The issue of animal rights and human rights: Presidential address

Abstract

Those of you who are involved in biomedical research are well aware that activists have mounted a concerted effort to deny the use of animals in research endeavors. Biomedical research efforts are under attack in the press and electronic media. There have been acts of violence in laboratories. Efforts to obtain research animals and the funds necessary to carry out studies have been compromised by intense lobbying efforts in the U.S. Congress and in the universities. Two years ago after being named president-elect of this meeting, I selected animal rights as the topic for the presidential address. This presented a small problem. I, like most clinicians, knew almost nothing about the subject. To acquire the knowledge needed to address the topic, a simple pseudoscientific study was designed and carried out. The material and methods used, results obtained, and comments will constitute my presidential address. First, however, the bias of the investigator should be firmly established. To do this, a short autobiography is presented. I was born and reared on a farm in Iowa, where an early Sunday morning ritual was for the children to catch several chickens for my mother to kill for Sunday dinner, a meal prepared and served when the family returned from church in the early afternoon. One of my earliest and most vivid memories occurred on such a Sunday morning. After catching and handing a chicken to my mother, I watched as she wrung its neck. After the neck was wrung and with the head still in my mother's hand, the chicken's body flew through the air to land upright and run across the barnyard for 10 or 15 feet before it collapsed. I stood transfixed until I heard my mother's voice: Jimmy! For heaven's sake, go pick it up.