Supporters of Vivisection argue that nearly all of the major medical breakthroughs in the 20th century relied on Animal Experimentation to some extent. The creation of Insulin, Penicillin and the Polio Vaccine were all a result of animal testing that while caused the death of thousands of animals subjected to the experimentation, directly saved millions of human lives. The typical modern medical assumption is that rodents such as rats or mice do not experience pain or discomfort in the same way that humans do, which means that the level of suffering for these animals is considerably less than what is purported by animal rights groups. While animal rights activists publish articles about the torture inflicted upon monkeys and apes, our close genetic relatives, in reality less than one percent of all animals used in experimentation are non-human primates. Another significant factor for the validity of vivisection is that the number of animals used in these experiments each year is tiny compared to the number of animals eaten for food or kept as house pets, yet there is little outcry over these multi-billion dollar industries. Any procedure performed upon an animal can only take place if it can be successfully argued that is scientifically justified, and there are strict regulations in place to ensure that all animal experimentation is necessary.
Ever since vivisection became common-place in modern science, so did opposition to it. There are many high-profile animal rights groups that are explicitly against Animal Experimentation, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), who believe that it is a cruel, unscientific practice that is in fact holding back medical progress as it is based upon outdated scientific models. Great debate has raged as to whether or not we have a moral right to kill animals for our own gain, as there is a view that animals are beings with beliefs and desires, and as such are the "subjects of a life" with moral value and therefore moral rights. Questions have also been raised as to the legitimacy of the legal regulation of vivisection. Even in cases in which animal rights organisations have uncovered examples of un-scientific animal cruelty, the fines levied against the perpetrators were of almost inconsequential amounts.
The general ethical stance on animal testing is that it is permissible as long as the scientific benefits outweigh the costs in animal life. Scientists and governments state that animal testing should cause as little suffering to animals as possible, and that animal tests should only be performed where necessary. In most countries, vivisection is guided by a set of principles known as the “three R’s”, which state:
1. Replacement. Non-animal methods should be used over animal methods whenever it is possible to achieve the same scientific aim.
2. Reduction. Methods should be used that enable researchers to obtain comparable levels of information from fewer animals, or to obtain more information from the same number of animals.
3. Refinement. Methods should be used that alleviate or minimize potential pain, suffering or distress, and enhance animal welfare for the animals still used.
Many of the potential alternatives to animal experimentation, such as computer modelling, are currently not at a functional level at which they could be considered feasible replacements to vivisection. Regardless of whether it is ethical or not, the fact remains that despite potential technological advancements or intellectual progression, abolishing animal experimentation would require a systematic overhaul of the entire medical industry, which has built its foundation upon the deaths of millions of animals in the name of modern science.
5. With a subject as shrouded in mystery and controversy as MKULTRA, it is at times exceedingly difficult to discern between what is hysteria and what is factual recollections. If we were to accept what Lyn Moss-Sherman alleges to have happened to her as a result of the programme, then we would subsequently accept that MKULTRA was a government-led, sadistic, depraved torture program with no scientific aim or purpose. However, it is unlikely that this is the case, and it is at this point that the truthfulness of Moss-Sherman’s claims are brought into question. Whether she is intentionally lying or suffering from stress-induced hysteria, it is verging on ridiculous to accept her claims that her limbs were manually dislocated to enforce a sense of helplessness or that doctors sexually assaulted her and applied electrical shock to her genital region. A quick internet search for “MKULTRA survivor testimonies” will reveal several other, usually older female, individuals who claim that MKULTRA was among other things a front for an international prostitution ring and secretly led by the Illuminati.
For most people emerging from the MKULTRA programs, the problems they legitimately faced were seeking legal support or compensation for a program that, according to the government, never existed. Often their outcries were hushed by government officials or brushed aside as paranoia by the media, at it is only after the high-profile investigation into MKULTRA that these people are finally getting their claims heard and understood. For many of these individuals, as a result of taking part (voluntarily or otherwise) in these experiments they experienced disillusionment in the Government, as they began to question the moral aptitude of a leading body that would intentionally inflict such stress and trauma upon its own subjects.
Regardless of some potentially exaggerated claims, the fact remains that MKULTRA was a highly unethical programme based upon the involuntary involvement of innocent participants, and a dark time in American Psychological history.
