Spare live animals, move to biological models

As human beings are superior to animals, and as animals instinctively rely on the benevolence, goodwill, and protective nature of man, we must fulfil our obligation to treat our fellow non-human beings with love, kindness, and respect.

The issue of the suffering animals undergo in animal testing laboratories is known and so it is rational that humans must respond by finding solutions which can end the suffering of animals and bring peace to human hearts.

A dimension to an ethical problem

Before animals came to be used in toxicity tests, humans were used in feeding experiments to assess the risk of toxicity in American food supply. The first systematic test of this kind was conducted between 1902 to 1904 on behalf of the United States government to test the toxicity of preservatives such as benzoate, borax, and formaldehyde in food products.

A.L. Tatum, a toxicology researcher of the time, cites the following reason for the shift from human studies to animal studies: “People are rather unpredictable and don’t always die when they are supposed to and don’t always recover when they should. All in all, we must depend heavily on laboratory experimentation for sound and controllable basic principles.” So, while discussing the ethical problem of the use of animals in research, it is wrong to presume that human subjects were always exempt from experimentation and testing. The rationalisation of the culture of moral indifferentism and inhumanity is the problem; once rationalised it can as easily be directed at humans as it is at animals.

There is consensus today that animal testing is not effective in predicting harm to humans. The findings derived from experiments on animals are not always applicable to humans.

The case for a shift

Developments in the field of tissue engineering or regenerative medicine have enabled us to cultivate at least the following anatomical parts: artificial animal muscle, artificial pancreas, artificial bladders, cartilage, bioartificial heart, blood vessels, artificial skin, artificial bone marrow, bioartificial bone and trachea. It would be ethical and kind to conduct experiments wherever possible using these rather than using animals. It is the request of this writer — to scientists, laboratories and research organisations — to consider doing medical, pharmaceutical and other experimentation and testing, wherever possible, on cells, tissues, and organs developed in laboratories. Spare live animals. Conducting experiments on laboratory-grown anatomical parts would also help the development of the nascent field of tissue-engineering or regenerative medicine.

To make the replacement of animals with lab-grown organs a directive principle and an enforceable one, ‘Chapter IV: Experimentation on Animals’ of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 may be amended to include an article which says: ‘Scientists, laboratories and research organisations should consider doing experimentation and testing, wherever possible, on lab-grown anatomical parts and bioartificial models of biological systems of humans and animals rather than on animals’.

Animals cannot be protected merely by changing laws. If the laws which can protect them are inadequate it is because we have not accorded them their real status by recognising them as fellow beings who suffer just like us.

We also need to bring about a change in our values, the scientific procedure in laboratories which makes the use of animals inevitable, and create an awareness about animal suffering. The use of visual models on computers to understand the anatomical parts of animals has helped us do away with the practice of dissecting animals in biology classes and laboratories. We can definitely do away with all kinds of animal dissection for educational purposes and teach our students better anatomy by using 2D radiographic imagery and 3D visual models of the different organs and biological systems.

But, for the purposes of experimentation and safety testing, it would be useful if we make a paradigm shift from animal models to ex-corpus models or artificial biological models. This we can do by coordinating the shift with tissue-engineering organisations which can produce and provide these artificial biological models. The field of regenerative medicine can help with this shift by modelling and replicating the required biochemistry and biological systems of the body outside the body and by producing bioartificial functional models of the organs.

A pledge

Let us make our civilisation more hospitable to life by changing our procedures, practices and laws wherever possible. Let us pledge to conduct experimentation and testing as far as possible on biological substances and learn to recognise the inherent sacredness and dignity of animals.

Ankur Betageri is Assistant Professor at Bharati College, University of Delhi