By auenleben on pixabay.com
Introduction
Experiments conducted on animals to further the understanding of human biology have been documented since ancient Greece (Staden et al., 1989) and might have happened even earlier. Unsurprisingly, the practice has preserved until modern times, with animal testing being a crucial part of clinical research. Nevertheless, when it comes to causing harm to creatures that can feel pain, ethical concerns will eventually arise.
Current guidelines for animal research are mainly based on the concept of “Replace, Reduce, Refine”, which aims for a replacement of animals with other methods, the reduction of the overall number of animals used, and the refinement of the experiments to keep the pain and distress caused to a minimum (Russell and Burch, 1959). One example of implementation of these guidelines is the directive 2010/63/EU which applies to non-human vertebrate animals and live cephalopods. It states, among other things, that animals used for research need to be killed in a manner that guarantees minimal suffering and distress, and that the lowest possible number of animals should be used (European Union, 2010).
The fact that animal research guidelines are based on ethics and not on scientific facts like guidelines for health and safety makes them subjective, and thus something easily argued over. Both scientists and laypeople have their own opinions on the morality of using animals for research purposes and opinions within these two big groups can vary widely. In many cases, the opinions are based on the type of research conducted (Kabene and Baadel, 2019) and are thus subjected to a situational view on ethics.
Though regardless of the existing guidelines and public opinions, a researcher who decides to use animals as a model organism for an experiment will always have to face the same question: How ethical, if at all, is the use of animals in research?
The following paper will explore the reasons humans find for animal research, and under which circumstances they find it acceptable or unacceptable.
Discussion
The fact that a variety of guidelines exists around ethical animal research implies that there is a strong public opinion on the subject. Animal rights groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are actively campaigning to stop animal research altogether (PETA, 2020). They advocate for the use of alternatives like cell tissue cultures and microorganisms. Following the principle of “Replace, Reduce, Refine”, these methods are already used whenever possible, but they are not always sufficient for reliable and transferrable results (Nisha Aynikkattil Ravindran et al., 2017).
A study conducted by the UK Home office showed distinctive differences in opinions based on the type of research conducted, with 80% of questioned people disapproving of research for cosmetic purposes and only 17% disapproving of it for medical purposes, as long as there were no alternative methods available (Kabene and Baadel, 2019).
This discrepancy shows one of the main beliefs that allow for animal research to happen in the first place: It is acceptable to cause an animal distress and pain as long as it is for the benefit of humans.
Most of the time, there is a higher value placed on a human life than on that of an animal. This higher value extends even to embryos, resulting in a severe limitation of human embryo research even in countries that allow testing on adult animals – adult animals that, in contrary to an early human embryo, are able to feel and remember pain and distress (Jans et al., 2018).
The refusal to allow the use of human embryos is a hypocritical one if one considers the reasoning behind rules about the welfare of research animals. The EU regulations for animal research apply, as mentioned earlier, only to non-human vertebrate animals and live cephalopods (European Union, 2010) and not to “lower” animals like invertebrates, presumably because these are assumed to be unable to feel pain. Moreover, even within the group of non-human vertebrate animals, a ranking is established. Special rules apply to cats, dogs, and non-human primates (European Union, 2010), even though non-human primates would be a much more useful model organism than mice, thanks to their closer similarity to humans. Especially certain neurodegenerative conditions are more difficult to reproduce in mice and rats, but receiving ethical approval for experimenting with them is more difficult and limited (Walker and Eggel, 2020).
In the end, it comes down to emotions and a personal feeling of what is right and wrong. Ethics committees are typically staffed with both people from a scientific and a lay background. A study among Swedish committee members showed that those from a lay background, especially if they were associated with an animal welfare organisation, tended to be more emotionally involved in the decisions made (Tjärnström et al., 2018). It is thus not surprising that different values are assigned to different animals. Which hypothetical suffering upsets a person in an ethics committee more: The suffering of a bee, a mouse, a dog, or a chimpanzee?
Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphise things they encounter, especially animals. The more an animal appears to be similar to a human, the more a human will empathise with it (Young et al., 2018). Anthropomorphism can, therefore, be regarded as a main reason why there are different values placed on the lives and wellbeing on different types of animals. It also explains why the resistance against using human embryos is higher despite their lack of an ability to experience pain. A human embryo is still seen as a human by some. But does it make animal research more ethical?
