Simpler Argument

Many prominent scientists, supported by a vast amount of research, doubt the value of animal testing. An article in the Guardian cited geneticist and director of Europeans for Medical Progress Kathy Archibald saying researchers are "trying to create the impression that there is unanimous support in the scientific community, and that is not the case. There is enormous doubt about the testing."

Many of the alleged advances in medical science using animal testing were failures and ended up being harmful to humans and are either withdrawn or relabeled due to severe, unpredicted side effects. Drug after drug is being exposed as harmful to patients even though they were not harmful to animals. Vioxx was tested extensively on monkeys and proven to be beneficial to monkey hearts, but this mistake will cost Merck & Co. $4.85 billion dollars to settle 26,600 Vioxx-related personal-injury lawsuits. Vioxx is just one example,of many.

In fact, in a USDA press release January 12, 2006, Health & Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said:

"Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies."

But there is a simpler argument that testing is either morally or scientifically dubious: The animals must be a great deal like us for the results to be scientifically unproblematic, but very different from us in order to be morally unproblematic. When we want scientifically useful results, the more like us they are, the better. When we want clear consciences over causing disease, suffering, and death to innocent creatures, the more like us the animals are, the worse.

We cannot have it both ways?