The column on animal testing in Thursday’s Evergreen showed ignorance on the practices and results of that process to help people and animals.

Experimental animals are not tortured: they are protected from as much pain as possible. They are well fed and held in comfortable quarters.

 They are anesthetized during surgery and have better life than domestic and wild animals. Most important of all, their use has led to vaccines, drugs and procedures saving many millions of human lives and preventing much human suffering.

For example, more soldiers in the U.S. Civil War died of infections from battle wounds. In WWII very few soldiers died of infections because of methods developed using experimental animals. Vaccines, drugs and surgical procedures are first tried on animals. Would you like to have them tried on people first?

The human race developed and dominated this earth in part by using animals for food and many other needs. Animal agriculture was important in making civilization possible. Most people use animals for food and clothing.

Why is it less moral to use them for vaccines or drugs? The use of experimental animals is also of great help to animals by developing vaccines, drugs and other therapy for animal diseases.

                G.R. Spencer, Professor Emeritus, WSU