Scientists Oppose Animal Imports Ban

The scientific community in India has joined issues with animal rights activists following a proposal by the Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi to severely restrict the import of animals for medical experiments.

The scientific community is opposed to the proposal, which they believe could halt most animal studies essential for development of drugs and vaccines.

The Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 1996 for a four-year term, and chaired by Gandhi, on April 24 ’98, issued certain guidelines for the control and supervision of experiments on animals.

If the guidelines are brought to Gazette notification, no research institute can acquire animals without written permission of the committee. Funding agencies like Department of Bio-technology (DBT), and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), should submit monthly reports of all animal experiments they are funding, the number of animals used, their age, their sex, and the kind of experiments done, and so forth.

Animals can be bled and anesthetized only by veterinary surgeons. There will be a ban on animal experiments for “training, teaching or retaining manual skill.” Repetition of tests to confirm earlier results will not be permitted.

Deputy Director General of Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) Vasantha Muthuswami says that the total ban would not be of benefit to the scientific community: “Animals that are not available in India need to be imported for conducting vital experiments.”

A senior consultant physician R.K. Gupta says, “Experimentation on animals is a part of the training of doctors and scientists. It is a necessary evil for the “learning curve” of a scientist and a physician, which is for the benefit of mankind.”

Most scientists are willing to have CPCSEA approving the protocol of animal tests, but against the proposal of the committee controlling the stages of research. All India of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Professor V. Ramalingaswami has said that the move is “fraught with serious consequences to the progress of biomedical research in India.” He adds that Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA) of 1960 recognizes the principle that animals may have to be experimented upon if the information needed for advancing human health cannot be obtained otherwise.

National Institute of Immunology Director Sandip Basu told the Press Trust of India: “we are doing hundreds of experiments a year and the paper work for getting clearance for each will leave no time for actual research. Rallis India, General Manager T.P. Suresh similarly agreed that the rules only make way for “licence raj” and prevent all animal experimentation through circuitous bureaucratic machinations. Maneka Gandhi, despite repeated attempts to contact her, was not available for comment. Animal rights activists, however, strongly argue that testing on animals, as is being done in India, is very unscientific and cruel.

Dr. Iqbal Malik, a Primatologist and also animal rights activist says that as an insider she knows what kind of cruelty are involved in experimentation of animals. Malik claims that hundreds of experiments are redundant and of no benefit to mankind. She asks the relevance of experiments like “battering drum test” that puts animals in a revolving drum to find the impact that’s needed to knock off the teeth of the animals.

There are experiments like neo-natal lid closing, where a new born rhesus monkey’s eyes are bandaged or stitched to find out if it goes blind. Even worse, the third-degree burns tests wherein live creatures are immersed into boiling water or flames to find data on burns when there is enough data available on humans suffering from burns. The radiation tests are the most cruel and barbaric, she claims, where animals are exposed to 5-rad radiation to study the after-effects. “Do we need another Hiroshima to tell us what are the effects of radiation,” she asks.

In most institutes, Malik claims, cruelty is inflicted on animals despite the ethics committees, by using scientific jargon to cover up the exact nature of experiments being conducted. Chronic cases of cruelty are especially seen in cosmetic testing though viable alternatives like tissue culture tests, egg membrane tests and aborted placenta tests exist.

The battle between animal lovers and scientists rages on about what human beings gain from these experiments and what the animals get in return? Often the debate comes to a standstill with the question that if we stop testing drugs on animals, do human beings become the guinea pigs? But ultimately, a fate of wounds, injuries, diseases, burns, and cruel death is still the reality for the animals post-experimentation.

Meanwhile, both sides are trying to improve the quality of life for humans and animals in their own ways.