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August 24, 2005
The one where she wonders if she is destined to write about guinea pigs for the rest of her life...
The whole animal experiment issue is a hell of a lot more complex than most of us from both sides of the debate could ever conceive. The closure of the Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch has complicated matters further. Several times over the past couple of days I have thought about starting this post and then got bogged down and deleted the whole thing. But what the hell I’ve decided to give it a go and I promise I will not resort to empty pointless remarks. I hereby swear that you will not have to put up with either ‘If you had to chose between your kid’s life and that of an animal bet you’d choose the animal’ or ‘Those evil animal experimenters are horrible to animals so we should be horrible to them.’ These emotional retorts will not further the debate in any way.
First and foremost I must let it be known that I cannot and will not condone violence against another being, for whatever cause. I’m not sure where stealing a dead body comes into this, when I first heard what had happened I wondered about the state of mind of the person who first came up with the idea. It was all a bit - well - weird. It wouldn’t have occurred to most of us. Surely it was never going to work.
But if the objective was to close down the guinea pig farm then we have to face the fact that it DID work. The Hall family have announced the farm’s closure and appealed for the safe return of their relative at the same time. We’d be fools to pretend that there was no connection between the two events.
Call me an idealist but after an intelligent debate backed with proper research I wanted the vivisectionists to realise that cell culture, molecular methods, micro-organisms, computer models etc are the way forward I wanted all the research into alternatives done by Dr Hadwen Trust, Europeans for Medical Progress et al to have come to something. I wanted everyone to admit that sometimes animal experiments fail tragically because the anatomy of rats, dogs and guinea pigs are essentially very different from that of humans. (Vioxx is the latest example and Thalidomide is the most famous. Plenty more examples here) I wanted the public to realise that contrary to their claims drug companies do not do all this research out of the goodness of their hearts because they want our kids to be cured of cancer. They are businesses, out to make money, therefore animals are seen as commodities and are not treated as they should be. (See here for many undercover investigations) Yet when it comes down to it Newchurch closed down because some extremists raided the grave of the owner’s Mother in Law (who indecently had nothing to do with the farm.)
It could be argued that the result is that guinea pigs have been saved, the actual method of how this came about is irrelevant. Come on, what do we really think is going to happen to the surplus guinea pigs when the farm finally closes it’s gates at the end of the year? And besides this was a breeding farm, where are the laboratories going to get animals from now? Abroad maybe? Somewhere over which we have no control. The thought of small mammals being carted about all over Europe in small crates on the back of lorries is reminiscent of the live exports campaign in the mid nineties. Back to sqare one, animal cruelty.
So at the end of the day I’m ambivalent about this piece of news. Where does it leave someone like me who wants vivisection to end but for the right reasons? Should I be raising a glass with the animal rights activists or drowning my sorrows with the other side?
Either way perhaps you should just get me a pint.
Posted by purple elephant at August 24, 2005 11:30 PM