Using Non-Human Primates for Medical Research
The emergence of various and unknown diseases paved the way for medical breakthroughs including the continuous research and development in finding the ultimate cure for the most severe medical cases. However, the success of medical research was obtained from perfecting formulas through several trials on non-human primates. The objective of medical researchers for using non-human primates is to test drug side effects and experiment on different formulas that will constitute the best results. Since humans are considered to have evolved from primate beginnings, medical researchers believe that the shared biological characteristics of humans and primates will demonstrate similar experimental findings. However, there are still drugs that were proven safe to primates, but eventually showed manifestations of possible life-threatening side effects on humans. Therefore, using non-human primates as guinea pigs for medical research is not effective. Furthermore, the use of animals particularly non-human primates for medical research is a violation of animal rights and a clear manifestation of animal cruelty, which is basically against the law.
Discussion
For centuries, humans have continued to explore the possibilities of combatting diseases through research and development in the field of medicine. The early practices of research and experimentation were done using actual human cadavers. But even the ancient Greek prohibited using humans as specimen due to religious principles (Schneider, Web). Because of the laws and respect for human nature, early medical researchers resorted to live cutting live animals to be experimented upon. However, finding medical relevance of discovering medicines in curing diseases based on animal research cannot be made credible because of the differences in biological structure. During the Nazi regime, there were alleged medical experiments performed on concentration camp prisoners, but that was also considered as an act of atrocity, which is frowned upon in most societies.
Because of the universal prohibitions on the use of human as specimen in medical research, the field of medicine sought for the closest biological relatives of the human species, which are the non-human primates. However, non-human primates as part of the animal kingdom also have their universal rights and deserves protection even if it means limiting the capacity of the medical research field in producing cures for human illnesses. Leveraging on the life of non-human primates regardless of purpose are considered an act of animal cruelty, which the modern society and animal rights advocate strongly oppose. In addition, findings extracted from non-human medical research are not adequate enough for safe human application.
The medical research field has conducted experiments on non-human primates in the most brutal way that it generally depicts extreme cruelty. Instances of researchers separating the infant monkey from their mothers to study the effects of depression, there are even cases of infant monkeys restrained and injected with chemicals to the brain to induce seizure. Or worst, starving the infant to study the manifestation of neural impairment and chronic diarrhea (Mur, 2004, p. 6). Other theorists argue that animal rights is an absurdity because rights are defined by social capacity such as to vote, marriage of file divorce. The aforementioned are said to be none essential to non-human primates. However, rights are not limited to social capacity because life itself has the absolute claim for rights and the fact that non-human primates are living creatures they too have the claim for such rights. Besides, the absurdity cannot be limited to animals alone because even an eight month old baby for instance despite being a human still don't have the fundamental social rights, they cannot be married or file divorce or even vote (Mur, 2004, p. 11).
Therefore, regardless of physiological make-up everything that has life and thrives in this world has universal rights and should not be subjected to any form of cruelty. The Animal Welfare Act of the United States for example, put forward provisions against animal cruelty. Other international organizations also drafted the same proposition with additions of five freedoms including freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain and injury, expression of normal behavior and freedom from distress and fear (Rollin , 2011, p. 106-107). Having said about the fundamental freedom that animals like non-human primates are entitled to, medical research should not be used as an excuse to treat or even use the non-human primates as laboratory specimens. Furthermore, the use of animals or non-human primates in this case were proven to have no attribution to medical advancement. Revolutionary medications such as vaccines and antibiotics were proven to be essential to human illness recovery, but they have not resulted from animal experiments. One of the diseases causing a significant number of deaths in the world are heart disease, which was determined without the aid of animal experiments, but through epidemiological studies (Mur, 2004, p. 25).
Conclusion
In order to not to disrupt medical innovation, certain measures have to be considered in performing medical research. There are other means to determine and extract relevant findings without sacrificing the life of non-human primates. There is epidemiology, patient study, biopsies and in vitro cell and tissue cultures are just a few of the many alternatives that the biomedical industry can use apart from non-human primate experiments (Mrmcmed.org, Web). Besides, non-human primates particularly chimpanzees have 98% DNA structure (Kramer , 1999, p. 1-4) similarity to humans. Therefore, given the DNA similarities of the primate to that of human DNA suggests that the animal is in fact in possession of a fraction of human essence, which constitutes the same rights that a human being. Medical research performing experiments on non-human primates should be subjected to the full extent of the law, provided that the legislative body takes the necessary initiative.
References
Kramer, B. (1999). Comparison of Human and Chimpanzee Chromosomes. Evolution & the Nature of Science Institutes, 1-4.
Mrmcmed.org (n.d.). Non-animal methodologies. Medical Research Modernization Comittee. Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.mrmcmed.org/crit3.html
Mur, C. (2004). Animal Testing Is Not Essential for Medical Research. In Animal experimentation (p. 24). San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press.
Mur, C. (2004). Animals Are Entitled to Rights. In Animal experimentation (p. 6). San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press.
Mur, C. (2004). Animals Are Not Entitled to Rights. In Animal experimentation (p. 11). San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press.
Rollin, B. E. (2011). Animal Rights as a Mainstream Phenomenon. Animals 2011,, 1, 106-107. doi:10.3390/ani1010102.
Schneider, W. H. (n.d.). History of IRB. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.iupui.edu/~histwhs/G504.dir/irbhist.html
