Colin Blakemore and a Good Many Kittens

Dr Vernon Coleman




From The Health Scandal (1988) by Vernon Coleman

Professor Colin 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.

NOTE
The essay above was taken from `The Health Scandal’ by Vernon Coleman. The book, first published in 1988 (and quite successfully suppressed), is now available again via the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com To purchase a copy please CLICK HERE

Copyright Vernon Coleman 1988 and 2024





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