Initial Developments

It's fatal to show too much emotion when talking about an ethical issue unless there is an almost complete cultural consensus that it is worth being emotional about. People who care about animal rights risk being thought of as hysterics or sentimentalists if they show that they care.

A pretty pithy way of discussing the current situation in the world of animal experimentation is to simply define a few initials. Here are some topical ones:

• AMS - the Academy of Medical Sciences,  which has just released a report on ...
• ACHM - Animals Containing Human Materials. These do what they say on the tin: we've all seen those mice with ears on their backs, but that was just a grafting of human tissue. Today's experimentation tends to involve more complex transgenic procedures, blurring the distinction between humans and animals at a genetic level. Not, of course, that lab rats and 'knockout mice' are all quasimodo - in many cases it is impossible to find effective cures for human diseases using research based on artificial versions induced in other species.
• HM - I found out about this one recently. GM animals means genetically modified; HM animals are the 'Harmful Mutant' category, who have had heritable defects hardwired into their genetic makeup. HM excludes those animals who have been altered to exhibit non-heritable defects. Basically these animals are designed and created specifically to be unwell, sometimes in unpredictable/accidental ways if they are engineered to have too many defects.

I'm not a bitch - I have no objection to finding a cure for cancer. But looking at these initials reminds me that I'm deeply uncomfortable with the sweeping argument that the end justifies the means.

A lot of people are able to accept that. Fortunately, science is taking us to a point where we can have our cake and not torture  it, through the development of absolute (non-animal) and relative (using only animal tissue and cells) replacements. Unfortunately, as this excellent article points out, ethically undernourished reports by institutions like the AMS are serving to delay the development of these replacements, which they officially support.