TO THE EDITOR:
I can’t speak for every scientist or UNC employee who works with animals, but what Carolina Promoting Animal Welfare president Matt Leming (a sophomore computer science and Russian major) doesn’t seem to acknowledge in his column, “Silence on vivisection,” is that animal research is discussed very often among those of us who actually do it, and those close to the research.
Debates over the most humane way to sacrifice an animal are a common topic of debate for myself and another scientist, for example. And when possible, we use alternative models such as cell culture in order to avoid working with animals.
But animal research is the only way to study many diseases effectively. And I doubt anyone would want a doctor performing a surgery on humans who had never performed the procedure prior, or to attempt new techniques on humans.
When we design experiments, questions we ask include, “What can we learn? What benefit could we achieve for humans and the animals in our care? How can we minimize the number of animals to be sacrificed, and what is the most humane way we can sacrifice them?”
These active discussions take place every grant writing season, and any scientist who doesn’t give it thorough thought is unlikely to receive funding to conduct his or her research.
Even if they do receive funding, they are likely to make improvements on the proposal prior to implementing.
Just because these conversations are not taking place over lunch at Lenoir doesn’t mean that they aren’t happening on campus.
Scott Neidich
Graduate student
Gillings School of Global Public Health
