A hot button issue

It is, and I think will remain so for some time to come, the hottest of hot button issues. A subject which has polarised the general public, policy makers and the scientific community alike. I talk, of course, about the use of animals in medical research.

I have always found that my default setting when it comes to this subject is somewhat defensive. When the street-mobs of anti-vivs bellow from behind their trestle tables littered with graphic images, I find my eyes rolling. “Surely they understand,” I think to myself “the medicine they give their sick loved ones couldn’t have been developed without animal testing?”

Now, plainly the arguments are far more intricate and nuanced than this, but when confronted, I must confess, I am guilty of this knee-jerk defensive stance. And I think it is because of the implication that all medical researchers involved in the use of animals – the overwhelming majority of whom care deeply about the ethics of their subject – must be at best unjust and at worst wantonly cruel. It’s as if when confronted I slip into a state of tribalism where I must defend my fellow scientists. And while it is a state that is entirely unhelpful, it is one which illustrates how high emotions can run in this debate.

But has the debate always been this polarised? I think there is a temptation to assume that the cannon of ethics and morality we now bring to bear on this issue are modern traits. That in some way previous generations didn’t afford themselves the luxury of such worries. Of course, this isn’t the case at all. I think it is testament to the considered and careful approach that science has taken to this subject that the first law specifically aimed at regulating animal testing was enacted in 1876, and was prompted in part by a letter between two prominent biologists of the day. In it, one of them writes: “You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. It is a subject which makes me sick with horror, so I will not say another word about it; else I shall not sleep to-night.” Why, you might ask, did this carry so much weight as to prompt a law? It can’t have escaped the attention of the legislators that the writer of the sentence was a certain Mr Charles Darwin.

More prudent perhaps to the current thinking on the ethical use of animals was in fact one of the first known criticisms of vivisection. In 1655 Irish physiologist Edmund O’Meara made the staggeringly astute observation that the trauma of the procedures used at the time would make any scientific findings unreliable.

One of the cornerstones of the 3Rs – the guiding principles for the ethical use of animals in testing – is that animal models are just that…animal models. They don’t represent the physiology of humans in an accurate enough way, and as such translation of research conducted on animals to genuine human treatments and medicines is woefully inefficient. With the development of enabling technologies we really are now at a point where the adoption of 3Rs would be beneficial to a lot of medical research. As we learn from Dr Ian Ragan in our latest issue, the thinking on animal research in medicine is on the brink of a major shift.

Times are changing for medical research, perhaps now it is right to ask not what we can do for 3Rs, but what 3Rs can do for us…