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Animal Experiments: The great debate This week New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ launches
a major series on the controversy that surrounds scientific experiments
on animals. Six years ago, Parliament replaced Victorian legislation with
a new, tougher law to control what scientists do to animals. Yet the antivivisection
movement is stronger than ever; the 1980s has also seen the rise of animal
rights extremists who have threatened the lives of scientists. Many scientists
have understandably responded to these developments by adopting a siege
mentality; some talk of ‘going to the barricades’ if they speak in public
on the issue. In this series, we seek to air many points of view in the
hope of breaking down these polarities and promoting a climate of reasoned
debate. We argue that animal experimentation is a legitimate topic of public
debate, and that the public has the right to know what is done in its name.
We call for greater openness on the part of scientists and civil servants
as the only effective way to allay public concern

I began entering laboratories in 1985 as an anthropologist might study
villages in other cultures. I would ‘hang out’ and become almost a native
for weeks and sometimes months at a time, so I could describe the culture
of biomedical research. I watched how researchers behaved with animals and
with each other, and asked questions about their work in everyday conversations
and more formal interviews. In some cases, I was even permitted to do some
of the work of technicians and caretakers, from cleaning cages to carrying
out experiments. So far, I have studied 15 laboratories and research centres
with around 400 principal investigators, veterinarians, postdoctoral and
graduate students, research technicians and animal caretakers.

What prompted me to conduct this fieldwork was the controversy over
the propriety of animal research. While this rapidly intensifying debate
has led to greater regulation of the use of animals in the laboratory, it
struck me that little if any attention has been paid to the impact of experiments
on the people who carry them out. It would be naive to think that researchers
might not experience some conflict over using animals in experiments.

While most people I studied seemed to have come to terms with their
use of animals, many had not. Few people had frequent signs of depression
or anxiety, such as nightmares, sleep loss, and increased alcohol consumption,
that they attributed to working with animals. However, more moderate and
episodic feelings of discomfort were common and were expressed as background
uneasiness and guilt. About 20 per cent of the interviewees, for instance,
compared animal experimentation, however tentatively, to the Holocaust.
Uneasiness was particularly noticeable among newcomers; with seasoned workers,
it was most common among animal caretakers. It existed among technicians,
and was relatively rare among vets and scientists. How did researchers live
with whatever uneasiness they felt?

Troublesome emotions denied

Open discussion of these feelings was taboo. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s, vets and administrators
tended to deny that laboratory workers could be troubled by their use of
animals. Uneasiness was not seen as an issue, and was not allowed to intrude
on the normal course of work. This attitude was made apparent to me in a
first-hand way. Invited to speak at a conference of animal researchers,
I chose to call my talk, ‘The Experimenter’s Guilt’. I was told that my
choice was ‘too controversial’ and that ‘Stress Among Researchers’ would
be more palatable. A popular journal about laboratory research invited me
to publish this talk, but insisted that the term ‘stress’ was too extreme
and inaccurate. They preferred the term ‘uneasiness’, which I used. Soon
after its publication, I was asked to speak on this subject to the staff
at the research centre of a major pharmaceuticals company. I was told, however,
that I could not use ‘uneasiness’ in the title because it would inflame
research directors. They suggested ‘How Researchers Deal with Their Feelings’.
To make matters easier, I have decided simply to call future talks, ‘Untitled’.

New workers believed they were not supposed to talk about their feelings
to anyone. Feelings remained private, extraneous to the ‘real work’ of the
laboratory. Individuals believed that their colleagues were better able
to handle their feelings, only vaguely aware that many others dealt with
the problem in similar ways. Yet within the laboratory culture were unspoken
rules and resources for dealing with unwanted emotions and thoughts, despite
the silence surrounding this topic.

People most commonly coped by seeing laboratory animals as different
from pets, zoo specimens, or wild animals. Once the creature was defined
as a laboratory animal, certain emotions would not be tapped, making it
easier to carry out experiments. Many social forces in the laboratory culture
helped to make this definition. Animals became ‘models’ chosen to suit particular
experiments. Their cost was listed under ‘supplies’ in grant proposals,
and they could be ordered through catalogues of animals specially bred for
laboratory use.

Turning animals into objects

As interchangeable and anonymous objects, each animal or an entire cage
was identified by a code that might include the date of delivery, the researcher’s
name, the experiment’s number, and the animal’s number. These codes were
clearly displayed on all cages, and the identification numbers of some animals
were marked on their bodies: the ears of mice were hole-punched and the
bellies of dogs and primates were tattooed. Unstated rules dictated how
people interacted with laboratory animals. Social norms stipulated that
they were objects and not pets, and sanctions supported this definition.
For example, the chief technician in one laboratory had to tell a worker
to stop naming sheep because that made it harder for others to perform the
experiments.

