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: All the available evidence shows
that animals can feel pain and can suffer from stress. The prerequisites for
pain reception are a central nervous system, a system of peripheral pain
receptors and a series of neural connections between the receptors and the
central nervous system. All vertebrate animals possess these three essentials
and can undoubtedly feel pain.
The vivisectors say: Animals are very
similar to human beings and so tests done on animals are reliable.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: My book Betrayal of Trust lists numerous drugs which
may cause cancer (and other serious problems in animals) but which are
prescribed for human patients. If animal experiments were relevant this would
not be the case. Tamoxifen, widely used as a treatment for women with breast
cancer, causes liver tumours in rats. This evidence was regarded as bad news for
rats but meaningless for women. So, if drug companies and drug regulatory
authorities can ignore animal tests when it suits them (on the grounds that
animals are different to people) what on earth can be the point in doing yet
more tests on animals? Not that it is just in the area of drugs that differences
exist. A recent British Medical Journal editorial reported that `animal studies
have made it clear that there are considerable differences in the effects of
vasectomy among species. Which, if any of these models applies to man is not
known '
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments help in the fight
against cancer.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Because animal tests can be
misleading there is a risk that such experiments may hold back medical progress.
Some experts claim that trying to find out if chemicals cause cancer by testing
them on animals is less efficient than tossing a coin. An American toxicologist
has shown that a test which is used on rats gives results which can be applied
accurately to human beings just 38% of the time. Put another way, that means
that 62% of the time the results produced by that test are wrong. Tossing a coin
would at least give a 50% chance of success. Animal experiments are inaccurate
for the simple reason that animals used in laboratory experiments are different
from people. According to Dr Irwin Bross, giving evidence to the United States
Congress, `conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered the war on
cancer, they have never produced a single substantial advance either in the
prevention or treatment of human cancer.' An extremely eminent academic
concluded, after a long study of cancer experiments: `It has fallen to my lot to
have to make a general survey of cancer in all its aspects and I do not believe
that anyone who does this with an open mind can come to any other conclusion
than that to search for the cause or cure of cancer by means of experiments on
lower animals is useless. Time and money are spent in vain.' America's Food and
Drug Administration produced a `test bed' made of human muscle tissue cells
which can be used reliably to test anti-cancer drugs. What would you prefer to
take: a drug tested on mice or one tested on cells exactly similar to the ones
in your own body? The links between chemicals, X-rays, foods and asbestos on the
one hand, and different types of cancer on the other, were obtained after
doctors had studied human patients - not cats, dogs or rabbits. Some experts
believe that instead of helping, animal experiments may have slowed down the
speed with which these essential discoveries have been accepted.
The
vivisectors say: Animal experiments led to the development of the polio vaccine
which has saved thousands if not millions of lives.
Dr Vernon Coleman
says: An early breakthrough in the development of a polio vaccine was made in
1949 using a human tissue culture. Monkey kidney tissue was used in the 1950s
because it was standard laboratory practice but no one realised that one of the
viruses commonly found in monkey kidney cells could cause cancer in human
beings. If human cells had been used to prepare the vaccine the original polio
vaccine would not have been as disastrous as it was. It is also worth
remembering that the number of deaths from polio had fallen dramatically long
before the first polio vaccine was introduced. The incidence of polio had
dropped as better sanitation, better housing, cleaner water and better food was
introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some scientists claim
that the polio vaccine is still tested with animals. It shouldn't be. Many years
ago the World Health Organisation recommended that animal tests are unnecessary
when human cells are used to produce the vaccine.
The vivisectors say:
Animal experiments are helping doctors treat high blood pressure.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: The animals used in laboratory experiments do not normally
suffer from high blood pressure. Researchers can only give the animals high
blood pressure by tying off brood vessels, by removing kidneys or by interfering
with the animal's normal physiology or anatomy so much that any resemblance to
normality is lost. Advances in the treatment of high blood pressure have come
from clinical experiences.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments have
helped in the treatment of arthritis.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Laboratory
animals do not normally suffer from arthritis. To test new drugs researchers
inject the joints of animals with irritating chemicals to produce some
inflammation at the ends of the bones. It is still not arthritis. Trying to find
dietary answers for arthritis by giving animals different foodstuffs is even
more absurd because people don't eat the same type of diet as animals.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments have helped in the treatment of
diabetes.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: The first link between the pancreas
gland and diabetes was established in 1788 - without any animal experiments.
