In the mid-1800’s, a researcher named Claude Bernard set in motion a vile practice that has since become the standard operating procedure in medicine. It involves experimenting on animals with the hope of discovering something of value to medical science. Most notable was his experiments on dogs, who were kept alive for days with their abdomens surgically exposed, tied down and crying in pain without anesthesia. The discoveries obtained through these bloody and cruel experiments led to some human medical discoveries, and began the period of animal research, or vivisection, as a cornerstone of modern medicine.
At the same time in history, the ethical theory of utilitarianism was being promoted, which holds that we should do the greatest good for the greatest number, while minimizing the harms done. It sounds like a reasonable principle to want the greatest gain with the least cost. But when applied to ethics, it means you can harm some people if it benefits more people. It’s like robbing from the rich few to give to the populous poor. It means accepting a small evil for a larger good.
Applying this to animal research, it seemed clear to Claude Bernard, and still does today to many medical researchers, that the ethical harm of torturing animals in research is justified if it may yield results that can aid humanity. It’s an ends-justifies-the-means ethics, where there are no absolute ethical boundaries you cannot cross. Everything can be justified by a higher cause.
Of course, when it comes to human rights, our ethics is more absolute. We are not supposed to experiment on people without their consent, even if it gives us important information. At least, we are not supposed to do this while admitting it. There have been some lapses, as with the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments, which exploited black men with treatable syphilis to discover the end point of this disease without treatment. The Nazis did experiments on Jews. More recently, we all experienced the public health experiment of mandatory, untested COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations. This latest example of utilitarian medicine rationalized forcing vaccines, despite knowing there would be side effects, using the justification that it is for the good of others. The greater good trumped the individual’s choice to be vaccinated or not. It disempowered everyone who did not want to participate in the experiment, and forced compliance for the “greater good”.
Animals are the most disempowered group of society. Despite their similarity to humans in many psychological and physiological ways, they are not given similar ethical consideration. Vivisectors rationalize their exploitation of mice, rats, dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs, and every other creature they can use, saying that the ends justify the means. They admit the animals will often suffer pain, as well as loss of life. Many of these animals will be subjected to unbelievable harm, in order to simulate human disease and trauma. Many are now genetically modified to be born with a genetic disease that is meant to simulate a human disease. They are born to suffer, and do.
We are told by defensive animal researchers that the field of medicine relies on animals for discoveries. They admit that the results may not apply to humans, but insist that it’s easier to use animals in a lab than use humans, who can sue for damages. They use the same excuse of utilitarianism, that the benefits of their research outweigh the harms done to the animals, which they assure the public they are trying to minimize.
When it comes to your own health, it’s okay to be utilitarian. You may be willing to do something at the cost of your health, if it has a greater benefit. You may be willing to abuse yourself with stressful hours of work, for example, or a daily alcoholic drink to relax, admitting these are bad for you, but insisting that the benefits outweigh the costs to your health. But when you make that decision for someone else, you get into an ethical problem.
Nobody should be able to decide who gets harmed so that others may benefit.We would see that as immoral when directed at ourselves as the harmed person. But that is what happens in modern, utilitarian medicine.
Would you want to be treated by a doctor who believes that the few can suffer if it benefits the many? Would you trust a doctor who is willing, for any reason, to harm someone? Probably, not. That someone could be you.
Would you trust a doctor who would not harm a human (knowingly), but who is willing to harm a kitten, or puppy? How about a monkey? How comfortable are you with that doctor, knowing that he or she justifies animal abuse for medical experimentation?
This gets to the core rot within the field of medicine. The sad fact is that animal research is at the core of medicine. And it is rotten.
Animal research is rotten for many reasons. The differences between species makes the results of research on non-humans uncertain and confusing when applied to humans. The results of animal research are not considered valid in a court of law. Human studies are needed. This has helped many harmful industries get off the hook in lawsuits for releasing carcinogens and poisons into the environment, since the proof of human harm requires human studies. Animal studies are not considered legally valid for proving human impacts.
