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Title: The Animal Research War
ISBN: 023060014X
Author:
P. Michael Conn
James V. Parker
Publicate Date: 2008-05-13
Publish: 2008-05-13
List Price: $34.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $27.96
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $37.11
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1: Dull Writing Swallows the Facts
Coming across a book like this makes me sadder than almost any other type of book I read. Fortunately, it doesn't happen too often. But when it does, it's a disappointment. Even more so, maybe, than books I actually like less. What makes me sad about this book is that I agree wholeheartedly with the authors' thesis but the writing is so poor that it's a slog to get through the book despite its comparatively short length.
The problem, I think, is twofold. First, Conn and Parker are scientists and, therefore, want to lay out a logical, well-argued case for their position. This they do, in the flat prose of the scientists they are. They want to rouse some passion (as their counterparts are so good at doing) but their rare attempts to do so come across as discord in an otherwise passionless argument. Which leads directly to problem number two: there clearly is some mean-spirited counter-punching going on here which causes a reader to lose respect for their argument. Conn and Parker name names and air grievances in a way which does little to forward their case. They would have been better sticking to their dispassionate prose.
Hidden within this dull prose, however, are some important gems. First is the main premise itself: that, despite what you may hear from fringe animal rights groups, animal research is a necessary part of medical advance and is a well-regulated, humane process. It's always strange that people who want certain types of research to cease would never want to give up the advances generated by that research, and animal research has produced some of the most important medical advances we have including important drug trials and surgical procedures.
It is also fair to note that when a person or group steps over the line to harassment and threat, they should be called out. And that when supposedly respectable groups (like PETA) funnel money and resources to these people and groups, they should be called out too. The only time I really connected to the authors' attempt at "passion" was when one of them described his attempt to get a job at a university in Florida where he was harassed and treated horribly by both protestors and the university. It was a shameful episode which was well-conveyed because it was first hand. The second hand stories they tell are too many and don't play as well.
I remember a few years back when there really was a furor over animal research in public. It seems to be at a bit of a low ebb right now but these things tend to go in cycles. It's good that there's a sourcebook of information like this one out there. (You can skip the text and go directly to Appendix A for most of the salient details.) Still, if the pendulum swings back the other way sometime in the future, I hope someone takes the information here and writes a better book.
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2: A Big Disappointment
I bought this book because I wanted the researcher's side of the debate about animal experimentation, but what I found in this book was an angry, defensive rant and a public relations effort. The rant comes from Conn, who's understandably angry about being targeted by "animal extremists," as the associate director of a primate research lab, and the PR campaign comes from Parker, the "public information officer" for the lab. What they completely fail to do is to come to terms with the charges that have been made against animal experimentation.
For example, anyone who's read Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation will want Conn and Parker to address chapter 2, Singer's astounding list of animal research horrors. Singer gets this stuff out of scientific journals, so it's hardly possible to dismiss him. But Conn and Parker have nothing to say about Singer's chapter 2 except that it's "vicious." Vicious? More vicious than the horrifying research Singer describes?
Surely there are some issues being pressed by animal advocates that are not just extremist nonsense. But no. Conn and Parker have no concerns at all about factory farming, or about hunting and trapping, or about anything that goes on in research labs today, or about the treatment of animals at zoos and circuses. It is all just peachy.
The worst part of this book is the way it distorts the facts about the Animal Welfare Act. Readers will think the authors must know what they're talking about in this regard, and they'll trust their assertion that the AWA actually does provide full and adequate protection for lab animals. A flat out lie they tell is that the AWA requires animal care committees to assess research proposals as to whether "the information sought in the experiments is important enough to the advance of medical knowledge to warrant the use of animals." This is not true. The AWA requires that institutional committees monitor how research is done, not what is done. Researchers have carte blanche do do whatever experiments they want, without having to show that the cost to animals is worth the probable human benefits.
I give this book two stars, not one, because there are passages that show some restraint. For example, the authors talk about animal "extremism" instead of using the more inflammatory and distorted word, "terrorism." The glossary at the front of the book does a good job of defining ethical terms. It's also interesting to know what it's like being targeted by protestors.
If you want to know about animal research from an insider's viewpoint, I highly recommend Larry Carbone's book "What Animals Want." Carbone is a research lab veterinarian who gives you the inside scoop, but without all the airbrushing. He's a fair and sympathetic reporter of thinking on both sides of this debate.
I'm sure this review's going to get a lot of "not helpfuls" from fans of Conn and Parker, so I'll say--just so you know--I am a moderate animal advocate (with a book in progress and many years experience teaching in this area). I am not for abolishing all animal research. There are serious questions, though, about the treatment of animals, and Conn and Parker do their readers (not to mention animals) a disservice by dismissing them all.
