Comment on For the Sake of Progress by Vegetabelle
Your poem is extremely riveting and vivid. However, as someone who actually works with animal research, at one of the world's largest cancer treatment centers, I feel obliged to point out a few inaccuracies:
-The animal area is kept extremely clean. The halls are a light blue and well-lit, as are the rooms. It smells, but not nauseatingly so, and cages are also kept clean and free of parasites.
-The cages themselves are made of a sort of Plexiglass. They're spacious, being about ten inches across and a foot and a half long. At most, they contain four mice or two rats at a time- if a cage is overcrowded, the keeper is fined. Bedding is provided- soft, cloth-like material as well as pebbles- and food is kept on a rack above the ground, low enough for the animals to reach, but high enough to prevent it from becoming soiled. The cages are connected to a machine that circulates fresh air through them around the clock and provides fresh water whenever the animals need it.
-The animals are cared for. There is a veterinary clinic that sees to the animals and a monitor staff that checks on all the animals every day for injury or abuse. If they find any animals fighting, they separate them and give them medicine for their wounds. Aside from being used for cancer research, the animals are healthy, not bleeding, infected, bony, or scabbed over.
-Finally, we do NOT brutalize our animals. We do not relish the pain they go through- yes, we are aware that we cause them pain- and we try to make it easy on them. Most researchers you'll meet are extremely nice people, not sociopaths. My coworker speaks softly to her mice when she handles them, apologizes often and pets them after she sedates them. Even if there were animal abusers, they wouldn't last long- anyone who abuses an animal faces job loss on top of heavy fines.
Is animal research cruel? Yes- I'll not deny that. But the alternative, letting people die or suffer through current treatments, and letting their friends and families watch the entire time, is far crueler.
Apologies if I was harsh- I just wanted to clarify things.
-The animal area is kept extremely clean. The halls are a light blue and well-lit, as are the rooms. It smells, but not nauseatingly so, and cages are also kept clean and free of parasites.
-The cages themselves are made of a sort of Plexiglass. They're spacious, being about ten inches across and a foot and a half long. At most, they contain four mice or two rats at a time- if a cage is overcrowded, the keeper is fined. Bedding is provided- soft, cloth-like material as well as pebbles- and food is kept on a rack above the ground, low enough for the animals to reach, but high enough to prevent it from becoming soiled. The cages are connected to a machine that circulates fresh air through them around the clock and provides fresh water whenever the animals need it.
-The animals are cared for. There is a veterinary clinic that sees to the animals and a monitor staff that checks on all the animals every day for injury or abuse. If they find any animals fighting, they separate them and give them medicine for their wounds. Aside from being used for cancer research, the animals are healthy, not bleeding, infected, bony, or scabbed over.
-Finally, we do NOT brutalize our animals. We do not relish the pain they go through- yes, we are aware that we cause them pain- and we try to make it easy on them. Most researchers you'll meet are extremely nice people, not sociopaths. My coworker speaks softly to her mice when she handles them, apologizes often and pets them after she sedates them. Even if there were animal abusers, they wouldn't last long- anyone who abuses an animal faces job loss on top of heavy fines.
Is animal research cruel? Yes- I'll not deny that. But the alternative, letting people die or suffer through current treatments, and letting their friends and families watch the entire time, is far crueler.
Apologies if I was harsh- I just wanted to clarify things.
Hi! Thanks for reading my poem and taking the time to clarify! Thank you for telling me about the animal research facility that you work at! It was most intriguing! However, I think it is not my turn to clarify.
Former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner has stated, "The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn't work in humans."
You said that the alternative is letting people die and suffer. However, there are many cruelty-free researching methods that are widely accepted alternatives.
Because I wanted to use this for the "World Changes" contest, I wrote it more about the dawn of animal research, like WW1 era. Sorry, I know I didn't say that in the artist's comments. However, you have to admit that different people react differently to sensory stimuli, so, for example, just because the smell is not very bad to you, it does not mean that someone else might, in fact, find it nauseating. Many of the words and descriptions that I chose were because they fit better in the rhythm or rhyme. Additionally, when I wrote this, I was attempting to imitate traditional Scottish ballad writing, which encouraged writers to take artistic liberty.
I am sorry if my poem has offended you, but it was inspired by watching hours of video footage collections from many research facilities. They were not all cancer facilities like yours. These videos showed places very similar to the descriptions in my poem, and inane brutalization of animals. Maybe these are rare, and the people who do such things are fired and fined, but they clearly do happen. Even if I am speaking about a minority, they do exist. Any mistreated animals deserve a voice, and my poem gave them one.
Again, I am very sorry that my poem offended you. Ballads are, however, intended to emotionally stir the reader, and raise a sense of indignation. I am glad that your employers take better care to make sure that animals are treated better than others.
Thank you for your time!
Former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner has stated, "The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn't work in humans."
You said that the alternative is letting people die and suffer. However, there are many cruelty-free researching methods that are widely accepted alternatives.
Because I wanted to use this for the "World Changes" contest, I wrote it more about the dawn of animal research, like WW1 era. Sorry, I know I didn't say that in the artist's comments. However, you have to admit that different people react differently to sensory stimuli, so, for example, just because the smell is not very bad to you, it does not mean that someone else might, in fact, find it nauseating. Many of the words and descriptions that I chose were because they fit better in the rhythm or rhyme. Additionally, when I wrote this, I was attempting to imitate traditional Scottish ballad writing, which encouraged writers to take artistic liberty.
I am sorry if my poem has offended you, but it was inspired by watching hours of video footage collections from many research facilities. They were not all cancer facilities like yours. These videos showed places very similar to the descriptions in my poem, and inane brutalization of animals. Maybe these are rare, and the people who do such things are fired and fined, but they clearly do happen. Even if I am speaking about a minority, they do exist. Any mistreated animals deserve a voice, and my poem gave them one.
Again, I am very sorry that my poem offended you. Ballads are, however, intended to emotionally stir the reader, and raise a sense of indignation. I am glad that your employers take better care to make sure that animals are treated better than others.
Thank you for your time!
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to respond ^^
The main need for animals in research, from what I've seen, lies in basic science, the branch of research that seeks to understand how things work at a purely scientific level. There, an entire living organism is needed, since a disease (and its treatment) can affect many parts of the body at once. This is especially true of genetic research- identifying the roles certain genes have in promoting cancer, for instance, or how switching off a gene prevents the creation of blood vessels in tumors but may harm another part of the body... it's a starting point for developing treatments, something a non-living creature can't fully provide.
I agree entirely with you, however, that there are far too many people out there who don't care for their animals, or use them for studies that are rather less noble than cancer research- say, dripping mascara chemicals into rabbits' eyes. =/ In those cases, it'd be good to phase out animal research as much as possible, though I worry it'll take time for technology to reach that level. We can clone organs like bladders and possibly hearts, but livers, kidneys, eyes, etc...
I was a bit offended, admittedly, though I ultimately intended my post to be a qualifier/balance point, to present the other side of things. Thanks for clarifying, and being civil throughout.
The main need for animals in research, from what I've seen, lies in basic science, the branch of research that seeks to understand how things work at a purely scientific level. There, an entire living organism is needed, since a disease (and its treatment) can affect many parts of the body at once. This is especially true of genetic research- identifying the roles certain genes have in promoting cancer, for instance, or how switching off a gene prevents the creation of blood vessels in tumors but may harm another part of the body... it's a starting point for developing treatments, something a non-living creature can't fully provide.
I agree entirely with you, however, that there are far too many people out there who don't care for their animals, or use them for studies that are rather less noble than cancer research- say, dripping mascara chemicals into rabbits' eyes. =/ In those cases, it'd be good to phase out animal research as much as possible, though I worry it'll take time for technology to reach that level. We can clone organs like bladders and possibly hearts, but livers, kidneys, eyes, etc...
I was a bit offended, admittedly, though I ultimately intended my post to be a qualifier/balance point, to present the other side of things. Thanks for clarifying, and being civil throughout.