6/7.The Milgram Experiment on obedience to authority figures began in July 1961, and were a series of social psychology experiments lead by Yale University Psychologist Stanley Milgram. The experiments were intended to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal moral code. The catalyst for these experiments was the trial of Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was also known as “the architect of the holocaust”. The experiments were designed to provide an answer to the question “Was it that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust had mutual intent, in at least with regard to the goals of the Holocaust?"
The experiment was set up as follows: The subject was given the title teacher, and the confederate was the learner. The participant was under the false impression that their role in the experiment (as the “learner”) was randomly decided. At this point the confederate and subject were separated into different rooms where they could communicate to but not see each other. The experiment proper then began: the “teacher” was given a list of word pairs to teach to the “learner”, which he would read to the confederate along with four possible answers. If their answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer an electric shock to the learner, increasing the voltage by 15 volts for every wrong answer. While the subject was made to believe that the “learner” was receiving actual shocks, in reality there were no shocks but instead the illusion of a subject being painfully shocked was achieved through the use of pre-recorded sound bites and the “learner” banging on the wall as the voltage increased. At some stage during the experiment, the banging and all other responses by the learner would cease.
It was at this point that many of the participants expressed their reluctance to continue with the experiment and the need to check on the “learner”. At 135 volts, some test subjects paused and began to question the nature of the experiment, but most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to exhibit signs of extreme stress or discomfort (such as nervous laughter) once they heard the screams of pain coming from the “learner”. If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal encouragements by the experimenter, in this order:
1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
Only if the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal cues would the experiment be halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times consecutively.
- The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
While all participants in Milgram’s experiment were paid, willing volunteers, they gave consent to partake in a paid “scientific experiment of learning and memory”. Milgram was using deception to ensure continuity in his findings, which although was a necessary aspect of the proposed experiment, was also in violation of the Nuremberg Code as the participants were unaware what they were signing themselves up for.
- The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
The Milgram Experiments were a direct response to the then-current war crime trial of Nazi Eichmann, and were intended to test the validity of the defense given by his accomplices (usually “I was only following orders”). This suggests that they were not “random and unnecessary in nature”. They had an obvious practical benefit for the path to justice in the trials themselves and have influenced modern knowledge on human submissive tendencies; therefore they were to “yield fruitful results for the good of society”. As it was an experiment studying an intricacy of human cognitive behaviour, it is unlikely that if the experiment were performed on an animal subject it would produce any worthwhile results. The experiments complied with this term of the Nuremberg Code.
- The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
Milgram’s experiments were not based on animal experimentation, however if an experiment could not be performed without prior vivisection the experiment could never be performed at all, as it doesn’t lend itself to being performed with any species other than humans.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
Clause 4 is the main offending clause with the Milgram experiment. By the very nature of the experiment, the participants were subjected to intense stress and possible long-lasting emotional damage. However, there is a slight leniency provided by the use of the word “unnecessary”. Was the stress unnecessary if without it the experiment’s findings would have been unattainable?
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a prior reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
There was no prior reason to believe that death or disabling injury would occur, as it was the first experiment of its kind.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
One of the Nuremburg code’s inherent flaws is exemplified by this clause. How could a guideline such as this be accurately abided by, when it is so clearly subjective? It is unclear as to whether the experiments violate this code as there is a definite humanitarian importance (determining the validity of the Nazi’s claims), but exactly how does one quantify such importance?
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
I found no evidence to suggest that Milgram or his colleagues provided any facility to support the participants after the experiment’s finale. It is most likely that the participants were given their $4 and sent on their way, rather than there being a continued support network to monitor the experiment’s effects.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
Stanley Milgram, the designer and scientist in charge of the experiments, was a PhD-level psychologist in charge of the psychology program at Yale University. There is little doubt as to his qualifications in conducting the experiment. While there was clearly considerable skill gone into the running of the experiment, it is however dubious as to whether or not equal care was involved as the experiment is designed to maximise scientific findings, not the comfort of the participants.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
Even though the scientist in charge would employ verbal “cues” on a subject looking to withdraw from the experiment, if the subject still expressed desire to terminate his/her involvement, they were allowed to. The experiments were not in violation of the Code in this respect.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
While there is no evidence to suggest that Milgram would have refused to end the experiment in this circumstance, as the experiment could not result in “injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject” it is unlikely that he would ever be put in a position that he would have to end the experiment.
