Peter Singer comments on animal testing issues

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,1957448,00.html

Animal guru gives tests his blessing

 

 

Monkey research has benefits, equal rights philosopher admits

 

*Robin McKie, science editor

Sunday November 26, 2006

The Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk/>*

 

One of the most important figures in the animal rights movement has publicly

backed the use of living creatures in medical experiments. The endorsement -

by the philosopher Peter Singer, who coined the phrase Animal Liberation and

whose Seventies book on the subject led to the creation of the animal rights

movement - has surprised observers.

 

Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, is renowned for insisting

animals should have equal rights with humans but is quoted, on camera,

backing research in which experiments on monkeys are carried out to develop

surgery for Parkinson's and other patients.

 

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'It is clear at least some animal research does have benefits,' Singer

admits on Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing, which will be screened on

BBC2 tomorrow. 'I would certainly not say that no animal research could be

justified and the case you have given sounds like one that is justified.'

 

The admission has delighted scientists, including the Oxford surgeon Tipu

Aziz, the doctor involved in this work. 'It is a very encouraging sign,' he

said.

 

The BBC2 documentary focuses on animal rights activists' battle to block the

building of the £20m Oxford University animal laboratory. Construction was

abandoned in 2004 after a campaign of intimidation led builders to pull out

of the project. Work resumed this year.

 

The programme, the most thorough TV examination of this vexed subject,

includes graphic footage of electrodes being drilled into the skull of a rat

which is later put down, on camera, by lethal injection. There is also

footage of a monkey being prepared for a similar experiment. But viewers

will also see a young Scottish boy, Sean Gardner, crippled by the movement

disease dystonia, taking his first, tentative steps from his wheelchair,

after similar surgery involving electrodes being drilled into his skull.

 

The documentary is being screened as the battle over the Oxford laboratory

reaches fresh intensity, with a new group of opponents announcing it will

hold its first public meeting in Oxford on Tuesday. The Voice for Ethical

Research at Oxford (Vero) has been set up by university staff and students

opposed to animal experiments and is backed by senior politicians, including

Tony Benn and Ann Widdecombe.

 

Vero has been launched to counter the highly successful pro-laboratory group

Pro-Test, created by 17-year-old student Laurie Pycroft last February.

Pro-Test capitalised on local people's weariness of the laboratory's

hard-line opponents, led by the animal liberation group Speak, whose members

gather near the site to scream abuse at workers.

 

Last week Sharon Howe, Vero's founder, admitted many local people had become

alienated by hardline anti-vivisectionists. 'The debate is so polarised, it

is impossible to have a sensible discussion. We want greater efforts to be

made in developing alternatives to animal experiment.'

 

In addition, the Weatherall committee - set up by scientific organisations

that include the Royal Society and Wellcome Trust - will publish the results

of its investigation into the use of primates in university and other

academic labs. Several thousand primates - mostly macaques and marmosets -

are experimented on every year to discover how neurons connect with the eye,

to find out how images form in the brain, and to make other basic scientific

discoveries.

 

The committee, chaired by the Oxford geneticist Sir David Weatherall, was

asked to investigate this highly contentious subject and decide whether this

science is sound and relevant to humans. According to sources close to the

committee, the report, which will be published on 13 December, will back the

continued use of primates for this sort of research. 'Weatherall has

concluded it is good science and that it is relevant,' said a source.