A profound deficiency exists in this nation’s Animal Welfare Act – it doesn’t protect mice, rats and birds. Not coincidentally, these animals comprise about 90 percent of the 20 million vertebrate animals used in U.S. labs each year. Some of these animals are used for instruction, including several hundred mice killed each year in an undergraduate OSU course titled “Principles of Infection and Resistance” (Microbiology 522). When The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) learned of this course in 1995, we decided to try to convince the university to do away with these labs.Our decision to challenge this course was not made lightly. We saw it as a serious example of unnecessary infliction of pain and distress on many animals. More than 400 mice were receiving abdominal injections by inexperienced students, to demonstrate Koch’s Postulates and the effectiveness of bacterial vaccines. Many of the mice were being injected repeatedly, usually with harmful bacteria, then left to suffer the effects for up to 48 hours. None of these mice survived the course; those not succumbing to bacterial infection were killed by having their necks broken.Another lab involved drawing blood by sticking needles directly into the hearts of rabbits, and injecting them with a notoriously harsh compound called Freund’s complete adjuvant. Both of these procedures have been banned as inhumane in some countries.There are alternative ways to teach the offending labs. Koch’s Postulates, first demonstrated in the 19th century, can be demonstrated using a fungus harmful to plants, or with bacteria/bacteriophage systems. The effectiveness of vaccines is well established in humans and easily grasped without having to infect and vaccinate mice. We have consulted with more than a dozen experts and shared with OSU their recommendations for humane alternatives.In the two and a half years since we made our complaint to the university, the dialogue between the Society and OSU has yielded some progress. The rabbit lab has been dropped, and several refinements have been made to reduce suffering in the mice labs. We appreciate this. But despite the availability of methods to teach the subject without bringing any harm to animals, mice continue to die following injections with harmful bacteria, and the university refuses to replace the live animal labs, claiming the practical experience is indispensable to the students. That claim is invalid. First, a great majority of the students who enroll in this course (up to 125) will never need to know how to inject mice in their stomach cavities or swab their dissected insides. Second, these techniques are learned by repeated experience (hopefully under close supervision) in the actual research setting where they are used, not in a course that aims to teach “Principles of Infection and Resistance.”And what of teaching? Is the purpose of an education to enhance society and improve our world, or merely to teach bits of information in a moral vacuum? Is there madness in methods that deliberately and gratuitously do violence to others? The late Joseph Wood Krutch thought so, “Taught by such methods, biology not only fails to promote reverence for life, but encourages the tendency to blaspheme it. Instead of increasing empathy it destroys it. Instead of enlarging our sympathy it hardens the heart.”Instead of injecting virulent bacteria into the bellies of mice, OSU ought to inject some sympathy and empathy into its microbiology curriculum. We ask the OSU community to join us in urging the university to act promptly to replace the labs in question with humane alternatives. Just as the U.S. Animal Welfare Act should acknowledge the need to eliminate pain and distress in mice, rats and birds wherever possible, so too should one of the nation’s venerable universities.
Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D. is associatedirector for education in the Animal Research Issues section of the Humane Society of the United States.
