RUARC GAHAN,
Madam, - On page 12 of your edition of November 28th we read of Kammerer's experiments with the midwife toad, whose natural behaviour is to mate on land. Kammerer forced numbers of these toads to mate in water over several generations in order to gather evidence supporting Lamarkism. To continually frustrate an animal's innate behaviour drives it obviously cruel.
On the next page we read that many of Ian Wilmot's efforts to clone sheep ended in malformed animals. This makes the whole enterprise that resulted in Dolly - now suffering prematurely from arthritis - cruel, callous and ethically indefensible. Coming from Wilmot, the assertion that it would be ethically indefensible to attempt cloning humans is pretty rich.
And now (The Irish Times, December 5th) we read that strains of mice imitating human disease are a "remarkable model" for researchers, and that "it is very important that we can use the mouse as a sick animal model". So mice are being bred to have heart disease, various cancers, and so forth. There is no suggestion from professors McConnell or Harvey, or from Dick Ahlstrom, who wrote the report, that the mice might suffer, or that, if they do, it matters.
I have two questions. First, are all research scientists crass and arrogant monsters, or just some of them? Second, what is so great about our own species, which oppresses, injures and kills its own members all over the world, as well as hurting, oppressing and killing fellow creatures on a massive scale and destroying their habitats?
What is so great about us, that millions of little animals should be made to suffer and die in laboratories for our (putative) benefit? - Yours, etc.,
RUARC GAHAN,
Knocknaboley,
Co Wicklow.