Can Medical Research on Animals be Justified?

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The current system of using animals in medical and scientific research was created in the wake of the horrific medical abuses of human prisoners in the concentration camps during World War II. Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes of the Holocaust, Hippocratic values reasserted themselves in the world famous Nuremberg Code—in reality a judicial decision that laid down the foundations for an international framework protecting human subjects in medical experimentation. Among its provisions, the Code sought to minimize the risks potentially faced by human research subjects by requiring animal research prior to engaging in experiments on humans. The Code reads in pertinent part:

 3: The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal  experimentation and knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment.

Thus, animal research was designed to be--and is--a crucial human rights protection, not as slanderously asserted by animal rights believers, an example of human cruelty and wanton indifference to animal suffering.  

The Nuremberg Code was a watershed in the history of medical ethics and it led to the rules governing medical and scientific research today.   In the United States, for example, government regulations known as the “Common Rule” require that animal testing be done prior to human experimentation in areas such as drug approval, diagnostic machinery, and basic science to learn biological facts that are a condition precedent to moving forward with experimental research that may or may not one day bring human benefit.  

Using animals prior to humans saves human lives and helps protect vulnerable humanity from exploitation by making it abundantly clear that scientists must follow proper protocols to obtain government funding, peer respect, and legal sanction.