Slate on Pepper: Stolen for Research

Daniel Engber, senior editor at Slate, has posted the first of a five-part series about animals used for research. "Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science," thankfully wasn't called Pepper, the stolen dog that changed American science," so that was an encouraging sign.

Pepper was a beloved family pet. A Dalmatian, stolen and sold for research, she was likely terrified and probably in enormous pain when she was killed, a couple of weeks after she was taken. The story, rich in details about people who steal, scoop up and trade or sell animals, is disturbing on many levels, but a worthwhile read for its historic significance.

Here's the final paragraph of the piece, which I'm sure you'll have some thoughts about:

Pepper's journey in the summer of 1965 helped start a national media sensation and a broad panic over the theft of pets for biomedical research. Her death on an operating table in the Bronx would help animal welfare advocates break a long-standing stalemate in Congress and push through the most significant animal-protection bill in American history. At the same time, she became a martyr to the cardiology revolution at a crucial moment in its development. Pepper also represents a turning point in science, from an earlier age when animals for experiment would be plucked from the road or the river, to a new era of standardized, mass-produced organisms that can be shipped right to the laboratory door. In a five-part series to be published over the course of this week, Slate will explore her legacy.

I look forward, with a tad of trepidation, to the part about Pepper being a turning point in science.

Perhaps I am mistaken or misreading, but didn't she really represent a turning point in the commodification of dogs and other sentient nonhumans used for research?

Didn't she represent the dawn of a new age of profiting from the "production" and sale of animals? The birth of a new business model?

Do you think she represented a time when people were relieved that their beloved pets could (technically, legally) no longer be abducted and tortured because some nameless, faceless other dog would be instead, and that dog had no significance?

Was what followed animal protection or pet protection, as pets are the animals who really matter?

Stay tuned. I look forward to the rest of the series.

Comments

[stephanie]

I am glad this subject has become a topic of discussion. I always wonder if vegan animal rights people refuse to use all items manufactured that use animals in any way. Like animal testing...

Seems like a lot of close-minded self righeous people get mad about nice farms where animals are treated well and their eggs and milk used and they life happy lives but easily pop an anti inflammatory or Motrin with out a second thought...

I will also be interested to see the rest of this discussion.

[Morganna]

I thought the snippet you quoted (don't have time to read the whole article, sorry) meant that Pepper's death represented a turning point to using organs produced by tissue culture, not using real, live animals. I was surprised to read that, as I didn't think that was yet possible, but I think that time is coming.

I wonder what the further articles will have to say about the pet-snatching that went on after Pepper's death -- at least I thought it did -- my mother (in the 1980s) used to warn me & my brother to watch out for strange people watching our cats and to make sure the cats always came home promptly when they were out because she was worried about them being snatched for research (never did happen).

I have recently learned to my surprise that many common medications are made from animals (heparin [blood-thinner for surgery & dialysis] from pigs -- that may be changing, progesterone from horses, insulin from ?? -- are the ones I know about). How do vegans feel about those products and what do they do if they need them?

[Bea Elliott]

I think the way many feel good about thinking their meat came from animals who lived "happy" lives, they also feel the same about animals used in "science". I once had a conversation with someone about animal testing - and as "compassionate" as she wishes to view herself, when I asked what she thought about the suffering of cats and dogs in medical labs... She flatly said "that's what they are bred for".

There's a distinct difference in pet protection and animal rights.

And to Morganna, speaking only for myself... As far as medications are concerned - I always seek alternatives, usually through herbs, or other holistic approaches. Thus far, I'm an extremely healthy (and fortunate) 54 year old.

But I suppose if my life depended on a certain drug or procedure that necessitated the use/killing of an animal I would acquiesce with deep regret, believing there's probably a better way that is left undiscovered because of the current system.

I don't want to stop animal use to revert back in our progress... but rather to catapult us to betterment.

[kim]

Stephanie - most vegans I know avoid items tested on animals, but there isn't so much a disconnect about drugs (or some hypocritical picture you are trying paint) as it is about the limited options in some cases of finding a drug that WASN'T tested on animals. Like if you have to take an antibiotic for a life-threatening infection, meningitis for instance, where there is no alternative. Or chemotherapy for most cancers. Avoid the drugs tested on animals or face certain death? Tough choice I imagine. And I guess if you have chronic pain, pain relievers would apply.

I think that's why it's so important to 1) push benefits of veganism as a way to avoid lifestyle diseases that require drugs tested on animals(hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc) and 2) fight for the end of animal testing and the acceleration of implementing alternative methods so it will no longer be a dilemma.

And btw, vegans are hardly closed minded or self righteous if they refuse to accept animal exploitation regardless of how "happy" one may claim a particular animal is on some "nice" farm. And that's because we understand the entire chain of agriculture that includes the breeding parents of said animals and all the animals' eventual slaughter (even on nice farms, dairy calves are killed and their mothers are forcibly impregnated (rape racks) beyond normal, live abbreviated lives with utter infections, having to be hooked up to loud, painful milking machines every day and are then shipped to slaughter once they can't "produce".) Remember the recent HSUS investigated of the downed cows that caused national attention - those are dairy cows - from "nice" farms or otherwise.

[Jen]

@Stephanie,

It's interesting that you wish to paint as hypocritical only vegans who still use products that were tested on animals, but don't mention the millions of non-vegan welfarists who abhor "cruelty" to pet animals, but happily purchase products tested on them when there are thousands of viable alternatives easily available.

As a vegan, buying products not tested on animals is a key point for me. Whenever and wherever possible, I purchase cruelty free products. Every vegan I know does so as well. IF I must imbibe a substance that was tested on animals (say last year when I had bronchitis and had to take antibiotics) I certainly don't "pop it without a second thought." IF I end up taking a pharmaceutical, you can bet I think about exactly how that product came to be available for purchase. As someone who has been in animal labs and has first hand knowledge of what goes on there, I bet I think about it more than most too. The key here is that although legally, these drugs must currently be tested on animals, they don't HAVE to be. There are alternatives that we can use to test their safety and efficacy, and someday, we will.

I'm sorry you've (apparently) had a bad experience with a vegan/vegans. When we make arguments against "happy farms" it isn't because we don't appreciate that these animals may live marginally better lives, with less suffering. It isn't that we don't think that less suffering is bad, or understand why people think it's strange that we argue against the new "happy meat/dairy" movement. Many of use have probably been in that position - where we just didn't understand what the problem was. As Kim and others stated, we have simply seen that the happy farms aren't idyllic - the animals aren't "treated well and their eggs and milk used and they life happy lives." These animals are used and abused and then their "happy lives" are ended well before they would die.