Last Thursday, the Dane County Board of Supervisors struck down a motion to create a citizen's advisory panel on primate testing at UW-Madison, and rightly so. The duties of the panel were to include analyzing and investigating the ethics behind primate testing in hopes of educating the public. And while it is certainly a topic of great public interest that is worthy of deep debate, the board has no power over the university. Discussing primate testing in a forum that has no authority to affect change is simply a waste of taxpayer dollars and the county legislature's time.
The debate over the ethics of primate testing has raged for decades at UW-Madison, one of the largest primate testing centers in the nation. It is estimated that around 2,000 monkeys are housed in various facilities on campus, the largest being the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. This lab employs over 250 research scientists plus many assistants to care for animals that are used for medical experiments.
In response to animal rights activists and other critics of the issue, the university announced earlier this month that they would plan a series of public forums, as a chance for the public and members of the scientific community to get together and discuss from both sides of the divide. As a way to bring more transparency to the university's research, these forums will be a great step forward and a critical educational tool for all.
What is unlikely to come of any public debate however, is any form of compromise or resolution. Historically there have been two vastly divided sides to the conversation, with very little middle ground. Either you believe primate testing is necessary for improvement of human lives and the creation of effective treatments for unavoidable diseases, or you feel that primate intelligence, ability to feel compassion and overall genetic similarity to humans, affords them the right to be free from scientific experimentation. But no matter which camp you come from, it can be argued that almost nothing the opposition can say, however compelling, will change your mind.
As a student who proudly avoided taking any college-level biology or chemistry classes, I couldn't begin to pretend to know enough about the science involved in making complex research decisions. The prospect of primate testing makes me a bit uncomfortable, especially since the primate lab received multiple Department of Agriculture citations last December for violations concerning sanitation and ventilation. All the citations were later dismissed, and they appear to have done well in subsequent inspections, though with restricted access to the public we can really only take their word for it.
Finding a humane alternative to animal testing is important, but as the research center says on their website, sometimes, ""neither a computer or a test tube can take the place of a living complex biological organism,"" when testing a vaccine or studying a disease. What's most important to me is watching friends and family members suffer from diseases such as Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis and cancer. If primate testing can help find effective treatments for these conditions, as it already has for polio and AIDS, then I say let the research continue as long as specific guidelines are being followed.
The question is a complex and justified one, and will not be resolved easily. Are primates similar enough to humans that they should be afforded basic human rights? Or does their ability to help us understand life and improve the human condition justify their becoming medial subjects? These ethical questions are entirely deserving of a public forum, and UW-Madison is taking exactly the right steps in providing one.
Though animal rights activists will not be satisfied until primate testing is outlawed, the creation of a county committee would have been a fruitless attempt at this change. Let's wholeheartedly continue to debate the ethics and science behind this question, even if all we accomplish is to bring more attention to the issue, but let's do it in an environment that makes sense.
Lydia Statz is a junior majoring in journalism and international studies. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