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3: Truth at last
Those of us who are involved in training and showing dogs have, for years, dealt with the Animal Rights crazies. For example, a friend was derided for having a service dog. She was accused for 'enslaving' him. These nuts are working hard to end the very concept of pet ownership. Now, in this book, I see how anti-human they really are. Research that is saving lives means nothing to them and they are willing to go to horrible lengths to end it.
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4: This book's a definite keeper...
Imagine a scenario reminiscent of an old Hitchcock thriller: the hero (usually it's Cary Grant) barely eludes a group of sinister pursuers (KGB? Gestapo?) in an airport by forcing his way through the throng of people waiting to board an airplane, only to discover upon arrival at his destination that his pursuers are waiting for him there, too, and so the desperate chase continues. And so on. Only thing is, in this case it's not Cary Grant and it's not a movie; it's real.
The real-life thriller that opens The Animal Research War has animal activists actually in pursuit of one of its authors, physician-scientist P. Michael Conn, in an airport. The activists have Dr. Conn "in the crosshairs," as he puts it. They're chasing him through the airport and, if necessary, intend to intercept him at his destination to prevent him from visiting the University of South Florida. Why? Because in their view, he is a despised "primate tester" who subjects non-human primates to all manner of cruel - and unnecessary - experimentation in the name of medical science, and should therefore be stopped in his tracks. Never mind that they and other animal activists are the only folks who hold this disparaging view of Dr. Conn's job, and never mind that his research doesn't involve primates at all, or, for that matter, even living animals. Dr. Conn's research involves cultured cells. This news should thrill animal activists, not enrage them. Go figure.
So begins this interesting, informative and factual little book about the terror that's lately been inflicted by animal activists on otherwise unsuspecting biomedical scientists. Both authors of this book know whereof they speak. Dr. Conn has had a distinguished career in academic medicine and biomedical research. He currently directs the Oregon National Primate Research Center and has seen more than his fair share of protests by animal activists intent on putting the ONPRC out of business. His co-author, Dr. James V. Parker, is a respected scholar of philosophy, theology and science in his own right, and formerly was the Public Information Officer for the ONPRC. He, too, has had more than his share of encounters with animal activists.
Conn and Parker write in clear and concise fashion, and with thorough documentation, to introduce the reader to some of the main players and organizations in today's version of animal activism, which has become decidedly more violent and extremist than was the case 15 or 20 years ago. They recount the 19th Century origins, philosophy and history of the animal rights movement up to the present time, correct several gross distortions of history that never seem to get purged from the animal rights literature for such drugs as insulin, penicillin and thalidomide, and assess the various strategies that animal activists employ to disrupt the efforts of targeted organizations or people. The authors' accounts of the tactics terrorists used to intimidate animal researchers in the U.S. and elsewhere are, well, chilling. Towards the end of the book the authors take a chapter to explain the extent to which federal laws, veterinary oversight, and enforced research ethics assure that all research conducted in the U.S. with experimental animals is done with humane care and valid scientific purpose, not that any activists or terrorists are listening, you understand.
The authors have aimed this book appropriately enough at lay readers, complete with a glossary to define unfamiliar terms. Even so, this book is also for professionals, and should be read by anyone who is currently involved, even indirectly, in animal research (e.g., scientists, laboratory technicians, veterinarians, members of institutional animal care and use committees, deans and department heads), especially those who have not as yet had any direct experience with the sorts of folks who oppose their work, and who might stoop to violence and terror to stop it.
The book's brevity makes it the perfect read for folks who want a quick lesson on the animal rights movement. It's especially apropos for my colleagues in the animal research community who "don't have time for this stuff anyway," and who, in too many cases, may not even know that there's a war on, much less that they're "the enemy."
The final chapter of the book sends a message directly to members and friends of the scientific community by urging advocates of animal research, and animal researchers themselves, to speak out with unified voices against the movement's terror tactics, distorted message and inhumane agenda. This is easier said than done; most scientists don't like to run in packs, and most of us would be leery of calling attention to ourselves, especially after reading this book. Nevertheless, Conn and Parker are correct when they say that one of the most effective tools we give to the animal rights movement to use against us is our collective silence. Read this book and pass it along to a friend or colleague. Then write your Congressman. Ask him/her for a surge in this other war against terror.
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5: Sadly Typical
[Note: This book is critical of me. My opinion may be biased.]
The Animal Research War may be of interest to those on both sides of the animal rights controversy but it fails to present a balanced or careful accounting for the uninformed. Careful readers will recognize logical fallacies throughout; well-informed readers will notice many factual errors. The Animal Research War sheds no light on this important issue, but it does offer a sample of the tall tales that vivisectors frighten each other with about animal rights activists.