Back in 1766 a physician showed that the urine of diabetics is loaded with
sugar. Animal experiments merely delayed the time when diabetic patients could
be treated.
The vivisectors say: The people who do animal experiments
are humane people who love animals.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: There is
evidence that scientists who work with animals become desensitised by what they
do. Animal experiments encourage an inhumane approach to life among students.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments have saved millions of
lives.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Animal experiments are responsible for
millions of deaths. For example, the inability of experimenters to prove that
tobacco caused cancer was responsible for a lengthy delay in the issuing of
official warnings about smoking. Many dangerous and lethal drugs have been put
onto the market as a result of animal tests. Nearly all the drugs which cause
serious side effects were tested on animals.
The vivisectors say:
Animals are merely `things' which exist to be used by humankind.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: Rene Descartes was one of the greatest thinkers in history
and certainly one of the greatest men of the seventeenth century, but he had a
few weaknesses and blind spots. The biggest was probably his belief that because
they had no immortal souls, animals had no conscious life, no desires, no
feelings and no emotions. Animals, declared Descartes with the enviable
certainty of a man who is inspired by powerful religious prejudices, were no
more entitled to respect or consideration than were clocks; horses were no more
`alive' in the human sense than were the carriages they drew. If Descartes had
spent just a little more time looking around him and a little less time trying
to understand the secrets of the universe, he would have known that he was
wrong. If he had had enough common sense to talk to any child with a pet dog,
cat or rabbit he would have reamed the truth: that although it is impossible for
us to imagine precisely how animals do think, or what they think about, there
cannot possibly be any doubt that they are capable of as much thought as many
humans. Simple observations would have told Descartes that animals feel pain,
suffer when they are sick, get bored, endure unhappiness and depression, grieve,
mourn and can be driven mad by abuse. Each member of the animal kingdom is
different, but that does not mean that cats are any less alive than Frenchmen or
that dogs are any less deserving of our compassion than children. Even rats -
perhaps the most despised and least lovable of laboratory animals - are
intelligent, alert and sociable animals. They can develop relationships with one
another and with human beings and they quickly become bored and frustrated when
imprisoned. But Descartes did not look around him and did not talk enough to
children and his theories rapidly became accepted as fact by a society which was
always better at thinking up theories than it was at sustaining them with facts.
He was a powerful and influential member of the academic establishment and, most
important of all, his beliefs fitted in comfortably with the beliefs of other
scholars. As the years went by so Cartesian logic spread throughout the
scientific community and before long a scientist who wanted to look inside a cat
would do so simply by nailing it to a board and cutting it open. He would ignore
its squeals of protest as of little more significance than the squeaking of a
rusty door hinge or a stiff axle. To a large extent, therefore, it was
Descartes' crude, simplistic and undeniably inaccurate philosophy which led to
the development of modern day vivisection. In order to keep thinking of animals
as `things' rather than sensitive individuals, most researchers have developed
the habit of talking and writing about the creatures they use in a totally
impersonal way, often using a strange vocabulary to describe what they are
doing. Researchers will, for example, refer to cats as `preparations', will
describe crying or meowing as `vocalisation' will use phrases like `nutritional
insufficiency' instead of saying that the animal has starved to death. One group
of researchers has used the term `binocularly deprived' to describe domestic
tabby kittens which they had deliberately blinded. When animals are finished
with at the end of experiments they are frequently `sacrificed' or `subjected to
euthanasia'. Maybe researchers do not like to remind themselves that they are
killers.
The vivisectors say: Animals do not have rights.
Dr
Vernon Coleman says: Researchers with a simple way of looking at the world will
frequently argue that animals do not have any rights. When pushed they will
explain that the sole purpose of animals is to make our lives easier. The
furthest they will go towards accepting that animals deserve to be treated with
respect is to say that human beings share a responsibility to ensure that
animals are not subjected to unnecessary suffering. The word `unnecessary' is,
of course, impossible to define satisfactorily and very few active researchers
will ever admit that any experiments have ever involved `unnecessary' suffering.
