wrp@biochsn.acc.virginia.edu (William R. Pearson) (01/28/88)
In article <177@piring.cwi.nl> janb@cwi.nl (Jan A. Bergstra) writes: > >I am a graduate student in Ethics and I am doing a study >on "Ethical Committees for Animal Experimentations" >Who can help me and give me an answer to the questions >below? > I find discussion of ethics and animal experimentation much more interesting than rape in ducks, I hope this topic produces as much interest. >1. What is your opinion about such an ethical committee? >Think of: Should they be legalized; Who are members of the >committee; What is their task; Can they only advise, or must >they control experiments; Should all experiments be subject >of the committee. Regardless of my opinion, one should be aware of the current situation. I do not know what the term "legalized" means in this context, but Animal Research Committees currently review every experiment that is done on any animal at virtually every institution that receives financial support from the federal government. At this institution, the animal research committee in some sense controls experiments. If they don't approve them, you cannot do them (you cannot purchase or house the animals). All animal experiments are reviewed by the committee. These are not hypothetical possibilities, this is the current state of animal research in institutions receiving grant support. >2. How does the committee make the ethical judgement? >Think of: Ethical principels used; Tools and models used; >Human goals against animal interests; Necessity against >suffering. I think that this is a very interesting question. My small knowlege of ethics suggests that ethical behavior requires that one not lie, steal, or provide an edited version of the truth for personal gain. Thus it is unethical to inform your neighbors wife that her husband is cheating on her so that you can start something with her. It is not clear how to apply these guidelines to animals. It is also clear that one should not go around maiming other people for arbitrary reasons, yet I do not feel at all uncomfortable eating meat, eggs, or milk. (Or apples and lima beans either, it is not clear why ethical considerations apply only to the animal kingdom). >3. Can you give a 'real life' example of such an ethical >judgement? The major concerns of "animal-rights" activists are experiments done on dogs in hospital surgical research labs. Apparently these can get pretty gruesome. On the other-hand, remarkable advances in the care of very premature infants have been made in the last 20 years; for example, hearts can be rebuilt. Thus many thousands of lives have been saved by surgeons who first practiced on helpless animals. This seems to me to be the most clear cut ethical delimna, since some of the most offensive procedures are the ones that are directly connected with the saving of lives. A related issue seems to be the availability of alternative systems, such as tissue culture lines, for studying a particular problem. Clearly a humane person would not sacrifice animals with higher brain functions if he could simply grow up the appropriate cells in a flask. But despite the tremendous advances in molecular biology, cloning, and tissue culture, most of the interesting things that organisms do, they do as organisms. This is going to continue to be true for a very long time, because as we learn more about the biochemistry of the cell, we can think for the first time about understanding the physiology of the organism in biochemical detail. Just as more powerful telescopes allow us to see more of the universe and increase the unknown horizon, advances in biochemistry and molecular biology make it possible to ask new questions about physiological processes that were unapproachable earlier. And physiological processes occur in organisms, not cells. (Disclaimer: I am interested in this topic because I work with mice. I would be able to pursue my work much more rapidly if there was a tissue culture cell line that behaved like a mouse liver, but most cell lines barely get close.) Every one of my procedures involving a mouse must be approved in advance by our animal research committee. My trips to the supermarket do not require such approval, even though they involve the pain and suffering of many more animals. Bill Pearson Assistant Professor of Biochemistry U. of Virginia wrp@virginia.EDU
dlk411@tijc02.UUCP (Dianne King ) (01/30/88)
> 3. Can you give a 'real life' example of such an ethical > judgement? > This question is easy. There was a 'Gotcha' gun that came out on the market recently. It shoots a blob of paint and the object is to shoot before getting shot. Several cities refused to sell it (I am not sure but for some reason Chicago comes to mind). The reason for the ban was that they shot the gun point blank into animals eyes as a safety test. Cruel to say the least, especially before they got the formula just right. I can see an argument for what would seem like cruel testing using animals for medical advances, but for a toy there is no excuse. I cheered the cities that upheld the ban. Dianne King