Animal emotions run high

I have a good relationship with my neighbour, we take in one another's parcels and exchange Christmas cards. So I was surprised to detect a coolness setting in, especially as we had discussed our jobs and work routines recently.

Finally, fearing for my parcels and Christmas list, I asked her what was wrong. "I don't agree with vivisection," came the answer. "I think it's wrong but you're biased towards it." I was taken aback. I didn't think we had discussed my attitudes to animal experimentation, I don't think I've ever discussed them, so how did this suddenly happen?

I probed a little further. It emerged my neighbour had thought that a publication called Animal Pharm must write about and support animal experimentation. I explained that Animal Pharm covers progress in animal health, how to make sick animals better, not how to use them to make humans better. My neighbour seemed mollified, and when I mentioned Animal Pharm's coverage of the 3Rs, reducing, refining and replacing animals in research, she was happier with me, although still opposed to using animals for medical research.

So how does the scientific community present current thinking on the use of animals in medical research? Extreme measures by animal rights activists have lost the support of many members of the public, so is now the time for human and veterinary medical scientists to show their side of the argument?

Geneticist Steve Jones, in his book Double Helix, suggests that opponents of the use of animals in medical research use "an essentially stupid argument: that if you disapprove of something, it cannot be true" (Double Helix, p89). He compares messages that suggest that animal experimentation is useless with the pronouncements of creationists, and, depressingly, says that "rubbish endlessly repeated can convert itself in the public mind into uncertainty, and then to truth." (Double Helix, p89).

After speaking to my neighbour, a sensible, well-educated woman, I felt that scientists had a long way to go before their arguments, based on facts not emotions, were listened to.

But one question remained with me: how do animal lovers feel about using animals in studies to find new veterinary drugs? Diabetes and cancer are just two diseases pets can suffer, and today, they can be treated successfully. This success is the result of careful study, research and experimentation using animals. You may not want animals to suffer to help cure your fellow human beings, but you might just have a different attitude when animal experimentation cures your beloved dog or cat.