From: tara@starburst.umd.edu (Tara McDermott)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Animal Experiments
Date: 15 Dec 92 13:36:51 GMT

mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey) writes:

>I never said or implied such.  I was curious about Mr. Hare's intentions,
>and I was appalled by Ms. McDermott's allegations.  I regard participants
>here as anything but ignorant.  If Ms. McDermott's post is any indication,
>they are simply misinformed about animal research.  I trust that
>fair-minded participants welcome opinions from both sides of this issue. 
>Am I mistaken?

Not at all!  At least for me this is true.  If I may ask, what am I
misinformed about when it comes to animal research?   Before you give
examples of how I am wrong, make sure you think really hard of what
evidence YOU have.  Where does that evidence come from?  Is it
knowledge that medical schools and other "health" agencies have
supplied you with?  These sources are biased towards animal research.
It is the way things are done today, and it is common myth that no
good can come from anything other than animal research (at least thats
the way I see it).  I think it's kindof similar to how until very
recently most doctors and dieticians thought (though admittedly some
still do!) that eating meat was an essentil part of proper nutrition.
You NEED meat and dairy products to stay alive and vibrant and
healthy.  That is totally untrue.  But where did this misconception
come from?  Studies done on laboratory rats in the 1950's, and
information spread by the beef, dairy, and egg councils.  They are the
ones that supply the information to our schools, teaching first
graders on up that eating meat and dairy products is totally essential
for good health.  Don't you think, if you really examine what you've
been taught, that you are learning from a totally biased source when
it comes to animal research? 

How can animal research be proper and useful when animals used in
laboratory experiments, pretty much any animal species, have totally
different physiological and even psychological patterns?  If monkeys
are so close to us, why, when we try to give them AIDS does it not
work?  We're not getting anywhere trying to mutate a seriously deadly
disease (and thus run the risk of making it much MORE dangerous) on a
different species.  Don't you think the millions of dollars spent on
trying to make a monkey or any other animal get AIDS could better be
spent trying to learn from the disease and prevent it, and treat it?  

Recently, transspecies organ donations (is that the proper term? I
don't know) have been going on.  Babe Fe was one of the first, and
just recently, a man died after having a baboon's liver transplanted
in him.  This kindof experiment does NOT work.  Organs from other
animal's bodies are just not compatible with the human body.  Our
bodies try and fight them, and eventually this kills the human guinie
pig.  I think this is horrible.  Not just putting one life on the
line, but two.  Medical doctors KNOW that a human can't live with a
baboon organ in its body, yet we keep trying and we keep killing.
Baboons, and humans. 

Those are just two examples off the top of my head. Let me find some
information from AAVS or NEAVS and PETA, and then you can tell me what
is incorrect about my information.

I haven't been able to read or post to news recently due to some
problems with usenet.  By the way, is this getting out past University
of MD at all?  

>I agree with Ted Feuerbach that this discussion and others like it belong
>in TPA.  I will be happy to move this thread there now.  You and others
>have "voted" to keep it here by your actions.

Believe me, there's a lot more discussion going on here than there
could possibly be in TPA.  It's a sniper zone over there!

>> >If PETA members believe that medical research on animals is ethically
>> >wrong, I suggest that they refuse to accept the "cruel" products of such
>> >research just as they do for cosmetics or animal foods.  Then natural
>> >selection will run its course, and there will ultimately be fewer animal
>> >activists with which humanity must contend.

Well, PETA members already do eschew products using animal by-products
and tested on animals.  That's a pretty basic step in being an
ethically minded person.  Getting involved in the process of exposing
the problems with the animal research industry, and making that
knowledge public, and trying to stop it, through demonstrations, civil
disobedience, and through press releases is the next step.  It's what
the more radically minded people do, and that is what PETA is all about.
I'm not saying that I agree totally with everything they do, I don't
for that matter, but what they are trying to accomplish - the end to
animal suffering, is something I DO believe in.  

>This is an oft-repeated claim, but I have never seen it proven.  The only
>historical example of a society that accepted an official policy of animal
>"rights" was Nazi Germany.  They weren't exactly on "the cutting edge of
>humanity," though, like you, they thought that they were.

Huh?  Please explain that.  I know they tested on humans, often very
cruel experiments on unwilling humans that they considered beneath
them.

>--
>mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu                      Society for Neuroscience
>Martin G. Hulsey                              National Rifle Association
>Dept. Foods & Nutrition      Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
>University of Ga.    North American Association for the Study of Obesity

--
Tara McDermott                                  tara@starburst.umd.edu

Sweet and sweet is their poisoned note, the little snakes' of silver throat,
in mossy skulls that nest and lie, ever singing "die, oh! die."