This is, of course, the same elitist talk that graced the dinner tables of the
pre-Wilberforce slave traders and it is the same sort of talk that still graces
the (invariably) well-stocked dinner tables of the exceptionally fortunate and
heavily prejudiced.
People, they will claim, are the centre of the
universe; all else revolves around us. We, they argue, are entitled to do as we
wish with the rest of the world. They will insist that if it were not for human
beings animals would have no role to play on this earth. Animals, they say,
exist. solely to provide us with food, clothing and pleasure. This arrogant
attitude has been described as speciesism and condemned as cruel and
insensitive, but these thoughts are widely held and cannot be overpowered by
logic or any of the other tools of the intellectual. The primitive mind which
sees humankind as the sole purpose of creation and the single reason for life is
unlikely to be swayed by anything which demands such subtle expressions of
intelligence as reason, insight or humility.
The vivisectors say: Animal
experiments are not illegal, so how can they be wrong?
Dr Vernon Coleman
says: I am constantly saddened by the fact that there are still men and women
around the world who regard themselves as reasonable well-educated and of
adequate intelligence but who can accept such a narrow, selfish and unforgiving
argument. I confess that when I hear this argument aired I feel overcome by
weariness and despair. `It is against the law to torture and maim human beings
in the name of science but it is not against the law to do these things to
animals, so where can be the objection?' Who can possibly live with such an
absurdly mechanistic approach to life? The truth is that what is legal is not
necessarily moral, any more than what is moral is necessarily legal. A few
generations ago the legal status of a black person in America was roughly
similar to that of a field of corn. The truth is that what is legally acceptable
and what is morally acceptable are two very different things. Most of us would
agree that it is immoral to threaten or frighten children unnecessarily but such
acts when committed within a family unit, are rarely illegal. In some conditions
rape may be legally acceptable. But does that make it morally right? Parking a
car in the wrong place is illegal but does that make it immoral? If we take
`legal rights equal moral rights' to its logical conclusion, consider what would
happen if extra-terrestrials were to land on earth. Under our present law no one
from outer space, however charming, gentle or peace loving, could be protected
from brutality. We are the only species protected by the full force of the law.
A research scientist would be perfectly entitled to perform experiments on an
alien, secure in the knowledge that such actions were legally proper. It is not
difficult to find many other flaws in this often voiced but shallow and
remarkably simple-minded argument.
For example, are animals outside our
law because they do not have souls? And if so how do we know that they do not
have souls? And if it is true that they do not have souls (and are therefore
denied another life) why does that give us rights over the one life that they do
have? And what about those individuals who believe in the theory of
reincarnation? According to their beliefs, a scientist who chops up a mouse may
be destroying a relative of theirs. Are such beliefs wrong? Do they have no
legal or moral standing? Are we entitled to make judgements about our
neighbours' theological beliefs simply because a written law does not forbid a
particular activity? There are no easy answers to any of these questions and I
pose them simply to make it clear that there can be no inevitable agreement
between activities which are legally acceptable and those which are morally
acceptable. But there is one final argument which, I think, makes it crystal
clear that on balance it is dangerous to assume, as so many vivisectors do, that
because their work is legal it must be moral and ethical. This final argument
concerns the question of consent. A researcher who wishes to experiment upon a
human being must first obtain that individual's consent. Without consent any act
of vivisection on a human being would be an illegal assault. But how can a
researcher obtain consent from a monkey when planning an experiment? Although
obtaining consent is impossible we do know that monkeys can understand one
another and can communicate with some human beings. So what gives a researcher
the moral right either to assume that the monkey has given consent or to assume
that obtaining that monkey's consent is unnecessary? The law may say that a
monkey is not a human being and therefore has no legal rights, but morally there
can be no hard and fast rules about what is right and what is wrong.