However, the problem with animal research is more than being bad science, or being unethical and immoral. Those arguments have been made for years, yet vivisection still defines the medical world. The unmentioned problem, which is a greater problem for humans, is that the people who can do animal research are not the kind of people you want working on your healthcare.
Keep in mind the essence of what happens with vivisection. Innocent animals are deliberately harmed by researchers. In medical school, for example, we read in our textbooks about how the eyes develop in infancy. This was studied and illustrated by sewing shut the eyelids of baby monkeys and kittens. Student doctors needed to learn this, the implicit lesson being that animals suffer so that humans can live better, and that it’s okay to torture a baby monkey or kitten for science.
The people who can torture animals for science are psychopaths, especially those who know that the animals are suffering. To cause suffering to an innocent animal, and justify that suffering for something you value, is a sign of psychopathy. Empathy is lost, and a living, feeling non-human is objectified and exploited for what the experimenter regards as important scientific discovery. This is utilitarian medical ethics, where the suffering of some is rationalized as acceptable for the greater good.
Medical ethics affects humans as well as animals used in research. When it comes to healthcare, there are limited resources. How these are distributed will depend on the ethics of those making the decisions. Are you one of the groups of people the decision-makers value? Do they have empathy for you? These are important questions, since they are part of a medical enterprise that, for the last 200 years, has been torturing animals as the gold standard for medical discovery.
If they can rationalize animal suffering, then they can do it for human suffering, as history has shown. Medicine without clear and absolute ethics is a slippery slope towards patient abuse. Doctors already act like authoritarians, telling patients what to do. What if the advice to you isn’t tailored to your individual needs, but instead to those of the greater good? We see this in public health medicine, and we all felt its cold, authoritarian hand when forced to shut down and shoot up experimental vaccines, for the greater good.
Socialized medicine is this medical utilitarianism on steroids. Efficiency of medical care delivery and reduced costs are treated as more important than treating individual healthcare needs. A system with explicit protocols has been developed, with insurance companies and the government playing along. Some peoples’ individual health needs will not be met, but the majority of people get a level of care deemed adequate for the whole. Resources may go to someone or some group the medical system values more. Sorry.
The fields of medicine and biomedical research, bloated to the multi-billions of dollars of funding every year, insists it must exploit millions of animals annually for its research. Even as some try developing alternatives to animal research, they still use animal studies as a gold standard, since it has been done that way for 200 years. We are told there is no better way to study human disease than by studying non-humans. The cruelty and suffering caused to the non-humans is something we just need to accept as a necessary evil, they insist. The key is to stop caring about the suffering of the animals, and just take your medicine, which was developed using those animals, and many more.
The question is, can you trust anything that is said by someone who tortures animals, or condones their torture? Put differently, can you trust the character of someone who is willing to abuse animals for science?
If you met anyone who was sewing shut the eyes of a monkey or kitten, would you trust that person? Would you think it possible that their lack of ethics towards innocent animals may hint at their lack of trustworthiness in general? I think you would.
Now, if another person was doing the same thing, but explained that they were doing it to better learn about eye development, would that change your mind about them? Would a veneer of scientific curiosity cover the stain of animal abuse, and make that person someone you would trust? Would you trust them with your healthcare?
Psychopathy is a psychological condition of lacking empathy and being willing to abuse others. Psychopaths make good utilitarians, since the suffering of the few for the greater good doesn’t phase them in the least. Their feelings are numb to the suffering they cause. This makes medicine and biomedical research a magnet for attracting psychopaths, who get to torture animals in the name of science, and get grant money to do it, too.
