Science and sentiment

The humble laboratory mouse has arguably done more for human survival than any other lifeform. Indeed, scientists of the modern age have often had to be cruel in order to be kind. It was animal experimentation, many of them involving the infliction of untold pain on creatures unable to express themselves, that made possible the array of remarkable remedies that medical practitioners utilise today in order to prevent suffering and save lives. This did, in turn, create a consensus for the need to have a regulatory regime in place to oversee the conduct of animal experiments. Social activists the world over have been by and large successful in making scientists and the lay public aware of the sound ethical foundation that undergirds a concept like animal rights. In India, when the cruel manner in which the rhesus monkey was reportedly deployed for research purposes in western laboratories became common knowledge some years ago, the state sought to ban their export.

It is, therefore, nobody8217;s case to argue for the unregulated use of animal in scientific research. But, at the same time, there is danger in the unnecessary bureaucratising of animal experimentation. After all, as far back as March 1958 this country had adopted a Scientific Policy Resolution that accorded a singular role to research and development, some of which is undoubtedly based on animal experimentation. So when the director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Nirmal K. Ganguli, complained loudly and unequivocally about attempts to keep science under bureaucratic control at a recent symposium, the country cannot but sit up and listen. The burden of Ganguli8217;s complaint centres on the various clauses and criteria that the newly-constituted Committee for the Purpose of Controlling and Supervising Experiments on Animals proposes for the regulation of such experiments. These are, apparently, as convoluted as the nomenclature the committee, headed by Maneka Gandhi, gave itself. For instance,Rule 5 a of the draft rules prepared by the committee specifies that its permission has to be sought before an animal is acquired for the conduct of any experiment. Ganguli rightly observed that the government has 8220;neither the expertise nor the time to examine each research proposal8221;. Such intricate scrutiny would not only shackle and delay scientific research based on animal experimentation, it could well kill it.

Menaka Gandhi8217;s well-publicised and well-meaning concern for beagles imported for pharmaceutical research and frogs used in school labs for dissection is commendable. But there is a lot else that8217;s wrong with the Indian research scenario that seems to have escaped her attention. There was, for instance, the charge made by women activists that the ICMR left the condition of cervical dysplasia untreated in some 1,100 women between 1976 and 1988, so that it could study the progress of the disease. These women were not even warned about their condition and the fact that they ran the risk of cervical cancer. Medical ethics then should be approached in a holistic fashion. It is to be hoped that controversies of this kind provoke an informed debate on rational research and medical ethics, so that the regulatory system that emerges from them is enlightened, rational and practical.