Notice that the "alternative to animal testing" is (as of Dec. 20, 2008) a missing link: http://www.iacuc.org/hold/alternatives.asp. This is a telling sign that they do not take alternative methods seriously, even though many of them are proven, peer-reviewed and adopted by ethics boards and institutions worldwide (see a basic guide at this site: http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=87).
The “surgical techniques” module is chilling:
http://www.medresearch.utoronto.ca/dcm_short_course_surgical.html
These are the methods they use to kill animals after testing:
http://www.research.utoronto.ca/ethics/ea_app_xiv.html
If you follow the different animal "modules" it gives a vague idea of what they do to the animals. For example, in the rabbit module, it talks about restraints and injections.
Note that U of T also allows education using animals. Biology students, for example, are asked to dissect animals. These animals are bred and killed for this purpose. There are alternative methods for this type of education, so why is U of T still using a method that entails captivity and suffering?
See http://www.cruelscience.ca/resources-links.htm
for Alternatives to Animal Education.
On the U of T site is listed an Canadian Council on Animal Care - Categories of Invasiveness in Animal Experiments: http://www.research.utoronto.ca/ethics/ea_app_cat.html
U of T says that it abides by these categories. They categorize the pain levels and say they prohibit the severest type:
"Comment: Category E experiments are considered highly questionable or unacceptable, irrespective of the significance of anticipated results. Many of these procedures are specifically prohibited because of conflict with CCAC's "Ethics of Animal Experimentation."
Class E experiments are frowned upon - at least officially. However, because they are discouraged or prohibited, the danger is that this may be used to justify Class D experiments, in which animals can experience the following atrocities:
“. . . severe distress or discomfort” from “major surgical procedures conducted under anesthesia, . . . exposure of animals to noxious stimuli for periods . . . prolonged (several hours or more) periods of physical restraint . . . induction of behavioural restraint . . . induction of behavioural stresses such as maternal deprivation, aggression, predator-prey interactions, procedures which alter perceptual or motor functions which consequently affect locomotion and behavioural activity; immunization employing Freund's complete adjuvant administered subcutaneously or intramuscularly; induction of an anatomical or physiological deficit that will result in pain or distress; application of noxious stimuli from which escape is impossible; procedures that produce pain in which anesthetics are not used, such as toxicity testing with death as an endpoint; production of radiation sickness; certain injections, and stress and shock research that would result in pain approaching the pain tolerance threshold.”
By any measure, this class D type of experiment is torture by another name.
The relativist approach implied by the U of T classifications (A to E), which serves to excuse D (where E is severest) is flawed because it judges lesser and greater degrees of pain as the deciding factor. It does not address the issue of whether captivity and non-consenting experimentation is wrong, regardless of the degree of pain inflicted. Judging the ethics of experimentation this way is like comparing forms of torture of human beings and saying that waterboarding is ethically permissible, because it is less painful, rather than saying that ALL torture is wrong in an absolute sense (which clearly it is).
U of T says that it abides by existing laws and may be true. Current legislation in Ontario – the Animals for Research Act – allows scientific research using animals under certain conditions. Here is the law in full:
http://www.heydary.com/resources/legislation/ontariolegislation/ontario_animals_for_research_act.html
Note that in Section 16 of this legislation, that “every animal” who is likely to experience pain “shall be anaesthetized” and be provided “analgesics adequate to prevent an animal from suffering unnecessary pain during the period of its recovery . . .”
“Class D” experiment do seem to require these measures. However, as noted earlier, the deeper issue is whether or captivity and experimentation should be allowed at all.
Furthermore, who is to judge what is “unnecessary pain” and “necessary pain”? The position taken here, on behalf of the animals, is that ALL pain is unnecessary!
Ethically, any and all kinds of animal experimentation or research using animals (live or dead) is deeply problematic and should not be allowed, for these and other coherent reasons stated by ethicists Peter Singer and Tom Regan in their respective works. See
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/animalrights/
