Letters to the Editor
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Sounds a little too good to be true.
"The animals are sedated for anything remotely painful or stressful and don't feel pain or stress."
While that would be wonderful, I have my doubts that being subjected to research tests is 100% pain- and stress-free for the animals. Frankly, I don't see how life in a cage constantly being stuck with needles could be much of a life. It's very heartening to think that professional organizations have a pain- and stress-free environment as a goal, however. I think they owe that much to the creatures they take apart.
I do wonder why you responded to a question that was mostly framed as a compliment with contempt. I've tried to be respectful while questioning your statements, and I don't think I deserved to be sneered at.
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They are inferior, so we can use them as we wish.
Humans have a funny relationship with nonhuman animals. We keep some as pets and treat them with love and kindness, but we use those exact same animals, or others like them, for experiments or food or sport or clothing. We know they feel pain, and we know they have emotions, but we abuse them anyway, because we consider them inferior to us. Except for our pets: we love our pets.
Here's a thought experiment for anyone who thinks that there might be intelligent life on other planets. Suppose one of those extraterrestrials was as large and powerful and intelligent to us, as we are to rats and rabbits. Suppose they came to our planet and "harvested" us to use in the same way that we use rats and rabbits: to test their products on, to perform medical experiments on, to try out new nerve and poison gases on for their military, to shoot us for fun, to cram us into dirty cages and then kill us for food, to trap us by a leg and then skin us for clothing, and all the other brutal things which we do to rats and rabbits and so many other animals.
Sure, we would squeak in pain (to their big ears). We would tremble in fear. We would bleed and writhe in agony, but hey, we're only animals to them, and they are so much more important than us.
Don't fret: it's just a thought experiment. Chances are that any alien life intelligent enough to travel to this planet will have a sense of compassion commensurate with their intelligence. On the other hand, if their sense of justice is also as developed, they may look at the suffering we inflict upon each other and upon the animals at our mercy, and decide that maybe we're not worth caring about after all.
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again with the much needed belly laughs!
er, which part was a compliment to me?
the part challenging my compassion, the part calling me quite callous and mocking, or the part which calls me disrespectful? ha ha. With compliments like that, who needs insults?
I guess this is a good example that you don't have to be a conservative evangelist to be holier-than-thou; because only a holier-than-thou type could be so condescending to call someone compassionless, callous, mocking and disrespectful and then say it was a compliment. LOL!
Read the standards people. Not one of you has said you read some to see what is really required. Ask anyone in a lab and they'll tell you, the inspectors come and people are nervous. If they're cited for AnY violations too many times, they'll lose their funding. It's real people. There are standards and they're checked and if they aren't obeyed the lab is shut down. Fact.
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Standard on paper, standards in reality
Cosmicmojo, I have a friend whose job it is to enforce the Animal Welfare Act and other related acts. Standards are only as good as the people who enforce them, and time and time again, people fail to enforce them. Furthermore, the AWA exempts rodents and birds from protections (Senator Jesse Helms saw to that).
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Your POSTS
I said your POSTS came across as callous, and that the attitudes implied by your POSTS were disrespectful. You're confusing a criticism of your words with a criticism of yourself. Very sloppy rhetoric. (See, that is also a criticism of the *words* that you use, not an indictment of your soul.)
Is this how you respond to any kind of challenge or criticism?
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Bravo, Durian Joe!
I am greatly disturbed by some of the letters that I read on this thread, especially by Cosmicmojo. Her arguments are very unbalanced. She responds with these inane, insulting comments regarding animals, including absolutely ridiculous assertions about how animals are actually treated in a lab. Laughable, if it weren't so cruel and tragic. "That doesn't happen anymore" she keeps saying, over and over. Like we're just supposed to take her word for it. Apparently the proof shown on various web sites, (See PETA, HSUS, PCRM.org, etc.) is just not good enough for her. What can you say to that? Hers is clearly a personal, knee-jerk reaction. Not one that any of us need take seriously, except that we must because she says these things with such conviction that someone out there is bound to believe her. If you read through the thread, you will find that when you ask her direct questions as to WHY she feels the way she does, she reverts it back to violent episodes perpetrated by one group, or members of that group. And then she says "why" is because of the great achievments in medicine enacted via animal testing. That is not the answer. That is a careful politic response.
There was a widely publicized case of animal cruelty perpetrated at Columbia University this past summer. You should be able to find the evidence quite easily.
There is a great group, Physicians Concerned with Responsible Medicine, PCRM.org, who present an excellent and informative position paper regarding animal testing. On that web site you will also find information regarding the Animal Welfare Act - which, by the way, only concerns itself with husbandry issues such as feeding and cage cleanliness. There are no legal guidelines put forth for animal testing of any kind. Also, rats, mice, birds, fish, cold-blooded animals and animals used for food are not included in the Act. Cosmicmojo, these are FACTS.
p.s. I am a Lab Tech and Phlebotomist. I have a Masters in Public Health and I'm currently in medical school. (I work in the Lab to make desperate dollars - donations accepted!) So, my opinions are actually based not only on what I have learned, but through critical thinking and personal research.