Vivisection Views (Vivisection)

Member Name: MGirl

Product:	Vivisection
Date:	18/09/01 (398 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves time and human lives

Disadvantages: Hurts other animals

As is the case with many I was undecided whether to write an opinion on such a contentious issue. As a chemist, I don’t have first hand experience of performing vivisection although I do have a great deal of laboratory experience and I feel that it makes me at least have one viewpoint from which to comment.

Okay I’m not going to say vivisection is universally right or wrong. I don’t believe in such extreme points of view. Most issues have their grey areas, especially this one.

I don’t like animals being harmed unnecessarily. In a perfect world, animal testing would not be necessary because there would be a 100% reliable alternative. I also don’t believe that unnecessary vivisection occurs anymore for one reason. Vivisection is extremely expensive to perform and protect. The latter has become even more important in recent years after attacks on employees and premises by extreme groups (e.g. attacks on Huntingdon Life Sciences). The world runs on money. If the vivisection performed were unnecessary, it wouldn’t be done, it costs a fortune and it’s bad PR (= bad for business).

I suppose at this juncture I should make it clear what research I deem to be necessary. Obviously, I would choose medical research in this category. I am not willing to be a guinea pig (excuse the metaphor) for a drug with untested toxicity. If anti-vivisectionists are, then go ahead, volunteer for drug testing programmes, and follow your beliefs. I just wouldn’t expect you to do it on my behalf. It’s certainly true that what may be toxic to a rat may not be toxic to a human and vice versa but it’s a rule of thumb and a good approximation.

For cosmetics, most ingredients currently used have been tested in the past and so no longer require animal testing. These ingredients are used in the “Never Been Tested on Animals” products. Although I don’t like the fact that just
about all the shampoos on supermarket shelves contain ingredients tested on other animals and in this testing some may have been blinded, to be honest, I’m glad it wasn’t me. I am slightly reassured that something I use on my skin every day has been tested to ensure that use will not sensitise me to a chemical over the course of a year or give me cancer in ten years time.

One solution I have heard to the problem is comparing a new chemical with similar compounds properties such as toxicity and capacity to irritate. I know from experience however, this can be very misleading. I’ll present two examples to you of swapping oxygen to sulphur (same group in the periodic table.) Okay, water (H2O) to hydrogen sulphide (H2S), the former is a liquid and the major constituent of our bodies, the latter is a gas and extremely toxic (more so than hydrogen cyanide but fortunately you can smell it at very low concentrations). Second example, isocyanates and isothiocyanates, both fairly toxic but the oxygen containing isocyanates are far more so and have a weird effect on IgE concentration in the body (causes allergies basically.) Anyway, the point is that this method cannot be universally relied upon.

What bothers me about this whole issue is how anti-vivisection campaigns are conducted, especially the advertising. Countless times in city centres, I have seen photographs of mutilated animals with petitions attached and volunteers requesting support. Why are the animals chosen for this advertising always rabbits, cats or dogs rather than the much more commonly used rats or mice? It worries me that rats or mice are seen as fine to experiment on when other animals aren’t. Somehow, this seems a little hypocritical to me. Some cosmetics companies still experiment on animals in a roundabout way. They use pigskin taken from slaughtered animals. A worker in the skin lab of this company (I won’t name) once told me how he couldn't understand how most of these (vegetarian) anti-vivisection campaigners thought that was acceptable, but they do. Just a thought to ponder on.

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