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War on Humans: Evil People Infect Monkeys with Ebola!

rhesus macaque.jpg

Animal researchers love to sadistically torture animals, liberationists tell us. Animal research is useless. It does no good.

Use computer programs or cell lines — or people. Anything else is pointless cruelty.

This animal rights argument is strong on emotion and devoid of rationality. Case in point: The desperate attempt to find a treatment for Ebola, devastating Africa and threatening the world. From the Star Phoenix story:

Canadian scientists have rescued from death monkeys that were infected with a lethal dose of Ebola, in the latest study of an experimental drug that has been used on a handful of Ebola victims in West Africa. The antibody based compound known as ZMapp rescued 100 per cent of 18 Ebola-infected rhesus macaques, even when the drug was administered up to five days after infection with the virus.

All treated monkeys recovered fully and show no side-effects, said Dr. Gary Kobinger, chief of special pathogens at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Three Ebola-infected macaques that didn’t receive ZMapp died.

Did you get that? They intentionally infected the monkeys and watched them die!

Cruel? No, a grim good.

This technique is how research must be done — if it is to be effective and not descend to Mengele-style immorality by risking humans in basic research.

If it doesn’t work, it won’t be tried on people. If it is dangerous, it won’t be tried on people. That is why the Nuremberg Code states that animal research is a necessary protection of human rights.

We don’t know whether this particular experiment will work. But note: Scientists were able to identify the SARS virus using this precise method, the crucial first step toward diagnosis and cures.

So, which should be infected first in the search for a cure or vaccine? People or monkeys?

It shouldn’t be a tough question to answer. Those who choose people are part of the war on humans.

Image: Rhesus macaque/Wikipedia.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

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