Pro-testing and proud of it
You couldn’t really have missed the fact that there’s been a lot of discussion of animal rights activists in the media recently. Even if you’d never read a paper or watched the TV, you’d be hard pressed to miss it they’re there every week on Cornmarket.
But how often does the other side to the argument get put across? When I started Pro-Test I wanted to get out there and make the case for animal research and the animal research lab on South Parks Road because at the moment no one is standing up and saying it. As the group expanded and current students got involved, the list of reasons expanded.
We were fed up with students being harassed on the streets of Oxford as they walked to and from lectures, we were tired of the fact that you can’t work in the libraries in the science area (regardless of your subject) for the taped recorded screams of tortured monkeys. It’s about time the students at Oxford showed their disdain for what’s happening and their support for the lab. Mention animal research and a lot of people think of cosmetics being tested on cutesy bunnies etc.
That’s not what this lab is for and not what this debate is about. The UK has some of the strictest laws on animal research in the world. This is about medical research to discover life saving drugs. Without animal testing there would be no medicine as we understand it today. Insulin, penicillin and chemotherapy exist only because of this crucial work.
Insulin is made naturally in the pancreas, and it was through research on dogs’ pancreases in the early 1920s that the specific protein was isolated. Thanks to this, we now have a way of treating diabetes. For every drug that makes it through trials today, 5,000 will have been rejected, only five of which will have been deemed safe for human testing based on evidence from animal research. Medical science isn’t perfect yet.
It would be great if scientists could do all this work through computer modelling, but the structures of all the different proteins involved is just too complicated. Testing on animals helps to screen out dangerous drugs before they’re tested on humans. Medicine has moved on a vast amount in the last century, and many diseases which used to be fatal are now curable within days. But AIDS and cancer, to name only two, still take millions of lives every year.
Likewise most surgical techniques were pioneered through animal research. Organ transplants and heart surgery became possible only after years of careful research, and many people are alive today who otherwise wouldn’t be because of these tests. Hopefully one day computer modelling will be advanced enough so that drug research on animals becomes largely unnecessary. But we’re not there yet. So for now, animal research is the only way medicine can move forwards.
Otherwise millions of people will suffer unnecessarily. And it’s important as many as possible turn up to make our message. This is a real chance for your university to come together as one, and make a stand. Because this intimidation has gone on long enough - it’s time people stood up and put forwards the case for the other side. That’s why Pro-Test exists, and that’s why we’re marching on Saturday.
To show that we won’t be bullied, and to tell people that animal research saves lives. The work that goes on in animal research labs is absolutely vital for medical science, and it’s right that we show our support.
23rd Feb 2006