Animal Research: Fines Are No Substitute For Moral Responsibility
Gayle Dean
November 10, 2005
I abhor vivisection... it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.
~Dr. Charles Mayo, Mayo Clinic
When the Galveston National Laboratory opens in 2008, the University of Texas Medical Branch will find itself in the middle of growing controversy over the use of animals for medical research.
Cities and universities, lured by the promise of jobs and grant money, seem eager to welcome the animal research labs, despite recent investigations that have exposed the kind of cruelty that goes on behind the closed doors of such facilities.
For example, the USDA recently charged the University of California in San Francisco with 75 animal abuse violations, and assessed more than $90,000 in fines – the largest ever imposed for animal abuse. In February 2005, Johns Hopkins University settled charges of repeated violations for $25,000, a drop from the quarter-billion-dollar bucket of its animal research budget. In May, the University of Nevada-Reno, settled charges of numerous violations by paying $11,400. According to the whistleblower, they also threatened his job, and according to the USDA, the university still hasn't learned its lesson, since a surprise September inspection turned up several more violations.
The animals fare no better when the dirty work is farmed out to private labs. This spring, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) went public with an undercover investigation documenting abuse of monkeys inside a lab operated by the biomedical research company, Covance. To see what the fuss is about, watch the video at www.covancecruelty.com.
The University of California, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Nevada all settled their abuse charges by paying the fines without admitting responsibility. Covance went to court, trying to suppress the evidence and silence the whistleblower. This is typical damage-control strategy: When caught red-handed, they try to suppress the evidence. If that doesn't work, they pretend the abuses are isolated incidents or, denying the abuse, they just pay the fines, and carry on business as usual. Meanwhile, the heroic whistleblowers risk lawsuits and prosecution.
Animal-exploiters all insist, of course, that they their policy is to treat animals humanely. But this is simply industry propaganda. For example, though Covance claims to treat animals with "care and respect," a judge viewing the evidence called the difference between Covance's claim, and the reality, "a comparison between two different worlds." Abuse is pervasive and well-documented, though the public rarely hears about it.
As Matthew Scully, former special assistant and chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, observed in Dominion:
In its current form...the AWA [Animal Welfare Act] is a collection of hollow injunctions, broad loopholes, and light penalties when there are any at all...The same officials and financial interests who view our factory farms as acceptable forms of animal husbandry are entrusted with deciding what constitutes acceptable treatment of laboratory animals.
And in Fear Factories, in The American Conservative May 2005, he wrote:
Our cruelty statutes...address mostly random or wanton acts of cruelty. And the persistent animal-welfare questions of our day center on institutional cruelties—on the vast and systematic mistreatment of animals that most of us never see.
Ultimately, the responsibility for institutional cruelty falls squarely upon us. When large companies deny abuse in the face of incontrovertible evidence and go to court to silence the whistleblowers, when major universities deny responsibility for abuse, all the while paying the fines and carrying on business as usual – we must ask ourselves some serious moral questions.
Do we really want to accept the idea that businesses and universities can engage in immoral and illegal practices, and, when caught red-handed, simply pay the fines and write it all off as just another cost of doing business? If so, then surely we have degenerated as individuals and as a society.
~Dr. Charles Mayo, Mayo Clinic
When the Galveston National Laboratory opens in 2008, the University of Texas Medical Branch will find itself in the middle of growing controversy over the use of animals for medical research.
Cities and universities, lured by the promise of jobs and grant money, seem eager to welcome the animal research labs, despite recent investigations that have exposed the kind of cruelty that goes on behind the closed doors of such facilities.
For example, the USDA recently charged the University of California in San Francisco with 75 animal abuse violations, and assessed more than $90,000 in fines – the largest ever imposed for animal abuse. In February 2005, Johns Hopkins University settled charges of repeated violations for $25,000, a drop from the quarter-billion-dollar bucket of its animal research budget. In May, the University of Nevada-Reno, settled charges of numerous violations by paying $11,400. According to the whistleblower, they also threatened his job, and according to the USDA, the university still hasn't learned its lesson, since a surprise September inspection turned up several more violations.
The animals fare no better when the dirty work is farmed out to private labs. This spring, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) went public with an undercover investigation documenting abuse of monkeys inside a lab operated by the biomedical research company, Covance. To see what the fuss is about, watch the video at www.covancecruelty.com.
The University of California, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Nevada all settled their abuse charges by paying the fines without admitting responsibility. Covance went to court, trying to suppress the evidence and silence the whistleblower. This is typical damage-control strategy: When caught red-handed, they try to suppress the evidence. If that doesn't work, they pretend the abuses are isolated incidents or, denying the abuse, they just pay the fines, and carry on business as usual. Meanwhile, the heroic whistleblowers risk lawsuits and prosecution.
Animal-exploiters all insist, of course, that they their policy is to treat animals humanely. But this is simply industry propaganda. For example, though Covance claims to treat animals with "care and respect," a judge viewing the evidence called the difference between Covance's claim, and the reality, "a comparison between two different worlds." Abuse is pervasive and well-documented, though the public rarely hears about it.
As Matthew Scully, former special assistant and chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, observed in Dominion:
In its current form...the AWA [Animal Welfare Act] is a collection of hollow injunctions, broad loopholes, and light penalties when there are any at all...The same officials and financial interests who view our factory farms as acceptable forms of animal husbandry are entrusted with deciding what constitutes acceptable treatment of laboratory animals.
And in Fear Factories, in The American Conservative May 2005, he wrote:
Our cruelty statutes...address mostly random or wanton acts of cruelty. And the persistent animal-welfare questions of our day center on institutional cruelties—on the vast and systematic mistreatment of animals that most of us never see.
Ultimately, the responsibility for institutional cruelty falls squarely upon us. When large companies deny abuse in the face of incontrovertible evidence and go to court to silence the whistleblowers, when major universities deny responsibility for abuse, all the while paying the fines and carrying on business as usual – we must ask ourselves some serious moral questions.
Do we really want to accept the idea that businesses and universities can engage in immoral and illegal practices, and, when caught red-handed, simply pay the fines and write it all off as just another cost of doing business? If so, then surely we have degenerated as individuals and as a society.
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