Q: What difference does
it make how we treat farm animals—they’re going to die anyway, aren’t
they?
A: The fact that giving farm animals a decent life
before killing them can be seriously questioned represents an important
reason to stop raising them for food. It is not that they are going
to die anyway that seems to justify our mistreatment of them when
they
are alive — we are all going to die but we do not generalize the
argument — but that we are deliberately going to kill them. There
is a felt inconsistency in valuing a creature so little and yet insisting
that he or she be granted a semblance of tolerable existence prior
to
execution. So wanton can our disrespect for our victims become that
any churlish sentiment or behavior seems fit to exercise. It is contemptible
to assert that humans have no responsibility, or that it makes no sense,
to enrich the life of a being brought into the world merely to suffer
and die for us. The situation confers greater, rather than lesser,
or
no, obligations on us towards those at our mercy.
This passage is taken from the pamphlet “Don’t Plants Have
Feelings Too?” published by United Poultry Concerns, Inc. If
you would like a copy of this pamphlet or more information, write to
Karen
Davis, UPC Inc., P.O. Box 59367, Potomac, MD 20859. Tel.: 301-948-2406.
Q: Would you rather scientists test
new drugs on people?
A: They already do. When a newly released drug hits
the market, regardless of how many animal tests have been done, those
individuals who first use it are “human guinea pigs.” Animal
tests are not a good indicator of what will occur in humans. The General
Accounting Office reviewed the drugs marketed between 1976 and 1985.
Of these drugs, 52% were found to be more dangerous than pre-market
animal studies had indicated, with adverse side effects including permanent
disability and death.
The undeniable fact of the matter is that different animals vary in
their response to drugs. The drug Fialuridine, designed to treat hepatitis,
was shown to be safe for dogs and other animals, but a number of fatalities
resulted from pre-market clinical screening with humans. (Apparently,
dogs possess an enzyme capable of forming a complex with the drug,
thereby
inactivating it.) Penicillin, the archetypal “miracle drug,” is
fatal to guinea pigs, but has saved countless human lives. The drugs
Oraflex, Selacryn, Zomax, Suprol and Meritol produced such adverse
side
effects in humans that they were removed from the market, though animal
experiments had predicted all of them to be safe.
The pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, sought to determine the accuracy
of lifetime rodent tests for carcinogenicity. Using animals to test
various chemicals already known to cause cancer in humans, they obtained
the correct result in less than half of the cases. They would have been
better off tossing a coin!
We must seek a greater understanding of the nature of the mechanisms
of drugs on a cellular and molecular level if we are to have insight
into the probable methods. Though the increased use of modern methodologies
such as in vitro assays, tissue cultures, computer modeling, and extensive
molecular biological analysis, we can come to a better understanding
of what effect various drugs will have on human beings, and we can
all
cease to be “guinea pigs.”
This passage is Point 6 of a pamphlet called Point/Counterpoint published
by The American Anti-Vivisection Society. For more information about
this pamphlet and the AAVS write to them at 801 Old York Road, #204,
Jenkintown, PA 19046-1685. Tel: 215-887-0816.
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