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Some of you may have seen a report recently about a privately owned laboratory in North Carolina (USA) that was shut down for animal abuse violations after an investigation by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
PETA as most of you reading this will know, is an animal rights group and is often involved in some very extreme behaviour such as bomb threats and actual bombings of-, physical violence against-, and arson against people who use animals for research and their families. As such I an definitely not a fan of PETA and think that many of their ideas are misguided and horribly un-informed. However, in this case they seem to have done a good thing for once.
In my (admittedly rather limited) experience, animal facilities are havens of cleanliness and respect for animals, with all effort going towards ensuring that the animals are treated very carefully, minimising the number of animals used in experiments and ensuring that they do not suffer. The workers in the lab that got shut down are, to coin a phrase, "Douchetastic", for treating the animals like objects and without respect. Not only this, but they have also furthered animal research's bad name and provided a further reason for the strong opposition that it is common to see in the media.
In an ideal world, I guess we wouldn't need animal research at all, however we are stuck with what we have for the moment as there seems to be no real alternative for testing of drugs or for modelling diseases. So, if you use animals in your research, try to treat them with as much respect and humanity as if they were your own personal pets, and perhaps one-day we will see some harmony amongst animal rights activists and animal researchers.
PETA as most of you reading this will know, is an animal rights group and is often involved in some very extreme behaviour such as bomb threats and actual bombings of-, physical violence against-, and arson against people who use animals for research and their families. As such I an definitely not a fan of PETA and think that many of their ideas are misguided and horribly un-informed. However, in this case they seem to have done a good thing for once.
In my (admittedly rather limited) experience, animal facilities are havens of cleanliness and respect for animals, with all effort going towards ensuring that the animals are treated very carefully, minimising the number of animals used in experiments and ensuring that they do not suffer. The workers in the lab that got shut down are, to coin a phrase, "Douchetastic", for treating the animals like objects and without respect. Not only this, but they have also furthered animal research's bad name and provided a further reason for the strong opposition that it is common to see in the media.
In an ideal world, I guess we wouldn't need animal research at all, however we are stuck with what we have for the moment as there seems to be no real alternative for testing of drugs or for modelling diseases. So, if you use animals in your research, try to treat them with as much respect and humanity as if they were your own personal pets, and perhaps one-day we will see some harmony amongst animal rights activists and animal researchers.
