Attitudes toward Animals

Abstract

Teachers of biology in secondary schools are often asked to help students perform surgical or other painful experiments on animals. Such requests usually stem from press reports of organ transplants, space journeys, and similarly dramatic occurrences in science that have struck a young, impressionable mind with a wish to imitate. There are more tangible inducements, too. Cash prizes, free trips, and other emoluments are offered for science-fair projects that have received little or no scrutiny from the humane point of view. The current situation has become so serious that the National Society for Medical Research (NSMR) recently issued a revised set of guiding principles drafted by representatives of nine national scientific societies. The principles are based on a reconsideration of the 1959 and 1968 versions, neither of which had succeeded in preventing gruesome abuse of animals by untrained youths.