On Medicine And EVIL
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In response to a very moving article about cancer* and animal testing, an Experimenting Vivisector Ignorant of Logic
(aka EVIL) wrote:
“[F]or those of you who would abolish animal research, please pledge that you won’t accept any treatment that was developed through the use of animals. Reject heart surgery, chemotherapy, lipid lowering drugs, and blood pressure medicine. Just say no to insulin. Oh, and refuse treatment for your family, too. After all, if you would prevent the research that would help my children, why should yours benefit from it?”
Should you follow EVIL’s code of ethics or should you follow your own?
My thoughts:
First, there’s a big difference between medical decisions that greatly impact your health versus dietary decisions. Anyone can eat a plant-based diet, not everyone can reject surgery or medication. Feel free to call yourself a vegan if you eat a non-animal diet and you abstain from unnecessary use of animals such as: you don’t wear fur or leather, you don’t use cosmetics that were tested on animals, and you don’t attend circuses or zoos.
The ethical issues surrounding the use of medicines and medical procedures developed through animal experimentation are the same kind of ethical issues surrounding the use of knowledge obtained through human experimentation, such as that conducted by the Nazis or in the Tuskegee Study. If you wouldn’t use knowledge or medicines obtained through those types of experiments, fine. But if you would, I’m not going to stop you. In fact, you have my blessing.
Knowledge, no matter how it is obtained, isn’t going to disappear. We can’t just pretend it never happened and ignore the past. We ought to make the most of it, find the silver lining, and learn from our mistakes.
Furthermore, human experimentation is still the best model and provides the most accurate, reliable results. However, it’s immoral to test on humans. So, even though human experiments have the potential for saving lives, good people reject the use human experimentation.
In relation to human experimentation, if those good people were asked “if you would prevent the research that would help my children, why should yours benefit from it?” What should they say? Should they refuse to save their childrens’ lives merely to uphold one person’s concept of moral consistency? Should they reject using existing knowledge obtained immorally that can save a life simply because someone (EVIL) asks them to – someone (EVIL) who doesn’t even respect their core beliefs, someone (EVIL) who shames people who have empathy towards others, someone (EVIL) who profits from immoral medical research?
Of course not. Good people should oppose immoral forms of experimentation as well as feel free to utilize *existing* knowledge in order to save lives (human lives as well as animal lives).
Personally, I use some pharmaceuticals that were tested on animals. They were tested on animals because my government requires that ALL pharmaceuticals be tested on animals. I cannot prevent future animal exploitation by rejecting these medicines. However, I choose the generic versions. I do so for these reasons:
- Generic products are often less expensive, leaving room in my budget to donate to organizations that oppose animal testing.
- Generic drugs are no longer patented, thus the profits go to the drug makers (who don’t often test on animals), not the drug developers (who test on animals).
- Generic drugs are older, thus they’ve been “tested” on humans already (by existing in the market) and haven’t been pulled from the market, thus indicating a higher level of safety certainty than new drugs.
- Generic drugs are often just as powerful or more powerful than new drugs. New drugs need only prove more effective than a placebo, not more effective than old drugs. Thus, some new drugs are less effective than old drugs.
Whatever your choice on the matter – whether you choose to abstain from all pharmaceuticals, buy generic drugs like me, or engage in mainstream medicine without reservation – it’s YOUR choice. You need only justify your ethical decisions to yourself, your family, and (if you have one) your higher power. You need not justify your ethical decisions to EVIL or those like him.
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(*PS – The consumption of animal products is correlated to cancer. See more at The Cancer Project and please read The China Study.)
A quick point: Generic products must be RE-tested on animals when they are approved for consumption, thus creating another unnecessary bout of testing – something generally mentioned in discussion of the Three Rs of animal research.
Showcasing my total Franzombie status, Gary Francione once tackled this topic by saying something very similar: in short, we are obligated to choose an alternative to animal abuse wherever we are capable but if no such alternative currently exists YET, and we are not capable of directly changing this, then we have no obligation to abstain. We ARE obligated to do our best to change the circumstances and to abstain whenever possible. I personally try to avoid purchasing or using products that have been tested in animals, but did have to take anti-biotics this summer for bronchitis.
