Death for Life

I am writing to address the issue of allowing UC San Diego to continue to use animals from the pound for research and teaching.

No one enjoys a confrontation with a group of people who range from intelligent and reasonable humanitarians to fanatical lawbreakers, especially when the moral concerns of the former are twisted to justify the destructive actions and threats of the latter.

Animal-rights activists have wrought some very positive changes in the way animals are used in biomedical research, but the extremists are still trying to bring biomedical experimentation with living animals to a halt. The public is concerned with the condition and circumstances of animal research but does not wish to see it abolished. The public does not want to forgo the results of research any more than it is willing to forgo the use of animal products in many other ways.

How is this relevant to the use of pound animals by UCSD? These animals help a great deal in keeping down the cost of research and can be used for medical teaching that would be impossibly expensive otherwise. The greatest proportion of pound animals are used for acute experimentation, which means they are sacrificed while under anesthesia during their first experiment. They undergo no more conscious distress than those left in the pound, which are all destroyed.

These are not people’s pets that are being “seized” from the pound by heartless scientists. These are abandoned or feral animals.

Both acute and chronic animal experimentation are carefully justified, closely supervised and frequently inspected. Unnecessary suffering is scrupulously avoided, clearly a change in attitude on the part of many researchers that has resulted from consciousness-raising by animal-rights supporters. But animals are still needed for research.

The logic is inescapable: If the priority of curing the ills of man and animal alike remains high, then biomedical research using animals (and men) must continue. If research is not to be strangled by economic constraints, then abandoned pound animals should continue to be made available to responsible investigators. UCSD has a good record and deserves your trust.

PAUL J. FRIEDMAN

Professor of radiology

UC San Diego School of Medicine