On Behalf of Medical Science

With the recent suspension of federal grants to research facilities accused of mistreating their animal subjects, the vivisection issue has reached a critical point. Hospitals and other facilities need to comply with National Institutes of Health standards for animal treatment, and animal-rights groups need to comply with the law, if medical science is to continue to advance unhindered.

In an April, 1984, speech to a National Symposium on Scientific Needs and Animal Welfare, Edward N. Brandt Jr., assistant health and human services secretary during President Reagan’s first term, outlined the importance of animals to medical research and to the human race over the past two decades. Brandt said, “We’ve witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of new drugs, devices and procedures to relieve human suffering and save lives . . . . I would venture to say that very few of those achievements--maybe even none of them--would have been possible without the use of vertebrate animals somewhere along the research path.”

Almost exactly one year later, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals staged what they called “the largest animal raid in history” at the University of California, Riverside. This illegal act should have been followed by the largest police roundup of animal-rights fanatics in history, but instead may result in UC Riverside’s losing its federal grant money because of possible Animal Welfare Act violations.

The animal-use issue warrants attention, but not of the vigilante type. Facilities violating NIH standards are both mistreating animals and endangering the cause of medical research by jeopardizing their grant money.

Congress is working on legislation, backed by the National Institutes of Health, that would increase enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act and continue to permit the use of animals in medical research. Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calif.), whose district includes UC Riverside, introduced another measure in June that would make it a federal crime to break into research facilities.

Such a combination of legislation appears to be a good solution, but its success hinges on the selection of laboratory inspectors. Inspectors need to be informed enough to make decisions based on fact, not emotion. As John J. Iglehart pointed out in a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, “Many people deal with the animal-use issue on an emotional level, feeling sympathy for the creatures that are a key part of research without recognizing their critical link to medical progress.” Lawmakers should never remove that critical link, but they can make it less painful for the animals that make it all possible.