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AIDS, Animal Rights & Bad Science Peter Tachell Note: The information on this website is presented for
educational purposes and This document was provided by As a longtime AIDS activist and campaigner for queer freedom, I extended my wholehearted support to The March For The Animals in Washington DC on 23 June 1996. We all want a cure and vaccine for HIV as soon as possible. But it cannot be right to seek a remedy for HIV through the deliberate infliction of suffering on other sentient species in laboratory experiments, especially when there are cruelty-free alternatives and when research findings with other species cannot be generalized to humans because of our vastly different physiology. For queers to demand an end to homophobic oppression while supporting the oppression of other animals is selfish and hypocritical. Where’s the moral consistency in wanting freedom for ourselves but denying it to other thinking, feeling creatures? Like all authoritarians, the defenders of vivisection argue that ‘the ends justify the means’. The need to find a cure for HIV is so great, they say, that the infliction of pain on other species is ethically justifiable. However, if cruelty is excusable for the sake of the greater good, the logic of their argument is that it would be also justifiable to experiment on humans. Obviously, it is not. The denial of rights to other animals by humans (speciesism) is analogous to the denial of rights to queers by straights (hetero- sexism). Both these forms of oppression derive from a prejudiced, chauvinistic mindset that devalues ‘difference’ and victimizes ‘otherness’. Neither has any place in a compassionate, civilized society. Non-human animals deserve to be spared suffering for the same reason that queers and people with HIV deserve to be spared suffering. All sentiment animals – human and non-human – have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, irrespective of their species, race, sex, class, disability or sexual orientation. AIDS research funds are being squandered on repetitive animal experiments which are largely irrelevant to understanding how the human immune system may be undermined. This view is being voiced increasingly by scientists who are highly critical of the huge expenditure on animal-based HIV studies by the Medical Research Council (MRC). "The jury is still out on whether animal experiments are useful predictors of what happens with humans," according to one of Britain’s senior AIDS researchers, who requested to remain anonymous. "To spend so much money on this area (primate research) is almost criminally negligent". What we do know for certain is that vivisectionists have found it impossible to inject animals with HIV and induce AIDS, except in one seriously disputed case. Conversely, the monkey immunodeficiency virus SIV does not produce AIDS in people. Critics say that setting aside so much of the AIDS research effort to studying non-humans means that far more important studies of the human immune system are being neglected and underfunded.
As long ago as 1992, scientists such as Professor Robin Weiss and Dr John Moore warned: "Is is a worrisome possibility that experiments on SIV may not be predictive". Their view was echoed by the head of a private HIV research company funded by the MRC who suggested that "monkey models are not appropriate". A similar opinion was expressed by Albert Sabine, the veteran scientist who developed the first oral polio vaccine: "Some of the MRC committee have evidence that other ideas are correct, but they are not publishing it", he said. The bulk of AIDS research revolves around HIV. The scientific focus is on understanding how HIV may destroy the immune system and on the development of a vaccine and cure. Leaving aside the contentious issue of the extent to which HIV could be the sole and exclusive factor in the AIDS equation, many current HIV theories and treatments are profoundly problematic in that they are based on experiments with other species. These have dubious relevance to people with AIDS, given the vast differences between human and non-human physiology. Even from within its own scientific parameters, much HIV research stands accused of using invalid animal research models. Interestingly, a reported breakthrough in AIDS research in 1989 was part funded by an anti-vivisection organization, the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, which is dedicated to the promotion of cruelty-free medical science. It was the Trust’s funding that helped finance Professor Jonathan Weber’s team at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London. This team produced new insights on the [theory of the –ed.] mechanism by which HIV [allegedly –ed.] enters human cells. Professor Weber believes that this may never have come about if, like many other scientists, he had concentrated on experiments with chimpanzees, monkeys, rabbits, mice, cats and guinea pigs."Understanding how HIV responds in humans is crucial to the development of a vaccine and cure", says Professor Weber. "You’re unlikely to get that information from research with other species". Humans and non-humans have a quite distinct physical and immunological make ups. There’s also the uniquely human mental and emotional influences on illness. Our attitudinal response to disease produces a tangible psychological-immunological interaction that can affect the outcome. These factors don’t apply to other species. As a consequence, HIV and the drugs developed to treat it will inevitably react differently in people and animals. Professor Weber also points out that tests on rats and mice failed to predict some of the adverse side effects of AZT and ddI on people with HIV. All that animal tests offer is a vague guide to toxicity, which may or may not reflect how the drug will affect humans. The team at St. Mary’s Hospital believe that human volunteer trials can give fast and accurate results. Speed and veracity are the two factors of major importance to the millions worldwide diagnosed with AIDS.
The safety of new drugs can be assured using computer models, and human cell tissue and organ cultures. Another option is the administration of tiny, harmless doses to human volunteers and the monitoring of their internal effects by means of biopsies, lasers and ultrasound probes. These test methods are usually a better indicator of a drug’s safety than experiments with other species. Arsenic and asbestos, for example, rarely cause cancer in animals, but often do so in humans. The use of Digitalis as a treatment for heart patients was delayed for many years because it was first tried out on dogs and resulted in their development of dangerously high blood pressure. Thalidomide tested safe on animals, yet it resulted in thousands of human deformities. Likewise, humans and other species react differently to anti-AIDS drugs. After experimenting on chimpanzees for 10 years, in late 1995 US AIDS scientist, Patricia Fultz, said she doubted that animal research can advance the understanding of HIV in humans or contribute to the development of successful new treatments: "I don’t think it (infecting chimps with HIV) will make any difference at all in vaccine development". Despite the emotive claim that animal research is necessary to save the lives of people with AIDS, there is not a single significant breakthrough in AIDS research that can be attributed to animal experimentation. Vivisection is a discredited, disreputable pseudo-science that is holding back a genuine understanding of AIDS and how most effectively to defeat it. |