Of mice and men

Those thousands of white mice at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor are vital instruments for research there and around the world, aimed at solving the mysteries of such diseases as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s and the genetic makeup of people and animals.

The animal welfare movement, too, performs a worthy service. It looks after homeless dogs and cats, combats cruelty in zoos and circuses, and constantly seeks to inject humanity into the nearly universal human love of keeping pets and in creating protections for wildlife.

Fringe groups among the animal lovers sometimes go to extremes. For example, activists try to keep us from boiling or steaming lobsters, arguing that the lobsters feel pain, although they have no more central nervous system than a grasshopper, and that they are loving companions and hold hands (claws) on the ocean bottom, whereas they are actually cannibals and are eating each other.

Others have gone still further when it comes to laboratory mice. An offshoot of the American Anti-Vivisection Society called the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation and a high-pressure lobbying organization, Humane USA, are campaigning to eliminate laboratory mice altogether by tying them up in bureaucratic red tape and making their use prohibitively expensive and burdensome.

Their target is rules by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. The department protects dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys and gerbils – but not rats, mice and birds. The department says regulating those last three would be too expensive and their welfare is looked after adequately already. But, under pressure of a lawsuit, the department caved in last fall and agreed to include rats, mice and birds. Congress stepped in, however, and prohibited the use any federal funds to expand the coverage.

This congressional protection was for only one year and expires this fall. Now the animal lobby is pressing its case anew. It also wants to protect the lab mice against not only pain but also “fear, anxiety and climatic extremes.” It wants to tie up scientists in preparing mouse dossiers instead of making advances with their research.

These elements of the animal welfare movement may be well-intentioned but they are spending too little time thinking about the benefits of research. They should not be permitted to wipe out the scientific use of laboratory mice. Mouse fear and anxiety is one thing, but research to help men, women and children is something else. When the two interests conflict, the choice is obvious.