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The notion of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge – direction unspecified
– is sacrosanct in Western culture. ‘The advancement of knowledge in biological
or behavioural sciences’ is a valid purpose for the use of experimental
animals under Britain’s 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act. But what
criteria determine this ‘need to know’, and hence the necessity for the
relevant animal experiments?

‘Necessity’ implies ‘in order to . . . ‘ which in turn implies a specific
goal. In the case of animal research, there is not one unified goal, but
many. Some of it is clearly directed at the prevention and relief of human
suffering, but not all. The paternalistic attitude of some spokespersons
for the biomedical researchers – who maintain that it is all for our (society’s)
benefit, but that we may not question its value or express an opinion –
is no longer tenable. To some extent, necessity is in the eye of the researcher,
and this view may diverge considerably from society’s view of what is necessary,
of what problems need solving.

Why should this concern us? The tools of biomedical research are living
animals, which puts the research in a different ethical category from studies
in Sanskrit or metallurgy. We may be unable to define animal sentience or
suffering other than in anthropomorphic terms, but we can fairly safely
say that animals would not voluntarily participate in many experiments.

The current law for protection of experimental animals hinges on the
cost-benefit equation. This is an advance over previous controls, but it
does not address the question of necessity or the need to know in any fundamental
sense. Provided the science is good and animal distress is minimised, the
research can go ahead. However, this confuses the need to know with the
wish to know. Only by making a distinction between them can the current
climate of antagonism between researchers and those concerned with animal
welfare be reduced, and the debate put on a more rational footing.

A few examples from the scientific literature raise questions about
the ‘necessity’ of some avenues of research. Consider the study of anxiety
and depression. Many animal experiments are devoted to investigating these
problems in the hope of finding better treatments. But there is a striking
difference in the number of men and women sufferers. Twice as many women
as men take tranquillisers, and there is a similar trend in the use of antidepressants.
As two clinical psychologists commented: ‘One in five women in the Western
world each year are diagnosed as psychiatrically anxious or depressed. Are
all these women really not normal? Is the imbalance in their minds or in
their lives?’ Researchers believe that we need to understand the brain mechanisms
underlying anxiety and depression in order to design better drugs to treat
the conditions. But some therapists would argue that anxiety and depression
are responses to social circumstances rather than organic diseases, and
so research using animals is not appropriate.

The concept of necessity also varies with time and place. American researchers
studying depression found it necessary to put dogs in conditions where the
animals had no possibility of escape, creating a ‘hopeless’ condition known
as learned helplessness. The dogs were meant to be models of human depression.
Such procedures have not been permitted in Britain. Nor have British researchers
studying depression used such extreme models of maternal-infant separation
in primates as were adopted in the US, following the research of psychologist
Harry Harlow. Similarly, in research on the pathological consequences of
alcohol consumption, the use of animals in Britain is largely confined to
rats and mice (two beagles were listed in the 1989 Home Office statistics).
Yet in the US primates are often used. It is difficult to know whether these
differences between Britain and the US are due to ethical or financial constraints,
or to differing perceptions of necessity concerning which animals to use
and in what way. Moreover, how far any of these studies advance the understanding
of alcohol-related problems in people is debatable.

Animal experiments are also viewed as necessary in order to prevent
or treat hazards associated with human activities, such as deep-sea diving,
deep tunnel working and space travel. Baboons, ‘mini-pigs’, mice (in Britain)
and dogs (in France) have been used to study exposure to high atmospheric
pressures. In the US, pregnant sheep were exposed to high pressure to check
that it was safe for pregnant women to scuba dive (it is). At a meeting
in Lyon last year, researchers discussed the use of mini-pigs, macaques
and rats to investigate problems of space travel. British participants were
critical of some of the models, which suggests that the notion of necessity
varies from country to country. One French experiment involved suspending
rats by their tails for 14 days to simulate the effects of weightlessness.
The perceived necessity for such animal experiments is an indirect consequence
of decisions to extract oil and gas from the North Sea, to build the Channel
Tunnel and to explore the Solar System. Readers can ponder where necessity
begins and ends in such cases.

Now to the animals which themselves are beneficiaries of animal experiments.
Things get a bit complicated here, because the individuals used in experiments
do not usually benefit. In fact they mostly end up dead. However, the results
of experiments may benefit others of their species, and sometimes other
species. It is quite true that pets and livestock can be kept largely free
from disease by drugs and vaccines whose development has involved animal
experimentation. Farmed mink, for instance, are vaccinated against botulism
because botulinus toxin can reach high levels in the offal on which they
are fed, and the potency of the vaccine has to be tested in mice. Yet we
do not go out into the woods and fields to de-flea squirrels, to cure rabbits
of myxomatosis or rid sparrows of their intestinal parasites. Our intentions
towards the sewer rat are hardly benign. We did attempt to vaccinate seals
against phocine distemper virus when the disease struck in 1988, but this
was the exception rather than the rule. In short, the much-vaunted benefits
to animals of animal experimentation apply only to those animals that we
choose to include under society’s protective umbrella. The value we place
on the quality of their lives is determined by their perceived value to
humans.

There are those who want to stop all experiments, primarily on ethical
grounds. They consider them valueless. For them the concept of necessity
is irrelevant. But for those concerned with animal welfare in the middle
ground, there is a distinction between experiments needed to develop a vaccine
against AIDS and those needed, say, to determine the role of natural opioids
in the aggressive behaviour of animals. Many see it as a moral imperative
to reduce animal experiments as far as possible, whether by the use of alternatives,
by better experimental design, or even (heresy!) by not doing the experiment.
The goal of minimising the use of animals is shared by the pharmaceuticals
and chemicals industries who frequently publicise the reductions they have
achieved. But researchers in basic biology cannot easily subscribe to this
goal. They are committed to increasing knowledge about how the body functions,
whether that body belongs to an insect, a mollusc, a fish, a bird or a mammal.
Each question that is answered generates further questions about these marvellously
complex organisms, whose study could keep researchers busy indefinitely.
But do these studies really fit the criteria of strict necessity?Is your
experiment really necessary?

Sheila Silcock is a research consultant for the Research Animals Department
of the RSPCA.