Animal Research: Necessary to Scientific and Medical Advances

One of the things that drives me up a wall is what I call post modernist advocacy, in which narratives, rather than facts, drive the debate. Animal rights, and its assertions about animal research, is a classic case in point.

There are actually two themes found in animal rights advocacy on this issue, only one of which is wholly post modernistic. Some advocates, like Gary Francione, admit that we benefit from animal research (although he diminishes the extent), but claim that we should eschew these advances for wholly ethical reasons, e.g., animals are sentient, hence they have a right not to be property, hence to use them instrumentally is morally wrong. I disagree with this argument but respect it because it is in keeping with the exceptional capacity of humans to engage in moral reasoning and to sacrifice our own welfare for the benefit of “the other.”

The other theme is intellectually vapid and dishonest. It claims that since animal research is not directly applicable in all manners to the human condition, animal research is not beneficial to the advance of knowledge and, indeed, is actually harmful to human thriving. This argument either intentionally misleads about the purposes of using animals in research, or is utterly ignorant of the place animals have in a dynamic scientific process that uses many modalities, from computer programs, to testing on human cell lines, to using bacteria or insects, to human experimentation, as well as work on mostly rodents, but also other mammals.

Much of animal work is basic research, that allows scientists to gain an understanding of biology or to experiment with new modalities of potential treatments or diagnostic techniques in a living organism. Two stories in recent days illustrate this aspect of science and the place of animals in advancing our knowledge and ability to relieve human (and animal) suffering.

Nanotechnology is being developed to discover cancer tumors at a very early stage, with the work currently being done in mice. From the story:

Stanford scientists are blending the latest in nanotechnology with a quirky light effect discovered in the 1920s to create a new way to scan for tumors—a process that is potentially safer and more sensitive than current cancer screens...

Today’s most advanced cancer diagnostic tools, such as PET scans, can pick up a tumor about 5 millimeters wide—containing tens of millions of cancerous cells. The new technique, called Raman imaging, has the potential to detect microscopic clumps of only a few hundred cancer cells.

A more precise test for cancer such as this one might pick up the disease more quickly and give surgeons a more complete picture of where the tumors are that need to be removed.The experimental Raman imaging system has been tested only on mice, but it could be ready for human clinical trials in a year, said Gambhir. The goal will be to detect colon cancer.

Living organisms are needed to test this technology. And, you have to know the organisms have cancer. You can’t give cancer to humans ethically, but you can to mice—unless you believe a rat, is a pig, is a dog is a boy. Thus, we can either eschew this potential boon to human health “for the animals” or develop it “for the people.” But we can’t say animal research offered no benefit.

Here’s a second example of basic research in animals offering great benefit. Animal studies have indicated that gene therapy to affect RNA processes might not actually be doing that, but rather, stimulating the immune system. From the story:

The Opko and Allergan drugs aim to inactivate a gene that contributes to the formation of leaky blood vessels in the back of the eye, the hallmark of the severe form of macular degeneration.

But Dr. Ambati and his team found that virtually any sequence of RNA, not just the ones in the drugs, worked equally well in stopping blood vessel formation in the eyes of mice. They tried RNA sequences corresponding to other mouse genes, to a jellyfish gene, to a firefly gene. They also tested a completely random RNA sequence. All worked.

The reason, Dr. Ambati said, was that the RNA snippets were actually binding to an immune system sentry called toll-like receptor 3. That aroused the immune system, setting off a chain of events that stopped the blood vessel formation. He said the research showed that the drugs were not even getting into the cells in the eye, so they could not be activating the gene-silencing mechanism.

As further confirmation, Dr. Ambati’s team used genetically engineered mice that lacked the immune system sentry. In those mice, the drugs did not work.

This is an example of basic research, a necessary precursor to any human work. The gene therapy approach being pursued might now not make it to human application because scientists were able to discover before human trials, that the procedure was not working as scientists had theorized.

Make no mistake: Ending medical and scientific research with animals would bring advances to a near halt. We may want to pay that price for ethical reasons, but we can’t say honestly that stifling of science won’t be the steep price paid for outlawing animal research.