Opinion: Primate testing ignores species’ intellect
April 10, 2015
Environmental biology sophomore
Animal testing of any sort is an inhumane means of selfishly bettering human beings while ignoring the extreme pain, suffering and loneliness inflicted upon the creatures forced to endure it — especially when this testing happens to creatures with equivalent emotional capacities — including fear, happiness and love — to human beings.
Primates are classified as the highest order of mammals. The term primate includes apes, monkeys, prosimians and humans. A distinct characteristic of primates is that they are part of complex social groups, which is a vital component of life. Primates build and reinforce bonds between members of their social groups and use these bonds to grow mentally and physically. Primates are able to have these intricate social bonds because their brains, when compared to their body weight, are larger and more complex than any other terrestrial mammal.
This is precisely the reason that makes the testing at the Tulane National Primate Research Center so horrifying.
According to their website, the Tulane National Primate Research Center houses nine species of nonhuman primates for research use. These complex and intelligent creatures are turned into test subjects and are infected with some of the most deadly diseases imaginable, including, but not limited to, HIV/AIDS and malaria.
When scientists working at the research center study malaria, they infect pregnant rhesus monkeys with severe malaria to study poor fetal outcome like destruction of the fetus, low birth weight and early infant death. Unsurprisingly, this sort of testing is stressful and devastating for the rhesus monkey mothers.
Female nonhuman primates, because of their highly developed brains, share many characteristics to female humans. Nonhuman mother primates have been known to fight off males who threaten their babies, and these same mothers can often be seen holding their babies in their arms much like human babies are held. To disregard these behaviors and perform experimentation on these pregnant mothers is monstrous and needs to be addressed.
It is unfair to subject these intelligent beings to the sort of torture they are facing at the Tulane National Primate Research Center. An easy argument to make in its defense would be to rattle off the benefits that nonhuman primate research has for humanity, but this selfish argument completely belittles and disregards the hundreds of primates who face torture and isolation every day.
You might be asking yourself what could possibly be done to combat such an established facility such as the Tulane National Primate Research Center, but a possible solution may be found when researching the recent closing of The New England Primate Research Center, a major research and training facility at Harvard Medical School. Angered animal activists and passionate students wrote countless letters to their school president and spread word about the matter until Harvard Medical School scheduled an official closing of the primate research facility for May of 2015. This was achieved simply by spreading awareness and perseverance. As passionate students of a liberal arts school we must become aware of the monstrosities occurring in our community and reach out to as many people possible until we get a response.
mr. judr • Apr 12, 2015 at 8:05 am
Is all this necessary ??? To me , they are irrelevant
Mercedes Gerrelli • Apr 12, 2015 at 6:06 am
Animals are simply not predictive models of human reactions to chemicals, medicines, etc. So research based on animal testing is not only unethical and inhumane towards animals but is also unreliable and useless for human purposes. As a result of this it is also unethical to humans because it gives them a false sense of security when trying new medicines and therefore many people end up being the real “guinea pigs” and finding out that the medicine they’ve been given, maims or kills. It is when a medicine hits the market that the real trials begin because the medicine is then administered to a wide range of people of different ethnical backgrounds, gender, ages, etc and only then the adverse reactions become apparent. Most medicines have to be withdrawn or relabeled which in itself shows the uselessness of animal testing. The efficiency of a medicine rests on its track record in humans and NOT on the fact that it was originally tested on animals as many people believe since the pro-vivisectionists are always using the deceitful and false premise: “It’s either a dog, rat, etc or lthe life of your loved ones” Absolute rubbish spouted on to the ignorant public which appeals to the selfishness of the human species versus the compassion that humans should have for ALL sentient beings. Ultimately as the statistics prove it, abuse and torture of innocent animals has produced NO reliable nor successful results applicable to humans. Adverse reactions to correctly prescribed medicines is the fourth largest killer in the western world. This is not surprising as it is a fact that 9 out of 10 tests passed safely on animals fail in humans. 1970000 Europeans die EVERY YEAR from adverse reactions passed safely on animals (European Comm memo 2008). There are many ethical scientists campaigning right now to end animal testing on the grounds that it is unreliable and therefore useless to protect mankind. So please do understand that this not a battle between scientists and animal rights activists (as the media prompted by the pro-vivisectin lobby portrays it). This is a battle between ant-vivisection scientists who care about human welfare and the progress of science versus the provivisection lobby who wants to keep animal testing because that is all they know and they are earning vast amounts of money through it. Furthermore there are already technologies based on human biology which can much better protect us and which should be required by the law instead of unreliable animal tests. Meanwhile billions of our taxes are poured into such useless research based on animal testing so that scientists who produce such “studies” are rewarded economically for their own selfish benefit at the expense of human welfare and the progress of science. The public needs to take a more active role in determining how their taxes are spent in scientific research as at the end of the day only effective research based on human biology can protect themselves and their loved ones. If we keep on accepting the unethical corrupt arguments promoted by pro-vivisectionists we are not only ignoring the abuse and torture of animals but we are also ignoring our own welfare and that of our families as well as almost writing our own death sentences.