Letters: Weighing in on Animal Research

I was unfortunately eating breakfast when I came across the interview with Jon Levine of the Primate Center [Q&A, Fall 2011], and his blithely disingenuous responses made the toast crumbs fly. But the real kicker was the idea of the “research” done on pregnancy complications. I have had pregnancy complications, and the thought of a mother monkey or ape suffering that [artificially created] agony alone in a cage with no source of comfort in all reality changed my fit of choking to a fit of tears. I do not want help from that quarter, or at that price.

Samuel Johnson, not a squeamish man, said of the vivisectionists of his day that they “have practiced tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings.” I would call that apt.

Mary Statz Halsted MLS’05 Madison

Published in the Winter 2011 issue