Just
because vivisection is legal that does not make it morally right. The
vivisectors say: Animals do not matter because they cannot think, feel or
suffer. Dr Vernon Coleman says: I have already explained that animals can feel
pain and can suffer, so the only part of this argument that needs shooting down
is that animals cannot think. I first heard this argument on a television
programme some years ago. The dark-suited scientist who put it forward made the
statement as though it were an accepted fact and as though it excused any sort
of barbarity. `Animals can't think', he said bluntly, looking around him as
though that settled that. `What about babies?' asked a young man whose hair was
dyed bright green and who had a cluster of safety pins through his nose and
ears. `Can they think?' He paused and thought for a moment. `And what about the
mentally ill, the educationally subnormal and people suffering from senile
dementia?' He was absolutely right and the scientist had no answer. The fact
that animals cannot think (even if it were true) is no excuse at all for
treating them without respect. But is it true that animals cannot think? Is
there any good reason to believe that a baby monkey does not feel when separated
from its mother and family, placed in a drum and left there, alone, for several
weeks at a time? Just because animals do not automatically speak our language,
do we have any right to assume that they are stupid? This is, indeed, the sort
of argument once followed by the worst sort of colonial Englishman. `The natives
don't speak English and so they must be stupid', he would argue with enviable
simplicity. The truth is not so simple to find.
For example, as anyone
who has ever lived with a cat will confirm, it is nonsense to say that cats are
incapable of thought. They are remarkably intelligent and emotional creatures.
They can communicate with one another and with human beings very effectively.
And they even have skills that we certainly do not seem to have. There are, for
example, numerous accounts of cats finding their way home on journeys of several
hundred miles. Cats whose owners have died will walk for miles - crossing
motorways, rivers and railways and passing through cities and across fields - in
order to be with other human beings whom they like. Without maps or compasses
cats can make long, arduous journeys with startling skill. We do not know how
intelligent other animals are, but we do not know how stupid they are either.
The only thing we know for certain is that there are no creatures in the world
quite as cruel as some of the humans who work in experimental laboratories.
Those of us who oppose animal experiments are guilty of anthropomorphism and
that we are worrying unnecessarily about creatures whose lives and lifestyles we
do not fully understand. We are, they say, projecting our feelings, fears and
hopes onto the animals they use. There is, as ever, a strong streak of arrogance
in this argument, for those who put it forward seem to be saying that although
we are over-estimating the needs and rights of animals, they have got things
just right. The truth, as always, is that the pro-vivisectionist campaigners are
limited by their own lack of perception and although they have managed to begin
a train of thought, they have been unable to see it through to a sensible
conclusion. It is perfectly true to say that animals are not like people and it
would be foolish to imagine that animals see things in the same way that we do.
Each animal sees the world in a different light. Animals are not like people,
but they are not like rocks either. Cats think and behave like cats. Monkeys
think and behave like monkeys. Dogs think and behave like dogs. Only when we
have made the effort to understand how dogs think and behave will we understand
the full extent of their suffering when they are used in laboratory experiments.
All animals are different. Cats like eating freshly killed mice. Cows like
eating grass. Monkeys use their tails to help them swing through trees. Rats are
happy eating stuff that we would feel uncomfortable about stepping in. Although
it is clearly wrong to anthropomorphise and to read ambitions and hopes into
behavioural patterns that may mean something quite different, it is perfectly
possible for us to learn enough about animal behaviour to understand something
about what they like and what they dislike. Back in 1965, the British Government
decided that the thin, hexagonal wire mesh used to make up the floors of cages
in which hens were kept was uncomfortable for them to walk on. A well-meaning
committee of human experts decided that thicker wire would be better. But when
the chickens were given the choice they showed, quite clearly, that they
preferred the thin, hexagonal wire. And the chickens overruled the distinguished
team who had advised the government because in the end they managed to show that
they knew best what they preferred (out of two cruel options). By observing
animals carefully it is possible to decide what sort of life they like best and
it is also possible to discover that when given a choice animals will always
choose the least distressing of all the available options. But the people who
conduct animal experiments do not bother to find out what the animals they use
are really like. They do not want to know that the animals they are using have
the intelligence to make choices. They do not like to think that the animals
they are keeping might prefer a different lifestyle. The truth is that the
conditions in which laboratory animals are kept are crude, cruel and barbaric.
