Amidst all the chaos of the world right now, one wouldn’t find it hard to pick a relevant topic to talk about. But what about something that came to light, yet received little to no coverage? These mere three words are enough to send repulsion worming through anyone’s heart: unjust animal testing. Unfortunately, it is often classified as a necessary evil when testing lifesaving treatments. Many believe that outside of that category, there are rules and regulations which prevent excessive animal cruelty. In the light of the experiment, I am about to mention, no such consideration seems to apply here as it should. Months ago one of the trending things in the news was that Fauci funded cruel beagle experiments. There has been back and forth debate about if Fauci himself handled the funding or had any involvement. At first NIH admitted that he did, then took it back and claimed that Fauci wasn’t involved, or that certain accusations (whether it be the funding/time/specific experiment) weren’t correct.
Now, onto the actual details of the experiment. Regardless of the truth regarding Fauci’s involvement, it doesn’t lessen the impact of how disturbing the experiment was. The main goal was to test if sandflies were more attracted to dogs with leishmaniasis (tropical disease), or those who were not infected. In the end, multiple beagle puppies (supposedly, the heads specifically) were left to be eaten by sandflies. If that wasn’t already a horrific thought for something your tax dollars would be going to, there’s more. This was the only detail confirmed by the NIH (National Institutes of Health), since everything else has been debated between them and whoever else. The beagle puppies used for the experiment had their vocal cords cut (a process referred to as debarking) to reduce the noises they made (barking, yowling, crying, etc.) as they were slowly being eaten alive. When further questioned about the ethical implications of this experiment, the NID claimed that the practice was common in scientific settings to reduce noise levels. While debarking is illegal in most places, it’s clear that such logic does not apply to experiments such as these. More importantly, how many of your taxes have gone to experiments of such cruel proportions?
Truthfully, I felt torn after finding out about this. I am someone who has always been interested in science, and to an extent research. My intended major is biology and if I were smart enough, I’d gladly do something worthwhile with my knowledge. Reading this article/hearing everything about it is likely a struggle that many science students will face. You obviously can’t experiment on unwilling human participants, that’s a whole other thing. So what other option does that leave aside from animals? Without animal testing, we would likely lack various life-saving treatments for multiple kinds of diseases/ailments. Although I strongly feel that a common sense line should be drawn on what’s necessary and what isn’t if we’re to intentionally make animals suffer. I don’t personally believe that finding out if sand flies are more attracted to infected individuals is needed in the face of other things, such as cancer research.
Even so, I didn’t write this to play the blame game.Everyone is just trying to do their jobs, no matter how horrible it is. Where the problem comes in is ignorance. People truly believe that unethical animal experimentation doesn’t exist anymore. That the aforementioned rules and regulations can stop any and everybody from doing these things-purely because of empathy and loyalty to the rules. This single experiment alone showcases that these things are still happening, and are very real. I’m sure this post was hard to read, that’s the point. You are meant to be repulsed and skeptical, because of the vile nature of the topic at hand. Educate yourself and at least know what is going on around you. Ignorance is dangerous, especially in the face of scientific testing.
