What I Have Seen in a Vivisection Laboratory

Animal Behaviourist Colleen McDuling on Antivivisection

By Claudette Vaughan

When Dr Andre Menache and Behavioural Scientist Colleen McDuling spoke in Sydney earlier this year they received a huge welcome for their commitment to antivivisection. They are both accomplished speakers.

Ms Colleen McDuling holds a Masters degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry and has also studied ethology and biology, specializing in small mammals – particularly rodents. Colleen McDuling and Dr Andre Menache were on a speaking tour around Australia earlier this year. Here is the Abolitionist's interview with her.

Abolitionist: As a behavioural animal scientist - first what does that mean and second what kinds of things have you seen being done to small animals like mice, guinea pigs and the like in laboratories that forced you to speak out against animal experimentation.

Colleen McDuling: Let's get down to grass roots level. One may study animal behaviour in two ways. The animal psychologist puts the animal in a box and subjects the animal to various stresses and variables and watches what the animal will do. The animal ethologist puts himself in the box, so to speak, and watches what the animals in his environment are getting up to. These animals, even if observational subjects, are in a state of unrestricted freedom simulating, as close as possible, their natural environment. This allows for them to be themselves and to develop naturally. They are alert, behave in the way they would do in the wild, and freedom allows for their mental functions to develop. Ethology was first recognised as a science when the three fathers of modern ethology, Tinbergen, Lorenz and von Frisch were jointly awarded the Nobel prize for it in 1973. Ethology is defined as the scientific study of animal behaviour in the natural state. This is the type of animal behavioural science that I have been involved with. All of my observational subjects were in a state of unrestricted freedom, and in as natural an environment as possible. I worked with (not on!) the common rodents found in labs - mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, as well as rabbits. I also studied in great depth the biology of these animals as well as the behaviour of rodents and rabbits found naturally in the wild. Concerning what I have seen in laboratories I could write tomes. I have seen things that would make your hair stand up on end, give you sleepness nights and nightmares for the rest of your life. I have seen rabbits restrained with their heads in tight stocks having solutions injected into their ear veins. I have seen mice having tubes forced down their throats and drugs injected directly into their stomachs. I have seen mice restrained after light sedation and the broken end of a small glass tube forced into an eye socket and blood drained out of the blood vessels behind the eye. I have seen mice, guinea pigs and rabbits injected with human plasma - directly into their peritoneal cavity (near the abdomen), and I have seen them struggle and heard their screams - screams that haunt me to this day. I have seen frogs pithed - the process where a needle is forced into the back of their heads and their brains destroyed. I have seen both rats and mice killed by breaking their necks. I have seen conscious rabbits being drained of blood by needles being inserted into their hearts. I have seen baboons preserved with formalin whilst under light anaesthesia. They were squirming! I have seen animal house technicians laugh as they were killing animals. I have seen animals being mistreated by inexperienced students. I have seen pigs fall off the trolley which was transporting them from the surgical laboratory to their stall. These pigs were conscious and the stitches split and they bellowed. I have seen the conditions of deprivation in which animals are housed, and the total insensitivity with which they are treated. They are regarded as no more than lab apparatus - not sentient beings, capable of pain and suffering. All of this confirmed in my mind that I have to do something to speak out against the violent crimes being perpetuated in our laboratories. I have always been passionate about animals, and have considered them to be my best friends, and to see them thus treated, has hurt and enraged me no end. What made things even worse was to see tiny animals such as the rodents - mice, rats, guinea pigs and hamsters being tortured in the name of science. These animals are basically without defences and are very much at the mercy of the vivisectionist. They are inherently good-natured and without malice. It made me wonder about the nature of mankind, and gave me the zeal to want to try and correct the situation, and to bring about an end to the violence and suffering that is so rife

Abolitionist: I don't think a lot of people know that a lot of animal experimentation is consuming animals up to find 'the perfect model'. Can you talk about this please Colleen and why the 'perfect animal model' doesn't exist out there for the human species.

Colleen McDuling: Quite simply there is no such thing as the perfect animal model. Animals cannot even be considered as models at all. You see, a model is something that is supposed to be representative of something else. Animals are not representative of the human species at all. They are biologically so different, first from one another, and secondly, these differences are even more stark between them and humans. Animals and humans are not the same. Animals are extremely poor predictors of what will happen in humans, and cannot in any way be regarded as safe indicators of what will happen in humans. What is discovered in animals has to be re-discovered in humans. I am not only an animal behavioural scientist, I am also a molecular biochemist. This is the study of the functions of DNA within our cells. DNA makes us who we are. Our DNA is not the same as that of a mouse, neither is it the same as a cat. We are all different. We share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees who are our closest living relatives, yet they cannot get our malaria, HIV-AIDS, or Hepatitis B. And some people think that they are the ideal model in which to study human diseases. All research should be species-specific. One cannot safely extrapolate data obtained from one species onto another species. Vivisection is scientific fraud.  

Abolitionist: Obviously for us to use animals in animal experimentation as we do - causing unspeakable pain to animals and then killing them afterwards - our species is not at a point where a nonhuman life is as valuable as a human. What would you say to vivisectors who are reading this today?  

Colleen McDuling: All life is sacred and should be respected. Just because we are humans, we should not think that we have carte blanche to inflict suffering on another species who shares the planet with us. We have the technology that allows us to develop alternatives to animal experimentation. We have already developed some alternatives such as the use of human white cells to detect substances which cause fever and other reactions. These alternatives are safer, more reliable, reproducible and indeed highly specific for the human species. By using these alternatives and developing more, we are creating a safer testing system which will make medicine and science safer for humans. In this 21st Century, we should aim primarily to make this a better world for all concerned by the application of sound science, with compassion.    

