Your Turn: Why Unnecessary, Cruel Research Happens

by Stephanie Ernst

category: Animal Testing and Vivisection

Published April 25, 2009 @ 04:36PM PT

Absolutely unnecessary, painful, inhumane research and testing on animals happens every day, for personal gain (e.g., grant money) for the researchers. Reader, Change.org community member, and animal advocate Jen left the following comment about her experiences working alongside animal researchers on the post "Former Vivisector Speaks Out about Cruelty and Bad Science." She graciously has given me permission to share the comment with all of you. Read on for her insights into one of the reasons scientists perform unnecessary research, into how haphazardly the research is done, and into how little concern is present for the animals (in this case, rats).

I currently work in the psychology department at [a university], and although I work in a lab that deals with human subjects, a couple people got dumped in our lab this year when their supervisor quit, and these people do animal research. Thanks to these people, I've seen just how callous animal experimentation is even when it claims to be "humane."

-Continue after the jump-

The research study they are performing involves seeing the effects of the drug MDMA (ecstasy) on the sexual behavior of rats. Why are they doing this study? To get published. For no other reason. We already know what the effects of ecstasy consumption on human sexual behavior are, and the primary investigator admitted as much when I asked. She said she needs to get more stuff published, so she threw this study together last minute - I've heard several other colleagues criticize her methodology as lazy and haphazard, meaning that her results will most likely be considered useless. The other investigator has admitted many times that she does not feel qualified to give the animals injections, and that the animals squeal in pain when she does it, yet I've heard the PI tell her multiple times to just do it. One female rat died on the table when the 22 year old PI with NO medical or veterinary degrees was performing an overectomy on her.

The worst part of the whole situation is that they're going to kill all 22 of the rats in the study when they are done, even though they don't need any tissue samples or to examine their anatomy. They're going to kill them simply because they don't need them anymore, and they don't want to adopt them out. I'm in proceedings to adopt the three rats they couldn't "use" for the trial, and even that might be impossible. I've lobbied the school several times to release the animals to me, and been met with scorn and disgust and the opinion that I "don't know what I'm talking about."

The lack of real oversight on any definition of "humane" and the lack of access to labs by non-involved, unbiased members of the community should be a huge red flag even to those who believe that testing should continue if humane. The fact that almost all of these studies have absolutely no bearing on human research at all should be another. My situation is becoming increasingly frustrating, and I wish there were more people like Mr. Carr out there to prove that you can be interested in neuroscience and psychology and still be against animal testing.