Making this definition was easier for researchers than it was for technicians
and caretakers. Having taken laboratory courses that used animals in college
or medical school, many researchers learnt not to make laboratory animals
into pets long before starting their first full-time research positions.
Instead, animals were transformed into data or silent research collaborators.
Lack of direct contact with the animals reinforced the transformation. Researchers,
typically, did not routinely conduct experiments and handle animals; they
stopped by their laboratories for a brief visit during the day or occasionally
perform delicate surgery on animals after they were fully anaesthetised.
Also, most applied biomedical researchers were primarily interested in answering
particular scientific questions, and animal models would be selected on
that basis.

Technicians and caretakers found it harder to treat animals as objects
because they commonly lacked prior research experience and had frequent
and direct contact with the animals. They would learn not to treat them
as pets after being shocked by the death of a special animal that they regarded
as a friend or partner. While people tried to detach themselves from the
animals, they rarely succeeded completely. Some described themselves as
‘a little desensitised’. In the words of one technician: ‘You have to put
up some walls. Sometimes you have to create a distance between yourself
and the animal you are working with. But I try occasionally to do some checking
to see how big that distance is. I don’t want it to become so big that I
lose the sense that I’m working with animals.’

While most people accepted this detachment as necessary for self-protection,
not everyone found it comfortable. One technician, for instance, told me
that ‘it didn’t feel right’ to stop playing with the primates in her laboratory.
But those who did bond closely to laboratory animals were often reminded
and even teased about the dangers. At one facility, for example, a technician
was called a ‘problem child’ by her peers for this reason. At another facility,
in an effort to curtail bonding, a scientist told his technicians to remove
the names of animals from cage identification cards because it ‘looked unprofessional’.

Workers still found ways to treat animals as pets and express their
affection for them. Technicians and caretakers would single out an animal
for a laboratory pet. Often a mouse, rat, or guinea pig, these animals were
not experimented upon or at least not sacrificed. In addition to being named,
caged singly, fed special foods, and given much attention, they would also
sometimes be taught tricks and allowed occasionally to run free in the laboratory.
They were safe animals with whom workers could become attached without fear
of loss. Affection for animals also resulted in ‘rescues’ where they were
taken home by workers who were strongly attached to them. For instance,
in all seven dog laboratories studied, in the previous year staff members
had quietly taken home at least one animal. And photographs, cartoons, dolls,
and other images of animals hung on the walls of laboratories, as constant
reminders to workers that they cared about animals and found them interesting.

It was also important for people to learn to cope with the death of
animals. Novices were usually eased and coached into killing their first
animals. Sometimes long before they did their own killing, they observed
others doing it matter-of-factly. More experienced people almost never cajoled
or pushed newcomers to kill and waited until they seemed ‘ready’ to do it.
Still, certain types of sacrifice were contrary to the novice’s ‘instincts’,
such as slamming rodents against the bench or cutting off their heads, and
this required special teaching. Newcomers were reassured that, if done correctly,
the death was quick and painless, regardless of the particular method they
used. For example, after breaking the necks of mice, new workers were often
troubled by animal movements that looked like suffering. Someone more senior
would usually explain to the novices that these movements were only ‘muscle
²õ±è²¹²õ³¾²õ’.

Rituals help workers to cope

For some people, it was important not to see death as just another task
in the day because it would quickly become mechanical, especially in laboratories
that conducted experiments like factory assembly lines where the individuality
of animals was lost. As one researcher said, killing animals was akin to
‘recreational sex because you do it without much feeling. It doesn’t mean
that we’re callous about killing them, but there’s not really a second thought
for that animal as an individual.’ Death could become merely the final step
in the protocol, signifying noxious tasks such as disposing of corpses and
more pleasant associations such as going home for the day. In a few laboratories,
workers followed certain rituals when killing animals, giving death special
meaning. In one case, the scientist asked her graduate students and technicians
to observe a minute of silence before sacrificing animals. In another laboratory,
a technician privately recited a prayer each time she killed an animal,
asking that its death be forgiven. Some laboratories made memorials to commemorate
‘favourite’ animals that died.

