Friday, September 17, 2004
Oh, nice try
The poor little animals.
The angry little humans respond.
The animals in these labs are no different from our beloved "best friends" at home. Just think about your dog or cat, which perhaps is lonely all day cooped up in your house while you are at work.
Well, one big difference is that the animals in these labs are not our beloved "best friends" at home. If Bob is my best friend, and Jim shares the same species with Bob, that certainly doesn't make Jim my best friend.
So, did you think about your dog or cat? How about your Grandpa? The one who shouldn't get any medication at all for his pain, because to find it, we'd have to do animal testing. How about Fred the bum, who'd have to be kidnapped so that researchers can perform experiments on him to find new medicines to save lives, since using animals is so awful.
Animal research is archaic and denounced by thousands of scientists as inaccurate and misleading because of differences among species and between life confined in a laboratory and in the real world.
Which scientists? The similarities are there, so after we do animal testing, we know that we at least can try human testing safely. Without animal testing, human testing would be that "archaic" form: "Hmm, let me eat this mushroom... maybe I'll get better, or maybe I'll die... only one way to find out..."
The alleged goal of the National Institutes of Health is to improve our health. Everyone -- except the biomedical research industry and the politicians they lobby -- would be better off if the NIH focused on subsidizing and promoting preventive rather than potentially curative health care.
Eh? Are you fucking insane? Oh, you're a woman, that explains it. What about people who already have diseases? Wouldn't they be better off with work on curative health care?
This further proves to me that the only humane animal research is no animal research.
Yep, also a woman. "This particular example proves the general rule to me. Note how I carefully ignore the consequences of using the general rule."
. . .
|
. . .
|
