Notes

THE USE OF ANIMALS IN SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS
Before getting started on philosophical discussion, it is worth
looking at some of the details about the use of animals in scientific
research. My discussion will focus on animal experimentation in
the UK, where, it is sometimes said, the regulations are the most
restrictive in the world. Nevertheless, similar considerations also apply
elsewhere. In the UK the main legislation is the Animals (Scientific
Procedures) Act 1986. Each year the Home Office provides a set of
statistics concerning the licences granted for the year. It is not
always necessary to obtain a licence, but as the Home Office
explains, ‘Under this Act any scientific procedure carried out on any
living vertebrate animal, or one species of octopus (Octopus vulgaris),
which is likely to cause that animal pain, suffering, distress or
lasting harm is a regulated procedure requiring licence authority’
(Home Office 2009, 3). No licence has been granted in the UK for
experiments on the great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans)
since the current Act of Parliament has been in force.
A licence will only be granted if, in the opinion of the authority,
the benefits of the research outweigh the harms, and experimenting
on animals is the only feasible way of obtaining the information
sought. This is not intended to rule out ‘basic’ scientific research
with no obvious, immediate application, but it must at least be
plausible that the experiment will contribute to the scientific enterprise,
with possible eventual benefits to human or to animal welfare.
Experiments, or other licensed procedures, are divided into four
classifications, mild, moderate, severe and unclassified. Unclassified
are those where the animal suffers no pain, as, for example, in
experiments where it remains unconscious throughout the procedure
and never regains consciousness (we will look at such cases in more
detail later). Mild, moderate and severe refer to the degree of pain or
suffering involved, although how a particular procedure is classified is
generally a matter of judgement and experience, as coming up with
an operational definition of the boundaries is probably an impossible
task. Relatively few licences are granted for severe procedures, but
the majority of licences are for moderate ones.
The sheer numbers of animals involved, however, may come as a
surprise. In 2008 licences were granted for 3.7 million procedures,
up from about 3.2 million the previous year, but a long way down
from the peak of above 5 million in the 1970s. The very great majority
of animals used are mice, rats and fish, although together dogs, cats
and non-human primates numbered over 11,000. Pigs, turkeys and
other farm animals were also used in experiments relating to veterinary
medicine. Although many types of experiments are carried out,
animals are used particularly for drug discovery and testing. At an
early stage animals are used to attempt to establish the effects of
particular substances, normally a chemical compound. These compounds
are likely either to have been manufactured in the lab or
derived from a natural source, often the rain forest, or even the sea
bed. Perhaps it is no surprise, given evolution, that nature seems to be
a wonderful source of compounds with health-protective properties.
Once a desirable effect is detected, and firmly established, the next
stage is to test the compound to see if it is safe, or whether it has
adverse side effects, prior to testing the substance on human beings.
The scientific use of animals has a long history, especially in
dissection. Indeed in the seventeenth century the philosopher
Descartes reveals himself in his writings to be an enthusiastic
devotee of animal dissection, in order to further his understanding
of human anatomy (Descartes 1985 [1637]). It may well have
been that Descartes even performed vivisection: experiments on
living animals. Vivisection became more common in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, and began to spark considerable protest
and disquiet. Experimentation on the mass scale we now see began
only in the twentieth century with the use of animals anaesthetized
with ether and chloroform. The use of animals in research has
always been accompanied by protest, although it has been stronger
and more vocal, and, indeed, even violently active at certain times
(NCB 2005). And the extent to which animal experimentation
takes place is not always made explicit. For example, when you put
money in the collecting tin for heart or cancer research there is a
high chance that the money you give will pay for experiments on
animals. Indeed those who support antivivisection charities may
well, unwittingly, in their support of other charities, be funding
exactly the work they want to ban. In collecting evidence for the
Nuffield Council we found that among the strongest supporters of
animal experiments were societies and charities desperately seeking
a cure for a severe medical conditions.