HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 261 
is essential for the development and improvement of cardiac surgery. It is also 
essential to let the animals survive. It is not merely important that the operation 
can be done ; it is most important to determine the ultimate success of the opera- 
tion and whether or not there are any late complications. 
There is another important bill which would be seriously affected by this 
legislation ; namely, the Kefauver drug bill. This House has passed a similar 
bill yesterday. 
I am sure all of you are by now aware of the fact that the major stimulus 
to the passage of this bill was thalidomide and its devastating effects on the 
unborn child. Almost everyone in this country has rightly demanded that drugs 
are tested on animals before they are tested on man. Testing the safety of drugs 
for unborn children will require a lot or difficult research on a large number of 
various types of animals. Indeed, the work has been criticized as too difficult 
and too expensive to be possible. Nevertheless, in the day and age when we 
put man into outer space and seriously plan a trip to the moon, it is fair to 
say that what man really thinks is important, can be done. Careful testing of 
drugs could be done with a small fraction of the cost of putting a man in outer 
space. Is there anything more important than the health and strength of our 
future generations? We must test drugs and be as certain as we can, not only 
that they are safe and effective, but also that they do not cause untoward and 
dangerous complications, and do not hurt the unborn child. We cannot demand 
safety of drugs and decry unnecessary experiments on man, and at the same 
time tie the hands of physicians and thereby prevent the necessary extensive 
animal studies. The problem here is not the minimum number of experiments 
that are necessary but to have a sufficiently large number of experiments done 
to establish the reasonable safety of the drug. 
Let me assure you that persons whose primary interest is in the relief of human 
suffering are not indifferent to animal suffering. The apparatus which has 
just been shown for crushing the limb of an animal and then allowing the 
animal to regain consciousness and linger on until he died 2 days to a week 
later was an experiment designed by Dr. Blalock at the request of English doctors 
during the war, because just such things were happening to human beings. In 
heavily bombed England, people who survived bombings and had had a limb 
crushed beneath falling buildings were dying 2 days to a week later as a result 
of the injury. Our British Allies asked Dr. Blalock if he could determine why 
they died and what doctors should do to prevent it. The experiment was done to 
save human lives. The experiments were nasty, but war is a nasty business. 
We study radiation on animals to protect man. We study crush injuries to 
help man live. 
It is, however, only fair to admit that accidents and abuses oceur in every 
field of human endeavor. For that reason every State does and should have 
laws regulating the use of animals for experimental purposes. 
It would seem far wiser for the Federal Government to encourage grants to 
improve the conditions under which animals are housed than to deprive our 
present citizens and our future generations of the advances in knowledge which 
can most speedily come from animal experimentation, freely undertaken by 
capable people. Such experiments are expensive. Federal funds are not easy 
to obtain. The process of obtaining funds for these experiments acts as a 
control against the misuse of funds and could well act as control against 
abuse of animals. 
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 
Mr. Roberts. The last part of your statement, Doctor, prompts this 
question. 
Knowing, as this subcommittee does, about the use of Federal 
funds — I am sure you know we have control and authorization of 
funds under Hill-Burton, and institutional grants of various kinds, 
project grants — would you object to some type of Federal legislation 
that would provide a minimum of adequate room and care and feed- 
ing and control of these research animals ? 
Dr. Taussig. A minimum, certainly not. I think we are all inter- 
ested in humane care of animals. But I do think that in judging what 
an experiment is worth, it should be judged by a person who has had 
experience in the field, and who knows something of the problems. 