Of course, not all researchers and doctors are psychopaths. But those who support animal research show all the signs. For those in medicine and research for humanitarian reasons, there can be no reasonable, ethical or scientific excuse for barbarism and cruelty, period. The species of those who suffer doesn’t matter. Medicine should be about ending suffering, not causing it. Unfortunately, psychopaths are more assertive and aggressive, and have risen to the top of the medical industry food chain, making sure that medicine continues to chew up animals in the machine of medical research.
This is an important issue for medicine, and for patients. Our medical advice is coming from people who have their own utilitarian agenda and a willingness to cause suffering to others to get what they consider a greater good. The psychopaths are running the medical show.
This means several things:
- You cannot trust what the medical experts are telling you. They all have an agenda, and your life and health may be the cost they are willing to pay to get the greater good they seek.
- You cannot trust medical research done on animals. Not only is the research sketchy, given false interspecies equivalences. And not only is the research cruel. It’s also that the results are being reported using the honor system. Researchers are supposed to be honest, but they take no oath, and they torture animals. They are willing to cross the line of cruelty to animals to study what they cannot legally study in humans. How can you trust someone who abuses animals for a living? Can you trust a psychopath to be honest about research results, especially when grant money may be at stake.
- Ask your doctor what they feel about using animals in research. If he or she says animal research is unfortunately a necessary evil for medical advancement, then get another doctor. If they don’t respect the life of an innocent animal, then why would they respect yours? No evil should be tolerated in medicine.
- Take all public health advice with a grain of salt. Public health ignores the needs of the individual and only focuses on the public as a whole. Never forget what public health did to everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic — shutdowns, mandatory vaccinations, and cancelling of anyone questioning their agenda. The “greater good” was used as a bludgeon, keeping everyone in line and erasing individual need and preference. That’s utilitarian medicine.
- Don’t donate to medical charities which fund or sanction animal research. Tell them that you will only donate to organizations that have a strict moral code against any form of human or animal abuse.
- Avoid using drugs, which are all developed on animals. Try alternatives that are cruelty-free.
- Realize that the culture is the greatest threat to your health. That includes the impact your culture has on the environment, and on the attitudes, behaviors, lifestyles, industries, fashions, and institutions it gives us. We need to study ourselves and our lifestyles to find the answers to our problems.
- Don’t expect anything good from evil sources that create disease in innocent beings.
- Hold the medical world to the highest standard of ethics. These people control your life. We need people with empathy and compassion, not people who can shut off their feelings and cause suffering.
- Make sure that your local animal shelter does not send dogs or cats to research facilities. People don’t realize that their pets can become experimental animals if lost or stolen and sent to a pound.
- Be nice to the animals in your life. They are just like us in many ways. This means we should defend them, as we would a child or baby. Of course, the medical world has no problem aborting human babies at various stages of development, which is a utilitarian way of improving the lives of would-be, but don’t-want-to-be, mothers. The weak and helpless should be protected from brutality, not subjected to it by doctors.
- Remember that medicine is a business. The goal is money, your money. The way to get it is to treat you for as many conditions as possible, even preventatively, i.e., before you get sick, so long as you pay for treatment. There is nothing that says they need to be good, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, kind people. They just need to please their stockholders, which is a higher priority goal than helping people.
Animal research has defined modern medicine and its drug approach to disease. It is an anachronism from the mid-1800s. It came from a time of the horse and buggy, and the telegraph line. It was from a time before medicine knew about germs, or had anesthesia. Cruelty to animals at the time of the US Civil War was a drop in the bucket of blood and guts of that period. Vivisection was tolerated, although Claude Bernard’s neighbors did complain about the howling of the dogs.
It may seem impossible to stop this cruelty. It’s institutionalized. But it must stop. We need compassionate and ethical medicine. We need to stop funding questionable research of unquestionable immorality. Otherwise, the slope is slippery, as we all become someone else’s lab rat, exploited for the benefit of others. We need compassionate medicine, not utilitarian medicine that justifies animal abuse.
References:
- The Psychopathology of Animal Researchers (Vivisectors)
- Stop Vivisection: Human Research for Human Disease