by Dominique Landis
Following is an exchange between a friend and Tom Holder.
To: Tom Holder,
I wonder why in some humans, such as yourself, the human brain can sustain some intellect in one area, but not others? The time has long passed to be able to sustain any argument on vivisection of animals. There are only so many ways to torture a living being, and if you have not learned in your labs of torture and mayhem what you have needed to by now, then you might want to consider that your techniques are flawed. This is the year 2009/10, science needs to evolve into this century. The alternatives are available, and I severely question the “Scientists” not using or even wanting to use the technology that is available to them. We do not need to use living subjects anymore (and in my opinion, we never did, unless you consider you liked the “Dark Ages”?). So until this is stopped, I, and others consider all vivisector’s as monsters, true monsters! And you all need to get a “Real job”, instead of feeding your psychotic blood lust on government grant monies. The time has long past that society take a stand and admit who and what you monsters really are, and there are those of us that will not stop exposing your “House of Horrors”, and will make sure the current system in place of torturing and murdering animals ends!!
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Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:54:48 -0500
Subject: Re: The Human Brain
From: tom@speakingofresearch.com
Dear Daniel,
There are sadly infinite ways to torture a human – cancer, parkinson’s, alzheimer’s, polio, meningitis, tuberculosis, AIDS…. the list goes on. Thanks to research done using animals, some of those are no longer a threat, and through further research we can hope to eliminate the rest.
The alternatives exist? please do enlighten me! Scientists use methods like MRIs, computer models, in vitro and population studies ALONGSIDE the use of animals to build up a greater understanding. Each of those methods has advantages and disadvantages meaning that you use them in different situations.
We do not need to use living subjects?! Are you mad – are you proposing a world where we don’t even try out drugs on humans prior to mass production?! Or perhaps you want to try it on humans before we are sure it is safe because, hey, the computer didn’t blow up and the test tube didn’t turn blue.
Regards
Tom Holder
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Wow, way to cherry pick a quote for your title. Good thing you post the whole thing, because from what I read, he said “are you mad?’ in reply to ‘We do not need to use living subjects anymore (and in my opinion, we never did, unless you consider you liked the “Dark Ages”?).’
Also, living subjects is not just animals, we need to test on cell cultures as well as humans. And I agree, ‘are you mad?’. Maybe we can go back to the dark ages where snake oil was handed out to treat every ailment.
As for ‘And you all need to get a “Real job”, instead of feeding your psychotic blood lust on government grant monies.’
You do realize that the ‘government grant monies’ is spent on the actual research, it’s not ‘profit’ made for the researchers. Besides, ‘grant monies’ is obtained for any research that is given the grant, doesn’t matter if it’s human studies or in vitro. I have not heard of a financial gain from choosing animal experiments for your research, the only people making a profit is those selling the lab equipment, etc. Also in vitro studies are not vegan either, many of them use animal products, such as antibodies obtained from animals.
Once again, all of this completely misses (or intentionally dodges) the fundamental ethical issue.
That humans derive benefit from some testing is not in dispute. We have done so. We will do so. The benefits to humans – claimed or actual – are immaterial to the ethical question.
We would not find it acceptable to subject unwilling HUMANS to experimentation on the grounds that it helped advance our understanding of any particular research. We would not justify claimed research advancements through any OTHER unethical means by claiming that the research helped many other humans.
But we routinely default to *not developing better alternatives* BECAUSE animal research is available. So long as we continue the unethical use of animals, no other alternatives to *replace* animal use completely are likely to be developed.
Claimed human benefit is irrelevant. The use of these animals is unethical regardless of any particular benefit.
Obviously grant money does not become profit for the individual experimenter…but the institution/university that the experimenter works at does collect a sizeable percentage of such grants, is that not correct? An experimenter who receives larger grants is then bringining in more money for his/her university.
Certainly administrators etc who have to wory abour ever present budget concerns will look favorably on that, no?