Health knowledge made personal
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As biomedical engineer, I respectfully disagree to the arguement that biomedical animal research has become a "cult." Although, I do understand your point and how the general public might take a similar view on animal research. I have strong ethical convictions and always follow the highest standards in lab animal well-being. Just as in any facet of lif, there will always be people with malicious intentions and those that abuse and neglect, and they should be punished under the fullest extent of the USDA and IACUC.
I understand your anger with the big 3 that seemingly prosper off the rest of our suffering. But there is another side to the story.. there are many benefits that have been found due to animal research. Examples such as tuberculosis, polio, breast cancer and others, as well as many insights to the complexity of biological systems. Hundreds of years ago, scientists would have human dissections in the town square, but of course that is unthought of today. Well, science still needs to be pushed forward while maintaining our character and ethical integrity.
In developed countries, Tuberculosis outbreaks were effectively reduced to zero by the 1980'safter a cure was found to work in guinea pigs. Also, in developed countries, polio was erradicated when testing in rheus monkeys discovered a cure. And these days, most cancers, especially breast cancer have a significant majority of survivors compared to years ago, primarily due to animal research. Spinal cord injury patients and quadraplegics with "locked in" syndrome can now have a chip implanted in their brain to communicate to the outside world via computer, thanks to research in neuroscience with monkeys. And to some extent there are no fully comparable animal models, but in parts they make great ones... monkeys have very similar brains, race horses are animal "athletes" that are researched for osteoarthritis, pigs hearts, heart valves, and vascular tissue are now implanted into humans because human bodies dont reject the porcine tissue. etc
So yes I agree the western world has a screwed up diet,lifestyle, and big buisiness... but that does not overshadow the breakthroughs in healthcare and biomedical research that animal research has given us. And the bottom line is... if you or one of your loved ones got diagnosed with any terrible disease, western or not, like diabetes or paralysis, would you not want to provide them a better quality of life if you could?
Timothy E. Laird
Bioengineer, Physicist
Clemson University
Dr. Miller,
Regardless of my personal opinions pertaining to you point, the photo you have posted with it is deceitful and unnecessary! I do not know what happened to the monkey in the photo but it appears to have wounds similar to those obtained during an aggressive attack from another animal.
Your statements address the western world's lack of requirement for laboratory animal models which is irrelevant to the photo of the injured or deceased monkey. If you would like to illustrate your view with an image, please find one that actually contains a laboratory animal with a reference to what is or has occurred with the animal during research. This would be appropriate to illustrate your point as opposed to the shock and false slander of the photo currently posted.
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