Abolitionist: Animal researchers have now designed new test subjects either by introducing foreign genetic material into natural animals or by otherwise interfering with their genetic constitution. What are your views on genetic engineering using an animal model Colleen?  

Colleen McDuling: It makes no sense to me that we should go around interfering with nature. Not only are we creating unnatural animals, we are kidding ourselves. There is no way on this Earth that genetically modified animals can tell us anything about the human condition. It all boils down to molecular biochemistry - the way in which that foreign genetic material will express itself. We implant human genes into a mouse. Those genes use the mouse's cell's machinery to make an end product - usually a protein. It is what happens to that product (protein) within the cell of the mouse that is important. It is no longer a human gene product, because it gets modified within the mouse's cell and transformed into a quasi-human, quasi-mouse protein. This unnatural protein does not function like either a mouse's or a human's. It is somewhere in between. The human disease state can thus not be reproduced in a mouse. We can never even begin to simulate the exact nature of human illness by implanting foreign genes into another species. It will never work  

Abolitionist: Lastly what did you think of Australia and Australian activists when you were out here recently?  

Colleen McDuling: I fell in love with Australia, her wildlife, her peoples, the culture and the general environment. I was impressed with level of vegetarianism and veganism in Australia, and the number of restaurants available for such people. I found that the animal groups were very pro-active, although I still feel that more could always be done. I feel this about every country. I was particularly impressed with the AAHR, and Voiceless. Although, I would have liked to have spent a lot more time with these groups and become more familiar with their activities. In actual fact, I would like to come to Australia for a few years and to add my voice to the animal rights movement there. I feel that the movement in Australia is so fertile and needs more seeds to be planted, and more voices. And, I would like to see the profile of animals, especially rodents raised in Australia. I feel, as well, that the media could give the animal rights groups more focus, both in the press as well as on radio and television. There should be more public awareness campaigns, making the general public aware of what is going on out there within the confines of our laboratories, and asking for more public interaction and support. By and large, it was a wonderful experience to have been there and to have contributed in a small way to the work that is being done there. I thank Helen Rosser and the AAHR for this opportunity. 

Abolitionist: A paper from Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research on Parkinson's Disease says Parkinson's Disease is widely modeled in monkeys by injecting them with a toxic chemical called MPTP. This is used by trying to mimic the disease and the animals suffer brain damage and succumb to certain symptoms. Surely this is a good line of inquiry for the general public to pursue because of the macabre nature of animal experimentation. To deliberately induce into a non-human animal a head injury that will damage her skull, if not kill her outright, should be a criminal offence but instead it is government/industry funded.

Colleen McDuling: I think it's absolutely senseless because you can never ever really learn anything from an animal because what you discover in an animal you have to rediscover in a human being. Not only that, as an animal behaviourist I am a rodent specialist and in the rodents themselves there are stark differences. I'm talking about rats, mice, guinea pigs, hamsters and chervils – the five main animals used in medical research. In that group of animals themselves there are such huge differences but the differences between them and us are even greater. They are very poor predictive of what can happen within our own species. For example in Parkinson's Disease yes they do use monkeys but they are also using rats to try and mimic the symptoms whereby they actually mimic the symptoms whereby they actually destroy by chemical means a part of the brain and they try and induce Parkinson's symptoms in the rat – but they can't ever get it exactly the same as human beings because under normal circumstances rats do not get Parkinson's Disease – it's just not on. Similarly they do not get Alzheimer's. Their diseases are not our diseases so what they are getting is a quasi Parkinsonism they then put the animal of a drug to try and correct it and they learn absolutely nothing.

Abolitionist: Can you give us the low down on the South African scene with regards to AIDS testing on primates Colleen?

Colleen McDuling: Yes they are using primates in SA for HIV/AIDS but considering primates don't get HIV/AIDS it's useless as well because they are apparently immune to the disease because it's specific for humans. That's why it's called the Human Immuno Deficiently virus.

Abolitionist: How much vivisection is being done in South Africa today?

Colleen McDuling: Quite a fair amount. It's very rife especially in academic institutions whereby papers are regularly produced by using especially rodents. Primates are also used. Not so many cats and dogs as what is used in the UK but it's mainly all the common laboratory animals such as rats, mice, guinea pigs, hamsters and rabbits.

Abolitionist: How do you see an end to vivisection? There's no legislation anywhere in the world that grants so-called “laboratory” animals their rights or protection. In fact it's probably done the opposite in serving to protect researchers and an apathetic public.

Colleen McDuling: What we have to do is educate the general public as to what is really going on out there. Education is very important. I personally do believe in scare tactics whereby I would like to see the general public be exposed more to graphic details because only by that can they really get the inside story. That can only come about by more undercover operations and they are very, very tricky to organise. You have to basically be on the inside and the outside at the same time. We need the live footage of what is going on in the inside. The kind of people that can do this are very far and few between.

Abolitionist: Are you uncomfortable with using one form of argument over another yourself?

Colleen McDuling: Being a scientist and a animal behaviourist I can argue equally on both points because as a animal behaviourist I have actually gotten into the psyches of these animals. I have gotten to know them better as living entities, as living beings and being able to see them as sentient.

As a scientist I have been able to see the complete ludicrousy for using these animals for scientific research. I think you actually have to use the 2-pronged approach. Up until now the moral argument has been used most of the time. The scientific argument is actually raising its head but it needs to be brought more to the forefront. We have to make the general public aware that these animals are not just cute little puppies or cute little bunnies but they are actually animals that are completely sentient and aware and experimentation on them as a biological system cannot be predictive of the human condition.