The value of animals in alcohol-related research - includes related article by Richard A. Deitrich on importance of animal research to alcoholism treatment and prevention

Alcohol Health & Research World,  Fall, 1990  by Frederick K. Goodwin

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Accelerating activity in research pertinent to the understanding, treatment, and prevention of alcohol-related disorders makes it inevitable that the field increasingly will find itself targeted by the animal rights movement. It is necessary that all individuals who share a concern about alcohol abuse and alcoholism understand the nature and severity of this threat and understand the importance of reserach with animals in the study of alcohol-related illness. Attention to this issue is imperative if we are to sustain the viability and credibility of contemporary research that underpins the growing public acknowledgment of the fact that alcoholism is a disease.

In this article, I provide an overview of issues regarding the use of animals in biomedical and behavioral research and offer factual responses to specific objections to such research that are put forth routinely by animal rights proponents. In the last portion of the article, I discuss the contributions of animal studies to our current understanding of alcoholism and alcohol-related disorders and, particularly, to the definition of alcoholism as a medical condition marked by an identifiable cluster of symptoms and a reasonably predictable course. Animal research is an essential foundation not only of scientific efforts that are yielding new information about the etiology, treatment, and prevention of alcoholism but also of contemporary popular perceptions of this disease. Failure to rebut the allegations made by animal rights proponents that alcoholism is a uniquely human condition upon which animal models can shed little light is to forfeit recent and future progress in both of these domains.

ANIMAL WELFARE VERSUS

ANIMAL RIGHTS

An important first task in defining the nature of the current controversy is to distinguish clearly between animal welfare and animal rights. Understanding and articulating the very substantial differences in the philosophy and goals of these two movements is important, precisely because the distinction is one that animal rights activists frequently find convenient to minimize.

Animal welfare is a traditional, well respected part of mainstream advocacy in this country and elsewhere. Based on the philosophical premise that humans are responsible for the stewardship of animals, animal welfare encompasses humane care. While groups such as the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals typically have avoided the question of use of animals in research, when pressed, they have not opposed it.

The contemporary animal rights movement, by contrast, holds that all being that have a capacity for suffering have equal "interests." This position, developed in the mid-1970s by an Australian philosopher, Peter Singer, was presented in the book Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals. Singer's work is the basis for the movement's assertion that the claim by humans of special rights is "speciesism," a moral equivalent of racism and sexism. As one movement leader, Ingrid Newkirk, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has said, "Animal research is immoral even if it's essential." A similar position is echoed by the president of Last Chance for Animals: "A life is a life. If the death of one rat cured all diseases it wouldn't make any difference to me ... we're all equal."

Currently, an estimated 10 million Americans, allied loosely through more than 400 individual groups, are counted in the animal rights movement. Many of these persons are genuinely concerned about human responsibilities for animal welfare. Yet they have been misled by animal rights movement activists who have purposely obscured the underlying philosophy and ultimate aim of the movement--the elimination of all use of animals for human needs, including the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research.

In choosing not to confront directly society's widely held sensibilities about the primacy of human life and health, but rather to rely upon specific objections to the use of animals in particular research areas, the movement has encouraged the public to perceive "animal rights" as a modest extension of traditional animal welfare concerns. That is, animal rights proponents frequently have succeeded in diverting attention from the movement's unyielding opposition to any research with animals as activists by offering duplicitous, but superficially reasonable and constructive, criticisms of selected aspects of biomedical and behavioral research with animals; by doing so, the movement has enlisted the sympathies and support of people who would be opposed to its fundamental philosophical premises.

Early on, this image of reasonableness encouraged the research and academic communities to respond reflexively--and, often, defensively--to specific challenges to research that were raised by activists; little attention was paid to the fundamental philosophical or moral issues. The initial response of the scientific community was viewed by much of the public as tacit agreement on the part of researchers that the isolated and distorted examples publicized by animal rights activists were typical of research laboratory procedures. Only belatedly did researchers realize that the challenges were secondary to the movement's actual agenda of prohibiting all uses of animals in research. Today, while exposing what this philosophy would mean in terms of giving up knowledge required to treat and prevent disease remains important, it is also necessary to understand the fallacies in the routinely used secondary arguments to research with animals.