Daniel R. Levison, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to release a report on Friday about the practices of the F.D.A. regarding clinical trials. Federal health officials don't know how many clinical trials are being conducted. They audit less than 1 percent of trials, and when they do show up, it tends to be after the experiment has been completed. The F.D.A. has about 200 inspectors on its payroll, and about 350,000 test sites.
There isn't much interest in our guinea pigs. Well, there is, but only in their results and numbers, not in their welfare.
A few studies proclaim that test animals are treated better than people and are far more closely examined. Institutes that use animals need to register with the federal government, keep track of subjects' health, and are frequently inspected without forewarning.
The fuzzy guinea pigs seem to have a leg up on the human guinea pigs.
Or maybe two?
I am struck by the anomaly, that in every conceivable American forum in which human rights are so slightly endangered, there is a protest, a petition, public backlash against the endangerers, except for the F.D.A. I wonder if it has anything to do with who the guinea pigs usually are--sickly, inadequate people, the kinds of people who need drugs. They function improperly and offensively much of the time and need to be suppressed, stifled, or cured. And a drug will either do that, or it won't do anything at all, in which case there aren't any real repercussions.
If the drugs works and allays the disease: "Well done, corporation. We can make these afflicted victims normal now."
If the drug fails and impairs the person: "Shame on you, corporation. But thanks for making the victims less weird."
So I suppose society is a bit less obnoxious, a bit more socially acceptable, with drugs, because they make the uncommon tendencies less conspicuous.
Oh, no. That can't be right.
But maybe it is.
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4 comments:
I got a little confused on your article, but as far as testing different drugs out on animals i am all for it. I think that yes we need to be worried about animal rights, but we also need to help advance medicine so we can fight diseases and find cures. Well, we cant do that if we have nothing to experiment with. I do not think we are going to get a bunch of humans to volunteer, so we use animals. Well i still think we need to handle them properly, but in the end animals in labs are used for testing and not as pets.
I think your view on the treatment of animals compared to humans is interesting. After I read your blog I thought about the irony of the government asking for the animals health records, while ignoring the health of the human test subjects. However this may be because the humans voluntarily subjected themseleves to this treatment for cash money. Noevertheless, humans should be treated better than animals end of story.
i would have to agree with rachel. although this treatment of animals could be considered inhumane, better an animal than a human being. If a drug can make a difference in our world, be it curing a disease or preventing one, we need to know that it works. A human loss is a great tragedy. The loss of an animal is sad, but nowhere as devastating as that of a human. There are just many cases where testing on animals is the safer move and it has to be taken.
I want to clarify: I'm not promoting animal rights, I've always found PETA pretty annoying even if their philosophy is grounded in reason (which it may or may not be), I'm just saying that the apparent lack of scrutiny among people who are tested astounds me.
And I wonder why that lack of scrutiny is?
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