A paper on assisted reproduction states that “animal research comes at a moral price” (Jans et al., 2018). Regardless of how much suffering is minimised, how few animals are used for an experiment, and how humane they are eventually killed, the fact that the animals go through suffering they could not and did not consent to poses an ethical problem. Consent, or rather informed consent, is generally viewed as necessary to conduct medical research on humans (Kim and Miller, 2015). Historical cases of research without consent, often conducted on prisoners, are nowadays regarded as cruel and unethical (Pont, 2008). With so much emphasis being placed on consent, the inability of animals to give consent should lead to the conclusion that using them for research is unethical in every way – if they are given a similar worth as humans.
However, as discussed extensively above, the worth assigned to a human life is on average greater than the worth assigned to the life of an animal. Even the use of pain-relieving methods during an experiment is only required by the EU directive if it does not negatively impact the results (European Union, 2010). Pain is acceptable as long as it leads to the desired results and there are no other options available.
Conclusion
The ethics of animal research always come back to an “us versus them” mindset. How many animals are we willing to sacrifice to save one human life? Ten? A million? How much pain can an animal acceptably suffer before the experiment is considered unethical and thus not approved by the committee?
Regardless of how one looks at it, animals tend to be on the losing side. Humans strive for self-preservation, and that does include not only their own life but also the life of the humans around them. While there are humans that would likely choose an animal life over that of a human, the majority regards it as acceptable to assign a higher value to the human.
A researcher working with animals will have to ask themselves if they accept the fact that they are putting humanity above the animals they are working with. If that is not the case, they would violate their own ethics by proceeding to go ahead. However, if it is acceptable to them, they still have the ethical responsibility not to cause unnecessary harm, as unnecessary harm goes beyond a simple calculation of worth: It is cruelty.
Animal research can never be universally ethical, as it ignores the lack of consent of a feeling creature potentially able of emotions, but it can be ethical on a greater scale, for the benefit of humanity. However, the moment acceptance of necessary pain and suffering turns into cruelty; any ethical justifications are lost.
In the end, the currently existing guidelines for animal research attempt to provide a framework as ethical as possible, minimising pain and with it the potential for cruelty. And while this is an acceptable solution for the short-term, the overarching goal of scientific research should be to eventually completely replace animal models with non-feeling alternatives, to remove this ethical dilemma completely.
Bibliography
European Union, 2010. Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposesText with EEA relevance 47.
Jans, V., Dondorp, W., Goossens, E., Mertes, H., Pennings, G., de Wert, G., 2018. Balancing animal welfare and assisted reproduction: ethics of preclinical animal research for testing new reproductive technologies. Med. Health Care Philos. 21, 537–545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-018-9827-0
Kabene, S., Baadel, S., 2019. Bioethics: a look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics in the UK. J. Med. Ethics Hist. Med. https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v12i15.1875
Kim, S.Y., Miller, F.G., 2015. Informed Consent for Pragmatic Trials: The Integrated Consent Model (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2698762). Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY.
Nisha Aynikkattil Ravindran, S.P., Beegam Farhana Fathima Manzil, M.K.G., Ramappa, S.Y., Shakeeb Ullah, A.J., 2017. Reduction, replacement and ethics of animal use in bio-science research and education. Pure Appl. Biol. PAB 6, 1450–1456.
PETA, 2020. Animals Are Not Ours to Experiment On. PETA UK. URL https://www.peta.org.uk/issues/animals-not-experiment-on/ (accessed 2.21.20).
Pont, J., 2008. Ethics in research involving prisoners. https://doi.org/info:doi/10.1080/17449200802473107
Russell, W.M.S., Burch, R.L., 1959. The principles of humane experimental technique. Princ. Hum. Exp. Tech.
Staden, H. von, Herophilus, Chalcedonius, H., 1989. Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria: Edition, Translation and Essays. Cambridge University Press.
Tjärnström, E., Weber, E.M., Hultgren, J., Röcklinsberg, H., 2018. Emotions and Ethical Decision-Making in Animal Ethics Committees. Animals 8, 181. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8100181
Walker, R.L., Eggel, M., 2020. From Mice to Monkeys? Beyond Orthodox Approaches to the Ethics of Animal Model Choice. Animals 10, 77. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10010077
Young, A., Khalil, K.A., Wharton, J., 2018. Empathy for Animals: A Review of the Existing Literature. Curator Mus. J. 61, 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12257
Signature by 