Animal Research
Animals are commonly used in many scientific and medical experiments, and some people oppose this practice, arguing that it is immoral. It is heartbreaking to see pictures of animals undergoing terrible experiments, and animal rights organizations have made sure to publish these difficult images over the years, emphasizing the great suffering the animals endure.
However, alongside these experiments, tens of thousands of studies are also carried out, thanks to which medicines, surgical procedures and medical technologies have saved millions of people. Alongside the compassion we must feel toward animals of all species, and our duty to prevent their suffering, the scientific world must develop medical treatments based on animal research.
Opponents of animal research argue that there are alternatives, such as simulators or models, that remove the need to test a chemical compound, a device or a theory on an animal. But the truth is far from this: no technology has yet been developed that can imitate physiology and anatomy in real time. No method has been developed that can simulate surgery, blood flow, heart rate, the response of living tissue, and a body in which millions of complex processes take place at the same time.
The question that keeps hovering over all this is: where is the world's humanity, and is all of this necessary? Is it morally permissible for us to use animals for our own needs?
The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant would most likely have answered yes. According to his approach, only a rational being can have a moral personality, and only one capable of being a moral agent is entitled to moral consideration. In other words, you act morally only toward those who are able to act morally toward you.
Scientists tend to see the expected benefit of animal research as a central consideration in assessing its morality, while the starting point of animal welfare advocates is the degree of suffering the animal is expected to experience during the experiments. Almost everyone who supports the use of animals in scientific experiments agrees that every effort should be made to prevent their suffering as much as possible during the experiments.
Practical arguments for and against the use of animals to advance medicine
Arguments in favor of using animals in research
Supporters of animal research argue that humanity has reached its medical achievements thanks to these experiments. Among the fruits of this research: vaccines against diseases (polio, measles), medicines, disease research and organ transplantation.
Over the past 40 years, every winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has based their research on animal experiments.
In October 2014, six Israeli Nobel laureates and the presidents of the universities wrote a letter to the Prime Minister emphasizing the importance of animal research, warning against attempts to undermine it, and stating that serious damage had already been done to academia's ability to conduct advanced research.
The main arguments of those who support animal research are:
– The necessity of the whole organism: without animal research, medicine will not advance, because the existing alternatives to animals are not complete alternatives.
– Living creatures are highly complex, and there are interactions between the different systems of the body whose effects can only be understood in the whole living body. For example, testing a new drug to lower high blood pressure or regulate heart rate on an isolated tissue culture cannot show the effect on the body of the drug's metabolic breakdown products after they have passed through the liver.
– The need to learn and gain experience: surgeons become skilled as they accumulate surgical experience. Many doctors argue that practice on cadavers and practice on a whole, living, breathing animal are both essential for trainees.
– The need for animals in basic research: many scientists believe that a sweeping ban on animal research would greatly delay our efforts to keep acquiring basic knowledge about life processes. Medicine relies on biology, and basic biomedical research is a necessary condition for its progress.
Arguments against animal research
– Results in animals cannot be applied to humans: the differences between species in their responses to a given substance are so great that it makes no sense to draw conclusions about a drug's potential effect on humans from its tested effect on another animal, even a mammal. A substance may act one way in humans and in a completely different way in another mammal. A common example given by animal rights activists is morphine, which, they say, was found to be a painkiller in humans but a stimulant in cats.
– Animal disease models are unreliable: in many studies, the disease model in the animal produces symptoms similar to the human disease, but the causes of the disease are different.
– Research alternatives to animals exist: today we have all the means needed to advance both basic biological research and medicine without using animals, including cell cultures, computer simulations, non-invasive imaging methods, reliable methods for epidemiological research, and more.
– Fixed thinking: clinging to the old, familiar paradigm of animal research in medicine may be convenient for researchers, but it carries the danger of stopping the creative thinking that is so vital for advancing science in general and medicine in particular.
– Economic considerations: a considerable part of the funding for medical research comes from interested parties, first and foremost the pharmaceutical industry. Because of their interest in profits, markets are constantly flooded with new, unnecessary drugs, and countless animals are killed for these purposes. Researchers cooperate with industry because it is a reliable source of funding for their research. If researchers refused to carry out animal experiments, the industry would invest more in developing alternatives, and everyone would benefit: science, medicine, people, animals, and the industry too.
As in any other field, the financial resources available for medical research are limited. Continued investment in animal research diverts public funds from more useful and promising channels, namely research in humans.
In light of the complex arguments for and against animal research, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees were established under the 1985 amendment to the Animal Welfare Act. These committees supervise the procedures of experiments involving warm-blooded animals, and they are also the ones that approve them. In addition, each year the committees carry out a general inspection within their institutions. Each such committee has at least five members: one is the veterinarian responsible for the animals at the institution; at least one is an active scientist experienced in animal research; one is a non-scientific professional, such as a member of the clergy or a lawyer; and another member is a person with no connection to the institution other than membership on the committee. Most committees have more than five members, and in academic institutions it is customary to include a student as well.
In Israel, too, the conduct of animal research has been regulated by law, through the Animal Welfare Law (Experiments on Animals), 1994. Section 2 of the law established a Council for Experiments on Animals and set the composition of its 23 members.
The council's roles include, among others, setting rules for granting permits for animal experiments and preventing unnecessary experiments, as well as initiating information, training and instruction programs for researchers on topics related to animal research. In addition, subject to certain restrictions, council members may visit any place where animal experiments are carried out.
The law states that every experiment must use the smallest number of animals required, and only if there are no suitable alternatives to their use. It should be noted that Israeli law devotes a special chapter to animal experiments in the defense establishment, which places them outside the council's supervision. Another supervisory body, appointed by the Minister of Defense, is responsible for this area in the defense establishment, and the law grants this body the powers of both the council and the institutional committees.
The ultimate responsibility for the care of laboratory animals rests, of course, with the researchers themselves, and only suitable education and proper training can strengthen their sensitivity to the need for humane treatment of animals and ensure that it is put into practice. Recognition of this recently led the Dutch government to require every doctoral student in the natural sciences to take a course on the history and ethics of animal research.