I wish you would refrain from using the acronym EVIL to describe an obviously ill-informed individual. He is no more evil than the theoretical omnivore sitting next to you. In this debate, both sides characterize the other as “evil” and it’s not helpful. I interact regularly with individuals who perform animal testing personally, and they are no more “evil” than the other people in the lab who work only with human subjects.
~ Recent blog post: The “absent referent” and a consequence ~
Generic drugs do not require animal testing as long as they meet the requirements for the ‘ANDA’ process. Of course the original certification of the brand-name drug still involves so called “preclinical” testing.
…
I’m not sure the Nazis’ testing is a reasonable analogy. When we utilize pharmaceutical knowledge (ie. when we buy drugs), we support the institutions who exploit animals to produce that knowledge. This support (ie. money) is then used, presumably, to exploit additional animals, and so forth. Utilizing Nazi-produced knowledge doesn’t seem to put one in a similar circle: there is little-to-no likelihood that Nazi-style experiments will ever take place again. Even if it was, making use of that knowledge is not likely to be the catalyst for further exploitation. And it’s the future exploitation that’s ethically problematic for the vegan, not whatever happened in the past.
It’s just like food. Not buying a steak isn’t going to bring any cows back to life. We abstain from purchasing animal products because our support (ie. money) will be used to kill *additional* animals – not because eating flesh is immoral per se.
Of course knowledge isn’t going to rot and go bad if no one buys it, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s that cycle of money-in/exploitation-out that’s important.
Jay,
I disagree with your reasoning for “not buying a steak.” Veganism is NOT a boycott. Wait, let me rephrase. The veganism that I practice is not a boycott. My decision to abstain from eating animal flesh isn’t a boycott any more than my decision to abstain from eating human flesh. It’s not about where the money goes, it’s about where the product came from.
What if the medicines were free? How does your analysis change?
(Imagine we have “universal healthcare” or imagine I stole the medicines.) I’m tired of the “vote with your dollar” idea. If we cling to superficial capitalist ideas, we’ll never have a true revolution. You can’t vote with your dollar any more than you can vote with your saliva. You want your money to do good? Send it to people who are actually fighting for animal liberation.
The point of EVIL’s comment and the point of my article above was about the perceived conflict of interest that occurs when working to abolish animal testing while using medicines developed through the use of animal testing. Such is the case of Simon, the writer at Huff Post who has leukemia, has used medicines developed through animal testing, and is probably going to die soon. The conflict of interest doesn’t truly exist. Dead vegans don’t help animals. One can fight for their own life while fighting for the lives of others.
PS
The demand that a dying person give up the fight against animal testing or give up the fight against cancer is an evil demand. I feel perfectly fine calling that evil. Yes, it’s evil to demand that dying people stop trying to protect dying animals.
Years ago I read an analysis of animal testing results that concluded that just about all drugs that were developed using animal tests could have missed that step. The step was not critical to the development of the drug. Furthermore, there are many examples of drugs, like Thalidomide, that passed all animal tests but failed in humans. I will find those references one of these days so I can use them in comments like this.
What I am saying is that animal testing is often required but usually unnecessary.
Further, the greatest strides in longevity and health have been obtained through cleanliness, not through medicine.
And another thing, while I am on the soapbox: most drug testing is of currently-available drugs for another purpose. For example, a blood pressure drug tested for its efficacy in heart disease. The best results from such testing come from humans, of course.
Don’t buy the argument that these great wonder drugs would not exist if we had not tested them on animals first.
Quick thoughts:
1. “Hypocrite” is virtually always a nonsense accusation. The “logic” goes like this: You don’t take your ideas to their absolute 100% most absurd conclusion (that I determine), therefore I can and should sit around and change nothing. I typically dismiss claims of hypocrisy out of hand. It’s a lazy, intellectually bankrupt rationalization for exploitation.
2. George Bush (among countless others) has showed us the dangers of dividing the world into the evil and the righteous. Instead of EVIL, perhaps the acronym should have been, ETHICALLY LACKING AND LOGICALLY CHALLENGED.
3. It concerns me to see people assert “there is little-to-no likelihood that Nazi-style experiments will ever take place again.” It seems almost a certainty to me that such experimentation will indeed occur again and well into the future. Inhumanity has a long, long history.
~ Recent blog post: Q&A #123: Sticking It To Light 3-Bettors ~