The way in which animals are used and abused shows that those who perform animal
experiments have never made the slightest effort to understand the creatures
whose lives they regard so lightly. The final irony is that researchers
frequently claim that they can make judgements about behavioural patterns or the
toxicity of tested substances by making laboratory observations. In fact, these
observations and judgements are wordless because the circumstances in which the
animals are kept and tested are unnatural and quite divorced from reality.
The vivisectors say: It does not matter whether animals can think or
not: we are stronger and more powerful than they are so we have the right to do
as we like with them.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Surprisingly, this
argument is put forward quite frequently and there seem to be a large number of
vivisectors who believe that the strong have a moral right to do what they like
with the weak. What those who favour this argument do not seem to realise is
that the same argument can be applied with equal logic within the human race.
So, if it is perfectly right and fair for humans to torture, maim and kill
baboons because we are stronger and more powerful than they are, then it must be
equally acceptable for the strongest and most powerful human beings to use the
weakest humans for their own purposes. If it is morally acceptable for a
researcher to use this argument to support experiments on dogs, what is there to
stop the same argument being used to justify experiments on children, old people
or the mentally or physically disadvantaged? Scientists who promote this
argument might like to think carefully about their own status in our society. If
the intellectually deprived and socially worthless are to be used in
experiments, then the vivisectors themselves will be among the first to find
themselves selected for death in the laboratory. The truth is that if the search
for knowledge is accepted as a reason for cruelty we have to be aware that it is
usually difficult for scientists to draw a moral line between using animals in
experiments and using human beings.
Finally, it is worth remembering that
although many scientists are prepared to excuse the foulest of deeds on the
basis that they are searching for knowledge, very few, if any, scientists are
prepared to conduct their experiments at their own expense or in their own time.
A vast majority of scientific experiments these days are performed by extremely
well-paid scientists working in well-equipped laboratories. Often the money they
use is yours. Those members of the public who find animal experiments
unacceptable should also be aware that the vast majority of these experiments
are conducted with public money at a time when doctors and teachers seem to
agree that public services are suffering from a lack of funding. I wonder how
many animal experimenters would carry on with their work (determined to add to
the sum of human knowledge for the general good of humankind) if instead of
getting fat salaries from public funds they had to pay for their experiments
themselves? I suggest that some scientists would suddenly find that they had
something more important to do. In other words, many vivisectors are driven not
by a search for knowledge, but by simple, old-fashioned, financial greed.
The vivisectors say: Animal experiments are justified because without
them human progress will be held back.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: One of the
favourite debating tricks of those who support animal experimentation is to
select a convenient date sometime in the past, point to all the scientific
developments that have taken place since that time and then argue that without
animal experiments none of those things would have happened.
This
argument is to logic what marshmallows are to a balanced diet. First, it is
illogical to argue that just because animal experiments took place they were
relevant, necessary or productive. The truth, as I will show later on, is that
animal experiments have held back progress rather than aided it. You might as
well argue that because people have managed to run faster and jump higher since
animal experiments were started, there is a link between the two. You could as
easily and as sensibly claim that the development of television was a result of
experiments performed on animals and that without torturing monkeys, cats and
dogs we would still be relying on the town crier. Second, even if animal
experiments had been relevant it would be absurd to argue that without them
scientists would have made no progress at all. This is a gross insult to the
intelligence and ingenuity of scientists and assumes that the only scientists
with any capacity for original thought are the ones who chop up live animals.
This is clearly nonsense. No one complains that we have been denied progress
because scientists have not been allowed to experiment on human
beings.
