306 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
eally than automobile drivers, in order to enforce the speed laws. Furthermore, 
the group opposing legislation has not given sufficient evidence that it is inter- 
ested in enforcing acceptable standards. I am not even sure that most people 
would agree with the standards they might arrive at : In opposing the Cooper 
bill, Dr. Frederick Philips, past president of the New York State Society for 
Medical Research is quoted as saying (New York Herald Tribune) : “The same 
surgeon who operates upstairs on a man, may do experimental surgery down- 
stairs on an animal. He is as careful in one case as the other.” It is true that 
there are surgeons who do experimental surgery on animals, and they may use 
the same care as on patients. But surgery is not even involved in the majority of 
animal experiments. Dr. Philips is obviously using diversionary tactics to draw 
attention away from the more disagreeable aspects of animal experimentation. 
As a pharmacologist, he knows that a great many distressing procedures involve 
no surgery at all : determination of convulsive threshold, toxicity tests, and 
other pharmacological studies. Other experiments involve procedures which 
would never be performed deliberately on a human being : shock studies involving 
burn, hemorrhage, or tourniquet. Furthermore, much of the surgery on experi- 
mental animals is not done by surgeons but by physiologists who do not operate 
at all on humans. There is nothing to prevent any kind of animal experimenta- 
tion, surgical or otherwise from being done by entirely unqualified people. It is 
irresponsible to evade these facts, instead of discussing them openly, and seek- 
ing solutions to the problems they present. Dr. Philips is further quoted as say- 
ing, “There is no evidence that dogs in cages are less healthy or happy or in more 
pain than roaming free.” Evidence at least that Congress is of a different opin- 
ion is offered by the recent passage of a bill providing for appropriation of funds 
for proper housing of Food and Drug Administration beagles, including runwavs 
to provide exercise and fresh air. 
NATIONAL SOCIETY FOE MEDICAL RESEARCH “REASON” NO. 3 
“The bill to regulate research offers no constructive provisions for improving 
laboratory animal care but, on the contrary, provides numerous handicaps and 
hazards to scientific investigation. No provisions are made for research to 
develop better methods, training to develop better qualified personnel and appro- 
priations for better facilities.” 
Discussion .- — Constructive provisions for laboratory animal care seem to me 
quite evident in the Griffiths bill. Section 4(a) of H.R. 1937 states : “All premises 
where animals are kept shall provide a comfortable resting place, etc.” Section 
4(b) states: “Animals shall receive adequate food, etc.” “Handicaps and hazards 
to scientific investigation” are not explicitly enough defined here to be discussed. 
As to the last sentence in this “reason,” it is not the purpose of the bill to 
provide for research to develop better methods, etc. It is the purpose of the 
bill to insure that only the best qualified personnel available perform animal 
experiments, and that only the best animal care available be used. It is quite 
possible that in seeking research funds for animal experimentation, consideration 
would have to be given to providing also for care and housing of the animals. 
This does not seem to be an unreasonable requirement. 
Training better qualified personnel, and development of better methods are 
certainly desirable goals. There is nothing in the Griffiths bill which would pre- 
vent this being done either by educational and research institutions, or by the 
Government. On the contrary, once the climate and standards of public policy 
and new social sanctions and expectations are established by legislation of this 
kind, further improvements in the care of experimental animals is more, not 
less likely. 
NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH “REASON” NO. 4 
“The bill'states that, ‘* * * living vertebrate animals shall be used only when 
no other feasible and satisfactory methods can be used to ascertain biological 
scientific information for the cure of disease * * strictly interpreted this 
would stop all medical and biological research except on plants and microbes 
for thousand of years until scientists could be sure that every possibility for 
the use of such lower forms of life in the solution of medical problems has been 
exhausted. Then and only then could the full range of modern research methods 
be employed. 
