Infinite Critique

A few months ago the UK government decided to put more consequences on animal rights activism. This concerning the underground activists that commit crimes to draw some attention to their statement. In September 2006 for example, the Animal Liberation Front (a UK organisation literally fighting for animal rights) infiltrated a Scottish fish farm and gave freedom to 15,000 fish. In the end thousands died. It made me wonder what the whole use of such a ‘heroic’ act is if a significant part of the fish ends up dead.

The thing that got my thoughts rolling on this one was the a news item involving animal activists who had some successful action in my country of residence, The Netherlands. Basically the pharmaceutical companies wrote a letter to the Dutch government wherein they were complaining about the current situation. The trigger for this was that the building contractor of a science park (where animal testing was going to take place) was threatened by animal activists and decided to temporarily stop the project.

But are those kind of actions by animal activists reasonable or are they just plain irresponsible? (Regarding science, and mainly medicine. So not the protests that are held against commercial giants, such as Nivea.)

In the field of medicine the specialization of neonatology deals with the newborn, and especially the ones that are ill and too early born. At the Radboud University here in the Netherlands scientists are performing research on pregnant pigs and their infants to enhance the survival chances of babies born after 25 weeks (regular is 36-40 weeks). The anatomy of pigs is quite alike the one of humans, which is why pigs were probably chosen. In the research there is measuring equipment applied to the unborn pigs which leads to instant death. This equipment measures activity in the vascular system and the results are used to learn more about human babies that are born too early. Last week Willem de Boode, one of the researchers, said that they were already able to apply the findings in practice and also could enhance the survival chances.

Is this kind of animal testing necessary? I think that if you are someone who has got tremendous problems giving birth such an innovation would come in handy. So who do animal activists think they are when threatening these researchers? If they want to give birth to a child one day and are at the point of a miscarriage wouldn’t they appreciate a neaonatologist walking in who says “Madam please relax your baby is going to be alright”?

A second (alike) case is the one of Pompe disease. This is a rare muscle disease which is heritable. When having Pompe an enzyme is missing and leads to weakening of the muscles over the years and in the end leads to death. For years there hasn’t been a real cure but for a while scientists have been able to genetically modify rabbits in such a way that they produce the enzyme in their milk. Now people suffering from Pompe can expect to live as long as they would have done without Pompe.

For the development of this cure not a lot of rabbits died (obviously some did, but otherwise they would have ended up in the oven on Christmas eve). And they probably don’t suffer from the alterations in their genetic material.

Back to the activists. In a poll held under 29 scientists engaged in animal testing at the Free University of Amsterdam about half of them said that they were hesitated by activists. If those numbers apply to the whole branch linked to animal testing I can only conclude that there are too much people with too much free time.

In the 1980s the deaths due to animal testing started declining, as they are still now. The pharmaceutical industry is investing huge amounts of money into alternative ways of research and hospitals start to subscribe experimental treatment to terminal patients. Considering those three facts it’s one big question to me why animal activists are threatening scientists, pharmaceuticals and building contractors.