Animal research, human punishment
Re “Why I use animals in my research,” Opinion, Nov. 1
Once again, animal rights lunatics like the Animal Liberation Front have raised their very ugly heads. Edythe London’s passionate plea to them will fall on their deaf and evil ears. I don’t question that an animal lover would choose the life of a pet over the life of a grumpy neighbor, but it is sickening to me when they feel that the life of a laboratory-bred animal is more important than the life of a human being. The potential harm to human beings to save laboratory-bred animals certainly confirms their description as terrorists.
Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village
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What happened to London’s home is reprehensible. However, I strongly disagree with her reasons for accepting tobacco industry funding. It is not “immoral” to decline funds from the tobacco industry to further research. Groundbreaking research continues to be done without tobacco funding.
The tobacco industry produces products that, when used as intended, addict and kill. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. Analyses of tobacco industry internal documents reveal a long history of suppressing, manipulating and distorting scientific research. These findings were affirmed in last year’s federal court ruling (currently under appeal) that the tobacco industry violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The acceptance of money from the tobacco industry by scientists, especially for health-related research, threatens the mission of the university to seek truth.
Michael Ong MD
Los Angeles
The writer is an assistant professor in residence in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at UCLA’s Department of Medicine.
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Sorry, but chimps are not responsible for London’s father’s -- or anyone else’s -- addiction to nicotine. If the animals are treated so humanely in her research as she states, then why not test her drugs on London’s family or the executives at Philip Morris USA who are funding her research? Chimps are a much more evolved creature than us to do something as silly as smoking.
Jefferson Davis
Long Beach
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If, on the way to their next act of terrorism, members of the Animal Liberation Front get into a serious car accident, should they receive medical treatment? Virtually every medical procedure we use was developed using animal research. In my lifetime, I would like to see a cure for Alzheimer’s, a vaccine against AIDS, effective treatments for cancer -- even a pain medication that won’t make me goofy or addicted. None of these dreams can come true without animal research.
Dr. London, please don’t be frightened away from your research on nicotine addiction. The world needs your work.
Medical research scientists do not enjoy seeing animals suffer. Any distress the animals experience is a regrettable necessity so that you and I stand a chance against the countless medical conditions that afflict the human body. If the Animal Liberation Front activists are true to their beliefs, they should treat their heart disease and diabetes with leeches, maggots and medicinal herbs; and in case of an accident, they should wear a medic-alert bracelet that says, “I refuse any treatment developed using animal research.”
Mila Marvizon
Culver City
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As an animal rights activist and American Jew who lost family members in the Holocaust, I am astonished that London does not see the link between the atrocities that she commits against her vulnerable nonhuman prisoners and the violence committed against our relatives in the Nazi concentration camps in the name of “science.” Nazi researchers defended their vivisection of certain human beings by invoking the argument that it was going to be of some benefit to others. Similarly, London attempts to defend the abduction, confinement, mutilation and killing of sentient nonhumans by stating the utility it may hold for humans.
Both of these justifications are insufficient because species, like ethnicity, is not morally relevant and does not affect our ability to suffer.
Justin Goodman
Rockville, Conn.
