Without pity
Douglas Houghton
Victims of Science Richard D. Ryder (Davis Poynter 0.75)
The picture of those wretched beagles being strapped to laboratory harness and forced to become inveterate and excessive smokers was a rare glimpse of the reality of so-called medical research. What little we are permitted to see or hear is almost certain to be disti essing, or even horrifying. Many troubled consciences are, however, comforted by the widespread belief that the use of live animals for research is for the good of mankind, and probably for the good of animal welfare, too, and must be accepted. The last public inquiry into the working of the 'Cruelty to Animals Act 1876' was the Littlewood Report of 1964. It said "public opinion generally has accepted in principle the necessity for and the value of animal experiments but cannot be assumed to assent to all that is done under that Act." This inertia explains the failure of the Anti-Vivisection societies to make any significant headway. Ten years later, however, in 1974, a public opinion poll conducted on behalf of the RSPCA showed that while the general principle was still accepted, a large majority disapproved of "non-medical" experiments, • especially for testing cosmetic and toilet substances and for weapons testing. Disclosures about the use of animals at chemical warfare establishments such as Porton, and also in commercial laboratories, are beginning to influence opinion. The distinction is now at last being drawn in the public mind between genuine medical research and the testing of commercial products. Richard Ryder's book Victims of Science clarifies and strengthens that distinction and does a great deal more. He goes deeply into the claims of even "medical" research to be given a vote of confidence. The firm impression Ryder leaves with his readers is that the pitiless treatment inflicted upon many animals in the laboratory can have no justification in terms of value to research and no sanction from anyone with the slightest compassion.
In the present stage of the law there is no real control over the nature and purpose of experiments on living animals. That is left to the experimenter to decide. The public interest central to the whole issue and to the 1876 Act itself is confined to the infliction of pain. The conditions of the law relate to that and to little else even when throwing additional protection over the use of domestic animals and pets so dear to the English people, like cats, dogs, horses, donkeys and mules. No thought could have been given in 1876 to the growing inroads being made into the population of monkeys and apes by the hundreds of thousands of these species being trapped, crated and shipped to the laboratories of the world every year. From the small beginnings of a hundred years ago, experimentation upon live animals has now become a growth industry. It appears to generate its own momentum and to have become a vested interest. In Britain alone, the numbers have risen from a few hundred to over five million a year. By no means all of them involve surgery, and a large number of experiments cause neither pain nor suffering (or sowe like to believe) but the bell tolls for hundreds of thousands of animals who die on the slab or in misery in the cage. Behind this huge canvas of suffering and death lies the question "What is it all for?"
Come to think of it, what is it all for? Who knows? Who can tell? No inquiry has yet answered this question. The Littlewood Committee did the only thorough investigation we have had for fifty years but it failed to find the answers to three fundamental questions raised within the committee itself, namely (1) who can say whether, if certain biological tests were forbidden, satisfactory chemical or other methods of testing would not be developed? (2) who is responsible for establishing whether modern medical techniques, with their emphasis on immunology and drug therapy, both of which are inseparable from animal experimentation, are developing medical practice in the right direction? And (3) who is to take responsibility for moral or ethical judgment in the use of animals for experimental purposes as such? Richard Ryder attempts to answer them. He goes to the heart of what I regard as the great moral issue of this generation. He believes that "the next great step forward in Man's moral evolution will be the full recognition of the rights and interests of the animal kingdom." But time for this is running short. Meanwhile, there is much to claim the attention of those who, while not fundamentalists, abhor all forms of unnecessary exploitation and cruelty. Research, experiment and drug testing on living animals is costing millions of pounds a year. It is supported by the government, voluntary bodies, vast commercial resources, and the thirty thriving member-firms of the Laboratory Animals Breeders' Association; it is accepted in part by the public and Parliament, and defended by the Research Defence Society; it is operated by 16,000 licensees in nearly 600 registered research establishments authorised by the Home Office. What is lacking about this expensive and large sector of skilled manpower and costly premises, equipment and resources, is information. The scanty Home Office return required annually from all licensed experimenters has remained unaltered for many years, and successive Home Secretaries have shown no inclination to ask for more information about what is actually going on. They may even doubt whether they have the statutory power to do so. The Home Secretary is not responsible for what is done; his wr!t probably stops at issuing licences to experimenters, registering the laboratories and maintaining an Inspectorate to keep check on compliance with the provisions of the Act. In all other respects it is difficult to establish where and to what extent public accountability lies. No Minister appears to have responsibility for offering any judgment upon the purpose, nature and value of the experimentation now being undertaken. One-fifth of all experiments were, we are told, "mandatory tests for the standardisation of sera, vaccines or drugs required under the Therapeutic Substances Act and other Acts governing the manufacture of substances intended for use in the treatment of diseases in man and other animals." Some 400,000 experiments (less than ten per cent of all) were on cancer research. Other broad categories of experiments are identified in the Home Office statistics, but as an account of stewardship in economic and social terms the information available is quite inadequate.
Richard Ryder has no difficulty in presenting a convincing case for action. The Littlewood Report by itself made over eighty recommendations for reform and barely a dozen of then, have been acted upon. There can be no dotibt that the present law is out of date, ineffective and still allows the infliction of severe pain. We need a new law. Two major proposals Ryder makes are (a) the prohibition of all cruel non-medical experiments (raising difficult questions of definition) and (b) Government backing for the development of alternatives to live animals in research (to which governments have been discouraging in the past). This is a book for the layman and is not cluttered LIP with technical obscurities; the author has the knowledge and insight to construct in greater detail a practical plan for reform than he sets out in this book, and it is this which is novi needed.
The sponsors of the Bill of 1876 a hundred years ago proclaimed as their aim "to assail this
sovereign state of scientific research." Today, with so much of it paid out of the public purse, so much of it for commercial profit, and so little accountable to Parliament and the public, this is still the author's aim in 1974. And! for one aril wholly on his side.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby is a former Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
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