A provoking question

The end of March saw the installation of a number of pro-animal research billboards in Portland, as well as in Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore and Wisconsin. Designed to be thought provoking, they certainly have succeeded in provoking quite a few people.

The billboards, which cost $150,000, are being funded by the non-profit Foundation for Biomedical Research. They display an image of a rat and a little girl, and asks passersby to consider, “Who would you rather see live?” It also directs to a pro-animal research website, Researchsaves.org.

Portland is known as a hub for animal rights supporters, with various campaigns, most notably against the Oregon National Primate Research Center, which experiments on, breeds and houses over 4000 non-human primates.

The billboards infuriated many. One group took matters into their own hands. On April 20, the Portland Animal Defense League received an anonymous communiqué that the message on Portland’s billboard had been permanently altered.

The billboard remained mostly unchanged, though now instead asked, “Who would rather live?” It probes the reader to instead think deeper about the possible pain and consciousness that both the rat and the little girl experience. It also now directs to a new website, ResearchKills.org, which discusses the history of animal research, mostly discussing the primate center in Oregon.

The original message on the billboard asking whom one would someone rather see live is problematic. It fails to address that people have preferences, but that preferences don’t mean that you think the other party does not deserve rights too.

Let’s take an example: Say your spouse and a complete stranger are in a burning building. You can only save one of them. Who do you choose? Most would choose their spouse I assume because of the familiarity of the relationship. 

Similarly, we may choose the little girl over the rat, because of our familiarity with the experience of human suffering, yet does this mean that we don’t want the complete stranger, or the rat to live or have rights protecting against pain and suffering?

The anti-vivisection site, ResearchKills.org, makes the incorrect assumption that many animal rights groups have made before, which is that animal research has not created cures to diseases.

While we could debate the differences between cures, prevention and treatments, the fact remains that animal research has saved the lives of many humans and animals.

The Research Saves site is correct to point out triumphs related to terrible diseases such as malaria and leprosy.

However, as the number of animals used in research continues to decrease, we then have to question: Why the need for this billboard campaign?

In 1970, it was estimated that 50 million animals were used in animal testing experiments. In 1995, that number had been reduced to a still astronomical 14–21 million. The European Union has projected various dates for when they foresee being able to end animal testing for the cosmetic industry all together.

Some of the research that still continues on seems highly archaic and unnecessary, such as the $18 million spent at the primate center since 2005 to study the effects of chronic alcohol consumption on primates. Researchkills.org is correct to argue, “Imagine how much good $18 million could do in the hands of alcohol treatment centers that provide direct care for those struggling with alcoholism.”

Scientific alternatives to animal testing are being used more and more. Still though, organizations such as the Foundation for Biomedical Research spend huge amounts of money promoting this unethical practice.

With $12 billion in federal funding going to animal research each year, and $11 million in tax-payer dollars going to the Oregon Primate Center, one has to ask, what could we accomplish in getting away from animal research if more of that money was being used on alternatives?

The John Hopkins University Center for Alternatives for Animal Testing says on their site that the leading technologies in animal testing alternatives are in vitro cell culture techniques and in silico computer simulations.

In vitro technologies have the ability to succeed better than their animal counterparts because of their ability replicate RNA and DNA sequences in a test tube for direct testing of drugs and chemicals.

Just as the use of animals in car-crash tests was replaced by crash-test dummies, with better knowledge and lead by an ethical demand for the rights of other earthlings, the scientific community can squash animal testing, so that we don’t need to ask ourselves who we would rather see live. ?