Celeste fowles

Fish are used by Biology and NS&B faculty to practice animal research on campus. This and other labs in Shanklin house animals for scientific research.

Neuroscience & Behavior (NS&B) and Biology professors conduct experiments using chickens, birds, mice, rats and fish.

"I have four thousand fish down the hall," said Assistant Professor of Biology Stephen Devoto. "We generate a thousand embryos a week, and that allows us to do a lot of experiments."

A few professors, including NS&B Chair Allan Berlind, declined comment on this research.

Devoto said he uses fish and fish embryos to study how muscle cells succeed or fail to become properly patterned or develop in the right places. While the ultimate goal of Devoto’s
research is focused on human ailments of this nature, fish remain the central subject of his work.

"We need these fish embryos because we just can’t get access to human embryos where it is necessary to manipulate cells and move tissues around. It would be a horrific, barbaric
experiment to do on a human," Devoto said.

This idea has sparked the concern of animal rights activists on campus who fear for the suffering of animals in such experiments.

"Fish, rats, mice, birds and chickens are all conscious, sentient beings," said Wesleyan Animal Rights Network (WARN) member Evan Leonard ’00. "[They] have interests not only in
living, but in living a life free from restraint and bodily or psychological suffering."

However, biology department researchers adamantly deny that their animal subjects experience any such suffering.
 
 

Celeste fowles

Fish, as well as chickens, birds, mice and rats are used in scientific experiments at Wesleyan, which are sometimes met with student disapproval.

"We know animals respond to painful stimuli, but we don’t know that they have the ability to consciously experience pain," said Professor of Biology David Bodznick, whose research on
nervous system response to sensory information also focuses on fish. "The animals are lobotomized–their forebrain is removed. This puts it out of the question that they may suffer pain or anguish."

"It is difficult to make a frontal lobotomy sound humane," said WARN Chairperson Amanda Chiu ’02.

Yet even in the case of these lobotomies, many researchers are compelled to administer some form of painkillers to the subjects.

"All of our animals receive anesthetic," said Associate Professor of Biology Janice Naegele who primarily researches the use of rats and mice as models for neuronal cell death in humans. Her experiments regularly require the fabrication of mini-strokes in the visual cortex of these animals.

"The methods we use in our labs are highly scrutinized and now there are quite strict controls," Naegele said.

According to Naegele and her colleagues, researchers cannot receive grants from organizations such as the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation without meeting certain guidelines ensuring humane treatment of lab animals. 

In addition, University researchers must meet specific ethical protocols of the Wesleyan Animal Care and Use Committee, which is comprised of professors, a technician and a consulting veterinarian. 

"In order for an ethics committee to understand exactly what it is overseeing in experimentation, it first needs to define what makes humans so drastically different from other animals such that experimentation on them is morally justified," Leonard argued. "Without this justification, an ethics committee is nothing more than a regulatory board."

The line dividing human and animal may be unclear even for the researchers themselves.

"I wouldn’t work with primates," Devoto admitted. "It’s too emotional, it looks too human." 

"For most purposes a mouse will tell us as much as a monkey. [Experimenting on monkeys] would be wasteful," Naegele said.

WARN addressed the sentiment expressed by many researchers who endorse experimentation on certain animals, but oppose it on others. WARN refused to accept this concept as a valid concession.

"The Similarity Principle states that people will naturally give more consideration to others perceived as similar to themselves than to those perceived as dissimilar," Chiu said. "So while
professors and students may be less able to empathize with a mouse than a monkey, I assure you that all these creatures experience distress, pain, fear and agony."

The researchers maintained that their work is justified in its importance for the future of safe medicine and science.

Devoto pointed to the Thalidomide horror of the 1960s in which insufficient medical testing of the new drug resulted in the severe debilitation of hundreds of people.

"Can you imagine taking a drug that hasn’t been tested or tried on an animal? God, I’d be terrified," Devoto said.

Bodznick and Naegele also emphasized the value of animal research.

"Everything we know about medicine has come from this kind of basic research," Bodznick said. "Anyone who’s been to a doctor can appreciate that medicine is completely based on
animal research."

WARN members pointed out that cruelty-free experimentation may be just as productive.

"Many major scientific advances have been made without the abuse of animals, including isolation of the AIDS virus and the discovery of penicillin and it’s curative effects," Chiu said.
"The reason experiments are still done on animals is... [because] scientists are entrenched in the ways of the past and are probably worried about losing their funding if they change their
methods."

However, according to Professor of Biology John Kirn, animal research and vivisection will always be necessary. Kirn, whose research focuses on the functions of adult neurogenesis,
keeps several hundred birds including finches, canaries and parakeets for his work.

"There are experiments that are vivisection, no two ways about it," said Kirn. "Some experiments involve deafening birds...To do this we take out their cochlea. We may sacrifice up to fifty birds a year."

Still, Kirn sympathizes with the concern of animal activists.

"It is understandable that a student wouldn’t understand the necessity for animal research by looking through all the biology jargon of one of my research proposals," Kirn said. "But
any research that ultimately might lead to repair of brain damage is important. I think I could explain this to the [activists]... I think they would agree with that."

"I see the scientific merit there, but I still think it’s wrong. They’re defenseless animals," said Mike Feinberg ’03 who said he had no idea that Wesleyan conducts animal research.

Neither the activists nor the scientists could compromise on the issue.

"Twenty years from now we are going to look back at this university’s treatment of animals with shock and horror," Leonard said.

"As biologists, we appreciate the study of life," Bodznick said. "We don’t waste animals unless we feel it’s worth it. I’m not at all ashamed about what I do."