The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) last night held a debate to mark the launch of their new report on the use of non-human primates in research, which is described on their website. It was a sterile debate, with the anti-vivisectionists intransigent in their view that the abolition of the use of animals in research is the only ethically justifiable position.
BUAV reports get longer and duller, but no less distorted or inaccurate. The arguments certainly have not changed. Primates are supposedly so similar to humans that they deserve to be given equal protection, yet at the same time so different from people that no research can ever benefit humans. We’ve heard all that before.
If the anti-vivisectionists had any courage in their conviction that animal research should be abolished, they would do the decent thing and accept the inevitable consequence. Let them go out and try to persuade the public of the substantial restrictions in medical research that would result. That would at least be a consistent ethical position. Instead we get this deliberate and systematic distortion of the scientific and medical benefits of animal research, and the disingenuous claim that alternatives are always available.
Gill Langley, speaking for BUAV, claimed that one alternative to the use of animals was ‘safe microdoses’. But the potential new drug TGN1412 which caused the clinical trials disaster at Northwick Park Hospital was given at microdose levels - and was far from safe! This kind of misinformation has already been exposed.
When asked why it was that the overwhelming majority of medical and scientific experts support the use of animals in research, long time animal rights activist Gill Langley’s answer was revealing. She said scientists are afraid to speak out against animal research because they are being censored and because of the climate of violence. Yes you heard it right. According to the anti-vivisectionists, scientists who want to speak out against animal research (if there are any of them) face violence. Talk about turning reality on its head.
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