Yet for most people, using the term ‘sacrifice’ was the primary device
for giving meaning to death. Journals and grant agencies prohibit use of
this term, and some individuals described it as an inappropriate euphemism,
but it did indeed mean something special to many research workers. ‘ ‘Killing’
connotes no purpose, while ‘sacrifice’ connotes there is a reason,’ noted
one technician. Similarly, an investigator explained to me that ‘sacrifice’
was different from ‘wanton murder’ described in detective novels; the former
had a larger, worthwhile aim while the last was pointless. Besides ‘sacrifice,’
there were other terms with less meaning that shielded people from the harshness
of death. Animals were ‘dispatched,’ ‘terminated,’ ‘cervically dislocated’,
‘exsanguinated’, ‘decapitated’, or ‘put down’, while whole rooms were ‘depopulated’
or simply ‘cleaned’.

People also acquired a vocabulary that aggressively framed their actions
toward animals, reinforcing the image of animals as objects. People injecting
animals were ‘shooters’ and their injections were ‘sticks’. ‘Guns’ were
syringes attached to devices like pool cues that reached into cages, and
‘torture chambers’ were devices to restrain mice. Animals were labelled
according to their experimental purpose: there were ‘controls’, ‘recipients’,
‘donors’, ‘carriers’, ‘bleeders’, ‘breeders’, ‘junk’, or simply ‘X-animals’.
Even the very term ‘experiment’ was infrequently used; people more often
referred to a ‘preparation’ or ‘project’. And the subjective term ‘suffering’
was deliberately avoided in favour of the more neutral ‘distress’.

The scientist as ‘hunter’

Rationalising the use of animals in science was also a mainstay in the
coping skills of researchers. People in laboratories saw little difference
between animals used in experiments and those killed for food and clothing.
A few compared it to hunting, which they saw as acceptable if animals were
eaten rather than killed merely for recreation. As one researcher said of
his hunting: ‘I do it strictly for the meat – from the rabbits, to pheasants,
to ducks, to geese. I’ve had opportunities to shoot bear, but I haven’t
because bear meat isn’t good to eat and I can’t see killing something that
I can’t use personally.’ I was frequently reminded that most laboratory
animals were bred for research, so they knew of no other existence. And
when former pets and strays were obtained from shelters where they would
have been killed ‘wastefully’, their use in experiments was seen as giving
the animal’s life and death added purpose.

For the most part, though, people did not have elaborate moral justifications
for their use of animals. Instead, many of them appeared ethically inarticulate.
Predictably, scientists and research technicians saw scientific and medical
goals as moral imperatives to do their work. Caretakers justified their
work with animals by ensuring that they could not be better treated, giving
the animals enough love and attention in their last days so they could experience
what it was like to be loved as pets. For some workers this was almost an
addiction. People spoke about being unable to quit because they were afraid
that no one else could be hired that would be as dedicated as they were
to the welfare of laboratory animals.

I also observed a different way of coping among those who felt ‘animal
activists’ seriously threatened biomedical research. Some scientists have
started a countermovement to educate the public about the need to use animals
in science. Part of this campaign has been to denounce activists as dangerous
and evil because medical advances would halt if they succeeded in preventing
animal experiments. By demonising those strongly opposed to animal research,
the charge of immorality levelled at researchers was reversed.

Finally, researchers had to learn to manage the occasional sarcastic
remark, heated argument, or blunt criticism encountered when discussing
their work with lay people. New workers were often disturbed to be called
‘mouse murderers’ and discovered that conversations about animal experimentation
quickly degenerated into a ‘ping pong’ of polarised opinions. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s,
though, were less likely than technicians or caretakers to be put in this
position because as physicians or academics they could talk about their
work without mentioning animal experimentation. Also, their social networks
usually included many people sympathetic to biomedical research. Those not
in this position would sometimes, out of frustration, carefully avoid mentioning
animal experimentation by telling people that they ‘did cancer research’
or ‘worked at Boston General Hospital’. Others would assess whether conversations
were likely to become ‘shouting matches’, gradually releasing more information
about their use of animals as long as the unfolding talk seemed safe to
them. Some also told people that they owned pets themselves, perhaps to
suggest that they were hardly insensitive and heartless scientists.

While these coping devices certainly made it easier for many people
to conduct experiments on animals, it is not clear whether these adjustments
should be encouraged. There are two lines of thinking. Some people argue
that by coping in this manner, there will be an ethical blunting or a coarsening
of the moral sensitivities of researchers. Others are more struck by the
significance of the conflicts that prompt defensive behaviour. The surfacing
of these conflicts among researchers may be due to the diffusion into the
laboratory of society’s heightened awareness of how animals should be viewed
and treated. Coping devices will be called out when humanity’s standards
clash with traditional scientific practice. This is cheering to some who
see this as a willingness to pay more attention to humanitarian ideals in
animal experimentation.

Arnold Arluke is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts