was acceptable to kill animals for food, and 58% approved using animals for medical research. When a cure for a life-threatening illness was at stake, 78% approved the use of animals for research. The mainstream Western view is that animal experimentation is morally justified, but many scientists in the United States are uncomfortable in debating the ethical issues involved in such experimentation. Members of the animal rights community deny human benefits derived from animal research, but Orlans states that the evidence of benefits is irrefutable. She sites six articles which show that such experimentation is critical in new ways of understanding, treating, and arresting and relieving suffering of many human diseases. Even modest prohibition of testing will affect medical research as a whole. Pressure from many sources has forced the consideration of anesthetics and analgesics to control pain, and alternative methods of testing to be explored. In addition to animal research and factory farming, we have allowed the overpopulation of pets to become a social problem which necessitates the killing of 55% of the three million cats and dogs which were brought to the Humane Society in 1990. There are no reliable figures available for the number of pound and shelter animals that end up in research.Orlans article is timely and her book gives a balanced view on a subject that is unfortunately polarized. I appreciate her descriptive philosophy on this controversial subject.I find it difficult to find a position on this research. Medical research should be allowed on animals when there are no other viable alternatives. However, all research should be conducted in such a way that there are strict standards with both pain and methods of death.Still another author, Mary Ann Warren, feels that animals have rights, but they are weaker than human rights because humans are rational beings and animals are not. She disagrees with Regan and Sing...