The book would have more value if it offered some insight into the thoughts and beliefs of the authors, but this potential value is clouded by their motivation for writing it. One of the authors (Parker) directed public relations for the Oregon Primate Center, a central setting in the book, for a number of years. This makes it impossible to know whether the authors genuinely believe their claims about the historic results of animal experimentation, its future potential, the way the animals are treated, oversight, etc., or whether the claims are just a repetition of past propaganda.
Scholarship is sorely lacking throughout the text. Misstatements of fact must be based on a lack of knowledge or else are an artifact of the authors believing the industry's propaganda. The brevity of the text (155 pages not including two brief appendices) makes the errors all the more apparent. Examples abound. For instance, they claim that deaths from influenza are down by 85% since 1919 due to animal experimentation (108).
The 1918 Spanish flu, (caused by the H1N1 influenza virus) is the most deadly virus yet encountered by humanity, and between 1918 and 1919 it killed an estimated 30 to 100 million people world wide. There is no vaccine for the Spanish flu, and the disease was believed to be extinct until 2005 when scientists using monkeys and other animals back-engineered the virus from tissue taken from human remains buried in the Canadian permafrost. The disease had disappeared naturally with no help from medical science. Using the death rate from 1919 as a base line and claiming the lower rate today is due to animal experimentation is misleading and either uninformed or dishonest. John M. Barry's The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (Penguin Books, 2005) is a worthwhile source for anyone interested in the history of this disease.
Another example is the authors' confused notions of polio and their brief discussion of the use of monkeys in the development of polio vaccines (118-121). They gloss over the deadly results of the misleading discovery that emulsified brain tissue from humans or monkeys with polio transmits polio when injected into the noses of monkeys. This discovery stalled the vaccines for a generation. David M. Oshisky's 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning Polio: An American Story (Oxford) offers an interesting look at the history of the efforts to eradicate polio as well as the propaganda to make the disease seem more dangerous than it actually was. The Institute of Infantile Paralysis (The March of Dimes) became a template for future disease-related charity fund-raising efforts.
I was surprised by the authors' descriptions of various activists and organizations--sometimes they didn't even get the organizations' names right.
The authors spent considerable time disparaging Matt Rossell, an undercover investigator who spent two years inside the Oregon Primate Center photographing and videotaping (19-27). The authors claim that he manipulated his images to mislead the public, but I viewed over three hours of his raw footage and the resultant short film that was seen widely. There were no alterations. Conn and Parker rely on the fact that the USDA did not fine the lab when they investigated Rossell's allegations. But they tell half the story. Participating in the initial news conference was Dr. Isis Johnson-Brown, a veterinarian and previously a USDA inspector who had inspected the Oregon Primate Center. The authors dismiss her, saying that she had left the agency for reasons that neither she nor USDA would divulge (24). But this is either ignorant or intentionally false.
In a written statement Dr. Johnson-Brown said, that:
"While working for the United States Department of Agriculture as the inspector in Oregon for the Federal Animal Welfare Act.... The research institutions I visited, including the Oregon Primate Center, were not happy to see me coming once they realized that I was going to hold them to the law.... More than once, I was instructed by a supervisor to make a personal list of violations of the law, cut that list in half, and then cut that list in half again before writing up my inspection reports... The USDA has little motivation to enforce the already weak laws of the Animal Welfare Act. I was unable to do my job and eventually, out of frustration, I had to quit. I recognize the system is not set up to protect the animals but instead the financial interests of the research labs."
The authors' claim that nothing was amiss at the Primate Center because USDA did not fine the Primate Penter is misleading for another reason as well, when other scientists at the Oregon Primate Center viewed the videos of the capuchin monkeys being used in Dr. Daniel Casey's psychotropic drug studies, even some of them demanded that the experiments be stopped and the animals placed in a sanctuary and given a chance to recover. Twenty-two monkeys made it out alive.
I was very surprised to find a short inaccurate section dedicated to me (27-30). I'm not sure whether I should feel honored or not, but my inclusion and the stories about me are further demonstration of the mythic quality of the tales the vivisectors whisper to each other. Lest I appear too sensitive, I'll point out one typical error that might suggest they know little about their topic. The authors claim that I currently work for the national animal rights organization, In Defense of Animals. I haven't worked there since 2001.
The Animal Research War is the newest entry into the anti-animal literary genre. It adds little of value and will mislead the uninformed. As an example of spin, half-truth, and fallacy, it may be unequaled and thus may have some value as part of a collection of such works.
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