Animal testing: separating spin, science and standards

In my experience, PR events usually revolve around champagne, canapes and cash. I am not usually taken in by this media equivalent of smoke and mirrors, and I have written enough press releases to be able to read between the lines of even the most manipulative missive. But this week, trying to separate spin, science and standards has left me, well, spinning.

You see, on Wednesday, I met Anjas. Anjas has Parkinson’s disease, and she was having a bad day. When I arrived, in the middle of the afternoon, she was sitting with her head tilted back, staring vacantly into space. She remained like that for the entire time I was with her. For someone with Parkinson’s, I was told, this is quite normal.

Normal, except for the fact that Anjas is a marmoset.  For Anjas, Parkinson’s didn’t steal into her brain gradually, in later life, as it does for most people. It arrived suddenly, when scientists inserted a needle into her skull, delivering a chemical that would kill off certain brain cells instantly. I met her on a tour of a laboratory which carries out animal testing for medical research.

A marmoset in the wild

As someone who enjoys the company of my dog more than I enjoy the company of most people, visiting an animal testing facility was always going to be a challenge. But on the whole, the experience was extremely sanitised. In one room, there were boxes of mice, stacked four down and five across – but with more space to run around than is the legal minimum, of course, and the occasional toy to knaw on. In another, rats. In another, rabbits, and then guinea pigs, and then fish. And then, behind an extra layer of security (because primates are more “emotive”, you see) I found Anjas and her friends.

The sanitisation was part of the PR package. A group of journalists were never going to be shown everything that lies behind the smoke and mirrors. The scientists, and the experiments, were kept from our view. The animal technicians who escorted us seemed genuinely dedicated to improving the quality of life of the animals in their care. “You’d be an animal if you didn’t get attached to them,” one told me. Quite. But I still couldn’t get over the fact that “nothing in here leaves alive”.

I went on the visit because I believe that knowledge is power, and that opportunities to see things that are usually kept from view should be seized. I went because I have to write a news feature on animal testing, and it has to be balanced. I went because I believe informed debate is the only valid sort of debate, and as a journalist, I believe it’s part of my job to be as well-informed as I possibly can.

But every day since, I have thought about Anjas sitting in her cage, and wondered how she is.