The vivisectors say: The use of animals in experiments is
justified by the fact that such investigations enable us to add to our store of
knowledge.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: Scientists usually try to justify the
work they do by claiming that they are helping to save lives. They are ruthless
in the way they exploit public fears and anxieties in their attempts to preserve
their own careers. But such claims only stand up in the absence of evidence;
more and more often scientists are having to abandon this line of defence. When
they are cornered and are unable to defend their work on practical or medical
grounds, scientists will often claim that their work is justified simply because
it adds to the sum of human knowledge. The work justifies itself, they say, and
does not need to have any practical purpose. It is probably as pointless to try
to counter this claim with moral or ethical arguments as it would have been to
try to dissuade Josef Mengele from his evil work by telling him that it was
`wrong'. Throughout history there have always been scientists who have claimed
that the search for knowledge justifies any activity, however repugnant. Like
the Nazi and Japanese scientists who experimented on human beings and were
convinced that their work was justified, today's animal experimenters seem to
believe that their work, however barbaric, is justified because it adds to the
storehouse of human knowledge. But those who are convinced by this argument
might like to ask themselves where, if ever, the line should be drawn. Does the
pursuit of knowledge justify any activity? There are some scientists who would
say that it does; and there is no shortage of evidence that even today in the
western world there are doctors who are willing to perform hazardous experiments
on human patients under their care who have not even been asked for their
permission. The Health Scandal (by Vernon Coleman) includes a variety of
experiments including one in which drops were put into the eyes of women in
order to study the formation of experimental cataracts and one in which children
were given drugs to stop them making a natural recovery from a liver infection.
Most startling of all, perhaps, were the experiments conducted by an American
woman scientist who used a total of forty-two babies aged between eleven days
and two and a half years in her experiments, which involved holding the babies
under water to see how they responded. In the article she wrote to describe her
work the scientist reported that the `movements of the extremities are of the
struggling order' and went on to say that the babies clutched at the
experimenter's hands and tried to wipe the water away from their faces. She
seemed amazed that the `ingestion of fluid was considerable' and made the
infants cough. During the last few decades thousands of human patients have been
subjected to experimental brain surgery (readers wanting to know more should
read the book Paper Doctors by Vernon Coleman). In Britain, for example,
surgeons have deliberately and permanently damaged the brains of many patients
in attempts to treat people suffering from disorders as varied as eczema, asthma
hysteria, chronic rheumatism, anorexia nervosa, tuberculosis, hypertension,
angina and anxiety brought about by barbiturate toxicity. Patients have been
injected with cancer cells to see whether or not they develop cancer. Without
anyone bothering to obtain their permission, patients around the world are
frequently given new and untried drugs so that doctors can find out what
happens.
Many scientists who perform and support animal experiments also
support experiments on human beings and will argue that such experiments are
justified either because they add to the sum of human knowledge or because they
help doctors develop new types of treatment. One American scientist recently
pointed out that `a human life is nothing compared with a new fact ... the aim
of science is the advancement of human knowledge at any sacrifice to human
life'. When another scientist was attacked for using people in a nursing home
for an experiment, he replied that he could not very well use scientists for his
experiments because they were too valuable.
The vivisectors say: Every
year thousands of animals are put down because they are ill or have been
abandoned. It makes sense to use those animals instead of wasting
them.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: What the scientists who favour this
argument fail to realise is that there is a considerable difference between
putting an animal to sleep painlessly and subjecting it to a series of painful,
humiliating and degrading scientific procedures. If this argument were
sustainable then it would also make sense to use dying, lonely or `unwanted'
human beings for experiments. The scientists who favour this argument also fail
to realise that killing animals because they are ill or have been abandoned is
done to satisfy human rather than animal needs. The killing of animals simply
because they seem surplus to requirements is morally unjustifiable. It is absurd
to attempt to build an ethical argument on foundations that are ethically
unsound.
The vivisectors say: Firstly, that the results from animal
experiments can be utilised in the prevention or treatment of diseases which
affect human beings, and secondly that animals are so different from human
beings that we do not have to worry about them suffering any sort of pain or
distress.
Dr Vernon Coleman says: These two arguments do not fit
comfortably together. If animals are similar enough to human beings for the
results to be of value to clinicians then the thousands of barbaric experiments
which are conducted every day are insupportable, inexcusable and unforgivable on
moral and ethical grounds. On the other hand, if animals are so fundamentally
different to human beings that they do not suffer during procedures which would
clearly be terrifying and enormously painful for human beings then the results
obtained must be valueless.
Copyright Vernon Coleman 2005
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