Font ResizeIn so many ways, the PETA undercover operation into the University of Utah's biomedical research labs gets down to the ethical considerations and decisions of both sides -- and how we, the public, perceive them.
In the view of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the experiments done on mice, rats, cats, dogs, monkeys and pigs amounts to cruel exploitation of helpless creatures.
The U. counters that such research has produced countless medical advances for treatment of people with brain disease or injury, who are blind or deaf, who need prosthetics or life-saving surgery; the list goes on and on.
So last spring, a PETA operative known only as LZ got a job as an animal support technician at the U. I asked Kathy Guillermo, PETA vice president for investigations, how LZ did it: was her resume factual, did she have the skills, did she use her actual Social Security number? Guillermo replied that everything was done legally and that information was never falsified.
Besides, she added, three people had called PETA to report hearing animals crying, and "terrible things in the laboratory." When requests for information on the experiments and open records were denied, the organization had to act.
"Nobody opens the door and invites us in," Guillermo said. "Our complaints are not about the ethics of doing experiments, but violations of laws and regulations."
Tom Parks, vice president for research at the U., takes serious
LZ, he said, was hired to take care of animals and report problems, period. He sees the ethical issue as one of defrauding the U., of LZ coming in under false pretenses, "in a sense, a kind of provocateur."
The university is involved in an industry overseen by a government that regulates, inspects and monitors its operations, Parks said, adding that PETA is a "vigilante group with a different set of standards. We're already established standards by the democratic process."
In our society, if you eat meat, an animal dies, he said. Wear leather, an animal dies. To provide safe and effective research for people, an animal has to die. And society, as well as legislation, has deemed it appropriate, he added.
Which is what PETA is trying to change. Animals have so little representation in the debate that animal rights activists need to resort to things such as demonstrations and undercover ops, Guillermo said. She also refuted the U.'s allegation that LZ did not report abuses or mistreatment, but posted notices on some cages.
And LZ helped adopt out a dog and two pigs from the lab. "We couldn't live with ourselves without easing that suffering."
It's clear the two sides will never reconcile. "We're in a battle with PETA for the minds of the public. They just do propaganda," Parks said.
PETA, Guillermo says, was instrumental in getting cosmetic and other companies to stop testing their products on animals in the 1970s and '80s. "I have the same feeling about experimentation ... increasingly, members of the public are opposed to animals in research."
PETA has filed complaints with the USDA and the National Institutes of Health, provider of most of the U.'s research grants.
But it's really up to us. Each of us has to weigh whether using animals for research is unnecessary cruelty, or if using them humanely means people will see, hear, walk, think clearly -- if they will even survive.
Until alternatives are fully evolved, I'm going with people.
