Recently there was some publicity about animal
experiments performed on kittens by researchers at Cardiff University and people
were asked to sign an online petition about it:
"Some kittens were raised in complete darkness while
others were deprived of the sight in one eye by having their eyelids sewn shut.
The kittens were then anaesthetised, artificially ventilated and paralysed with
a drug to prevent eye movements. They were then subjected to highly invasive
head surgery during which the skin was cut away, the skull was opened and the
brain was exposed for recordings.
After various tests, all the kittens
were killed and parts of their brain removed for analysis.
Sophisticated
methods of studying vision and the neurologic processes underlying it in human
beings already exist. Not only is this experiment inhumane, it is unnecessary
for human health.
Ricky Gervais has joined the BUAV in calling for an end
to these experiments: “I am appalled that kittens are being deprived of sight in
one eye by having their eyelids sewn shut. I thought sickening experiments like
these were a thing of the past. I support the BUAV in calling for this research
to be stopped.”
I am given to understand that this research at Cardiff
University has been discontinued.
To explain why very young kittens have been used for
research into the lazy eye condition, and why adults, whether cats or humans -
cannot be used for it:
The lazy eye condition: Amblyopia, or "lazy eye", is the
loss of an eye's ability to see detail. It is the most common cause of vision
problems in children. If it is not tested for and treated early, say before age
5, there is likely to be permanent poor vision in the eye.
I have amblyopia in
my left eye. That eye has scarcely any usable vision and effectively sort of
'switches off' when my right eye is open, and leaves all the work to my right
eye. This also means in practice that I cannot judge distance. So I've never learned to drive as I didn't feel it would be safe.
I have been told that my amblyopia was caused by
medical/nursing staff covering up that eye for some days when I was only a few
days old, something to do with protecting it from a draught, or treating it for an infection - I don't know. -
Anyway, the point is, that amblyopia is a developmental condition. It is caused
very early in life when the messages from the eye along the optic nerve to the
brain should become established and the brain trained to interpret them
correctly. If the messages aren't being sent properly during that vital early
developmental period then the brain learns to interpret them in a limited,
muddled sort of way. I may be wrong, but I think of it as a problem of the optic
nerve, rather than the eye itself. I was treated for it - the treatment was to
try to force the lazy eye to work by covering up the other eye with a patch -
but the treatment was too late and didn't work for me.
The research I have written about would have caused
amblyopia in the kittens by preventing messages from the retina along the optic
nerve to the brain in the critical period. Such research has been going on for
many years. Professor Colin Blakemore, for example, spent some
years on this kind of animal research into amblyopia. I don't
understand why they do this animal research. To the best of my knowledge, and I
stand to be corrected on this, no good ever comes of the research. Despite many
years, loads of suffering, oodles of time and money, I've never heard of
anything useful coming from it. Occasionally I have enquired over the years if
there is any treatment now for my amblyopia, but there isn't. So who, apart from
the researchers who are paid for this barbarism, benefits from it?
I have written about animal experiments before, but in relation to drug testing, which is falsely claimed to result in safer drugs to be used on people. I think that animal experimentation is rarely, if ever,
of any use at all, and I'm against it, especially if it involves cruelty, as
this does. A good book that gives some insight into cruel animal research is The Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. I recommend it.
