Abstract
While most of this book emphasizes the plight of animals in the food system, it is worth thinking at length about animals used in experiments as well. By most recent estimates, the number of animals killed each year in or for experiments is high and rising. One study from 2005 puts conservative worldwide estimates at 58.3 million animals used in research and 115.3 million if research-related uses are included. Moreover, since that time, the number of animals used in the UK has rapidly expanded. While these numbers are small relative to the number of animals killed for food, the use of animals in experiments is a fascinating case study regarding conceptions of progress and anthropocentrism.
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Notes
- 1.
Katy Taylor et al., “Estimates for Worldwide Laboratory Animal Use in 2005,” Alternatives to Laboratory Animals: ATLA 36, no. 3 (July 2008): 327–42. The larger number includes those killed for tissue, those used to maintain genetic lines, and the “surplus” animals not needed in experiments.
- 2.
Michelle Hudson-Shore, “Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals 2011: Another Increase in Experimentation, but Is There a Shift in Emphasis?,” Alternatives to Laboratory Animals: ATLA 40, no. 4 (September 2012): 211–19.
- 3.
Jeffrey Mervis, “How Much Does the Public Support Animal Research? Depends on the Question,” Science Insider (September 5, 2014), http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/09/how-much-does-public-support-animal-research-depends-question.
- 4.
Cary Funk and Lee Rainie, “Chapter 7: Opinion About the Use of Animals in Research,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, accessed July 2, 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/chapter-7-opinion-about-the-use-of-animals-in-research/.
- 5.
David Favre, “Overview of U.S. Animal Welfare Act,” Michigan State University, Animal Legal & Historical Center, (2002), https://www.animallaw.info/article/overview-us-animal-welfare-act.
- 6.
Allyson J. Bennett, “Animal Research: The Bigger Picture and Why We Need Psychologists to Speak Out,” Psychological Science Agenda, April 2012, http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2012/04/animal-research.aspx; James Rachels, “Drawing Lines,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, ed. Cass R. Sunstein and Nussbaum (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 162–74.
- 7.
Scott Plous and Harold Herzog, “Reliability of Protocol Reviews for Animal Research,” Science 293, no. 5530 (July 27, 2001): 608–9, doi:10.1126/science.1061621.
- 8.
Gary L. Francione, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 74.
- 9.
Bennett, “Animal Research.”
- 10.
See, for example, David M. Haugen, ed., Animal Experimentation (Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006).
- 11.
Baruch A. Brody, “Defending Animal Research: An International Perspective,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 12.
Adrian R. Morrison, “Ethical Principles Guiding the Use of Animals in Research,” American Biology Teacher 65, no. 2 (2003): 105–8.
- 13.
Stephen P. Schiffer, “The Evolutionary Basis for Animal Research,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 14.
Kathy Archibald, “Animal Testing: Science or Fiction?,” Ecologist 35, no. 4 (May 2005): 14–16; Christopher Anderegg et al., “A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation” (Medical Research Modernization Committee, 2006), http://www.mrmcmed.org/critcv.html; Neil Barnard and Stephen Kaufman, “Animal Research Is Wasteful and Misleading,” Scientific American, February 1997, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/animal-research-is-wastef/.
- 15.
Robert Bass, “Lives in the Balance: Utilitarianism and Animal Research,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Roberta Kalechofsky, Autobiography of a Revolutionary: Essays on Animal and Human Rights (Marblehead, MA: Micah Publications, 1991).
- 19.
Ibid., Chap. 10.
- 20.
Bernard E. Rollin, “Ethics and Animal Research,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 21.
Funk and Rainie, “Chapter 7.”
- 22.
For example, compare Rollin, “Ethics and Animal Research.” To the discussion in Chap. 3 of this volume.
- 23.
Tom Regan, “Animal Rights Advocacy and Modern Medicine: The Charge of Hypocricy,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).
- 24.
Tom Regan, “Animal Rights Advocacy and Modern Medicine: The Charge of Hypocricy,” in The Ethics of Animal Research: Exploring the Controversy, ed. Jeremy R. Garrett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), 287–89.
- 25.
Alison Abbott, “Animal Testing: More than a Cosmetic Change,” Nature 438, no. 7065 (November 10, 2005): 144–46, doi:10.1038/438144a.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Favre, “Overview of U.S. Animal Welfare Act.”
- 28.
National Institutes of Health, “NIH Budget,” National Institutes of Health, accessed July 8, 2015, http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm. The website currently advertises a $30.3 billion budget, and states that 80 % of their budget supports external research through grants, and 10 % supports internal research. Assuming then that 90 % of their annual budget supports research, the high end cost estimate of $280 million amounts to 1.02 % of the annual NIH research budget.
- 29.
Rollin, “Ethics and Animal Research.”
- 30.
Siobhan O’Sullivan, Animals, Equality and Democracy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Chap. 2.
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McMullen, S. (2016). Animal Experimentation. In: Animals and the Economy. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43474-6_8
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