Alternatives To Animal Testing
Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is developing a trend among scientists to appreciate nonanimal experiments.
The organization is not specifically against animal testing, but they’ve made progress in fostering a more humane approach to animal experimentation.
They have these goals:
- Replacement - replace animal experiments with nonanimal ones
- Reduction - reduce animal experimentation
- Refinement - create less cruel animal experiments
In their words:
“The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) has worked with scientists since 1981 to find new methods to replace the use of laboratory animals in experiments, reduce the number of animals tested, and refine necessary tests to eliminate pain and distress.”
The website’s pretty interesting. They have three videos about the program. You can watch them online:
- video 1 - talks about the “three Rs” and how they’re the new standard for animal experimentation. There is a generation of scientists who’ve learned about these goals and who emphasize them in their own work. This video also talks about how the work of CAT legitimized test tube experiments.
- video 2 - about how they’ve developed a generation of scientists who know alternatives exist and are legitimate.
- video 3 - the program provided room for students who were interested in science in fields where nonanimal testing wasn’t yet accepted. That is, they’ve provided space for pro-animal people in science who wouldn’t otherwise have had space. The documentary concludes with a bit of a tangent into food animals. He didn’t say it, but I feel in my gut that he wants you to go vegan! In reality, I think he’s talking about in vitro meat (aka “test tube meat” or “vat meat”).
At it’s root, this is welfarist incrementalism (with abolitionist tendencies) and so personally, as an abolitionist, I have ethical problems advocating the “three Rs” (I can only advocate the first two Rs). But the approach seems to be working and they’ve made some progress. They’ve fostered some compassion in the field. And they’ve convinced mainstream scientists that animal experimentation is not always necessary. And so for that, I’m grateful. I also highly appreciate that they’ve provided research programs for students who don’t want to experiment on animals.
This is a growing movement. Jen’s father is a radiologist who attends medical conferences quite frequently. He has commented several times how there is an increasing number of lecturers at those conferences who explicitly reject animal testing on both ethical and pragmatic grounds. As you said, this is incremental, however, as Jen’s father said, many of the lecturers comment about the unethical exploitation of animals - plant the idea, I suppose.
Video #2 is very interesting.
Alex’s last blog post..Please, just shhh.