the medical center inc columbus
When people argue about the use of animals in research, including vivisection, there are those who defend the animals and those involved in the research.

The animal defenders at the obvious suffering that the researchers often refer to animals, and argue that this cruelty is morally unjustifiable. They argue that it is not necessarily the human responses on the basis of animal experimental studies, the best animal model is not more than an unreliable analogy to human function. Finally, they encourage the replacement of animals with non-animal research techniques. In short, this group would say animal is inaccurate, unnecessary and cruel.

On the other hand, the researchers, the animals and say that this research is an essential prerequisite for the progress of science and to cure diseases. They assure the public that they are doing everything they can to reduce animal suffering, so long as it is avoidable. And they firmly assert that while the limitations of animal models, there is no better alternative. They insist that when it comes to fighting disease, it is better to first test drugs and therapies in an animal, like a dog than a human being, as your child. In short, this group would say cruel animal is minimal, essential for progress in medicine and can save lives.

Which position is correct? The answer depends on your state of mind.

I was trained in biochemistry and medicine. In these two areas of animal research is the norm, and the results of animal studies provide the bulk of medical knowledge. I would have defended animal at once, because I had said over and over by my professors, that animal researchers, such as animal testing saves human lives. If the end justifies the means, she explains, and then killing dogs to children is permissible and necessary, even if it is tasteless. After all, the point here, human life and death. Animal sacrifice was a necessary evil.

But during my training and research, my soul silently wept every time an animal "sacrificed" on the altar of medicine. How could a healing profession, presumably for the cessation of human suffering, a method that causes the suffering of animals? Can we trust a health care system to treat ourselves with compassion, if it shows none for the helpless, innocent beings?

Ultimately, I have the essence of the animal research issue. Medicine is another field from another, because he deals with life and death. If people are suffering there are extreme feelings of urgency and fear that lead to extreme conclusions about what is right and wrong. However, the ethics are used to the life and death decisions are not normal, everyday moral judgments. You are lifeboat ethics. And the conclusions you again on a lifeboat are not normal conclusions.

The classic example of lifeboat ethics is that you are on a boat with other people, presumably the survivors of an ocean disaster, and there is a need for some people to sacrifice for others. For example, let's say, the boat can only be 3 people without sinking, and there are 4 people on board. Lifeboat ethics asks how to decide on who should be jettisoned to the other. As another example, we have all heard the plane crash survivors to cannibalism to avoid starving to death. For anyone viewing this lifeboat situation, the question is not whether someone should be eaten, but who should be eaten. In general, lifeboat ethics addresses decisions that should be helped and who should claim. The belief in impending catastrophe unless someone is being sacrificed to the other one is a basic assumption of lifeboat ethics.

Of course, if the people on cannibalism, where a life or death situation, they will have no problem killing animals, even if it means saving some horrible disease. If they believe their lives on the line that they are in a lifeboat situation, then they are mentally prepared to sacrifice to provide the name of survival. Animal researchers who are the masters of this disease lifeboatmen, offer animal sacrifice, as a replacement for humans.

But is this really a lifeboat situation? We all face the possibility of disease and death every day as part of the normal risks of life. Is it right to life itself a lifeboat situation?

The answer to this question depends on who is answering. Anxious, negative, pessimistic people see life as a lifeboat fight against disease and death. Cheerful, positive, optimistic people see life as only ... life.

The medical research and treatment companies benefit when most people are anxious, frightened and desperate. Animal researchers argue that there is a dog or your child will be sold with the fear. The medical-pharmaceutical industry used to fear people, according to doctors and medicines, ready to obey, medical authority and the appropriate procedures, including the use of animals in research. Frightened, desperate people agree what the cost, financially and morally. If you are in the faith that you are in a lifeboat, you want at any price relief. Meanwhile, people are left unaware of how their body and how to prevent disease, ignorance, since people keep the fear, mystery, and sick.

Fortunately, not everyone lives in such emergencies are. And that's a good thing, there are a lifeboat ethics suspension of normal, decent, moral behavior. Desperate people are dangerous. They are willing to kill if it means that you or them. We do not want a society with all around feeling that way. If you are not frightened to the point to be able to justify killing, it seems clear animal testing morally wrong. Who's with a sensibility that always befriended a dog, cat, bird, mouse, or even a rat will recognize that animals have feelings and can suffer. To see all mentally healthy people, it is wrong for others to suffer. It did not matter what kind they are. Of course, this assumes that you are not in a terrible panic, ready to do everything, even kill, if this will save you.

If we can all be decent people with compassion for other creatures, then of course we should be with non-animal research methods. Animal research is only as a default, since it has been historically as a. It is imperfect at best. And one of his biggest weaknesses is that we, blinds the actual cause of the disease, which has nothing to do and everything to do with animals in human existence.

For years the World Health Organization was established that the main cause of disease and death in the modern age is our lifestyle. This means our way of life and culture is defined, that they make us sick. Of course you can not model the human culture in animals. It is a human phenomenon. Of course, we can find out more about our problems by ourselves. By taking care of our exposure to stress, chemical pollution, a toxic diet, on legal and illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tight clothes, the electromagnetic radiation, and countless other cultural factors that make us sick, we can provide better control of health and stay in front of the lifeboat disease. We were able to prevent illness by taking responsibility for healthy living, instead of feeling desperate and do anything, even a deal with the devil, to find a cure.

I have medicine for my life to search for the human way of life solutions to human health problems. I am against the way we treat ourselves, the environment and the creatures with whom we have the planet. And it is clear that we live in a sick culture. We are our own worst enemy. And the only victims, we need to give our way of life would be damaged. We can then lead healthy and happy life, nature, as we age and eventually death. For those who are cheerful, positive and optimistic, it's all good.

Life does not need to feel like a lifeboat. But when it comes to some people anxious, then that's their problem. There are no moral right to sacrifice others, human or animal, as they in their personal nightmares lifeboat.

Sydney Ross Singer is a medical anthropologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic disease, is located in Hawaii. His unique form of applied medical anthropology looks for the cultural / lifestyle causes of disease. His working hypothesis is that our bodies were healthy, but our culture and the attitudes and behavior, it can instill in us the way of health. By eliminating these causes, the body to heal. Since most diseases of our time are caused by our culture / lifestyle, this approach has led to many discoveries in the old cause and cure many diseases. It also makes prevention possible by adverse lifestyle behaviors. Sydney with his co-researcher and wife, Soma Grismaijer, and is the author of several books pioneering health.

Sydney background B.S. in biology at the University of Utah, an MA degree from Duke University in biochemistry and anthropology, 2 years of medical school training at UTMB at Galveston, along with Dr. training in medical humanities.

Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer can be reached at the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease, PO Box 1880, Pahoa, Hawaii 96778 (808) 935-5563. sydsinger@gmail.com