Dear Editor,
The article “Bill Aims to Protect Researchers” reported a
new law is being sought to allow UC officials to mandate stronger protection
for researchers against the “threats” of animal activists (making nonviolent
harassment a misdemeanor) and to withhold information about animal researchers
from the public. In the article, the UC Vice President for Research and
Graduate Studies Steven Beckwith equated animal-rights activists with
terrorists. Yet, strikingly little information was given on the “very important
medical research” that was being protested or the types of animal
experimentation involved. The Guardian’s subsequent article, “Of Mice and Men,”
suggested they were conducting “painful addition experiments” and attaching
“steel coils onto the eyes of primates.” Last week, the directors of the Animal
Welfare Program, the Animal Care Program and the UCSD Police Department sent an
e-mail to warn UCSD researchers against “animal rights extremists.” In this
research-driven university, such a polarized view point of animal
experimentation vs. animal rights might be expected. I suggest wider
perspectives are warranted within an academic institution seeking to develop
future leaders of a wiser society.
It is Animal Cruelty and Human Violence Awareness Week, an
appropriate time to present a broader view of this issue. Animal-rights
activists are diverse and numerous, many of whom are highly educated,
professional citizens, seeing common links between animal welfare and human
welfare. Their organizations include the Humane Society, the Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine, the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, the American Anti-Vivisection Society, the Alternatives
Research and Development Foundation and People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals. These organizations share the common assertion that animals are
intelligent, sentient beings, worthy of humane treatment and they communicate
their messages peacefully.
A primary argument against experimentation on animals is
that it’s unethical. Other less obvious but notable faults are that it is
inefficient, unnecessary and in some cases ineffective. Every minute 219
animals are killed in
labs, according to www.peta.org. As an undergraduate at UCSD, I worked in a
cancer research lab in Urey Hall where mice were killed by the dozens every
day. Tumors were induced and collected from some of these animals that
suffocated in dry ice, but not all were useful for experiments. A graduate
student complained that the professor required him to kill mice, not for
experiments, but because he did not want to pay the $0.05 per day it cost to
keep each one alive. Yes, there are regulations on animal research, but there
are also violations and irreverent decisions made based on unregulated personal
ethics. In the ethics training offered to researchers, referenced in your
article, animal welfare seems to be little more than an afterthought.
Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral
progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I don’t fear
individuals who demand a more ethical society in the name of those who cannot
demand it themselves. Rather, I much more greatly fear a society where such
demands cease to be made.
— Serena Moseman
UCSD 2002 Alumna
Ph.D. Candidate,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
